CHAPTER ONE
NO ONE WAS GOING to stop the train wreck at the end of the bar. Lucy Alatore stopped listening to her sister describe the house she and her husband were going to build and looked around for Joey, the bartender, who was supposed to stop train wrecks like the one the drunk cowboy at the bar was courting as he searched for his car keys.
“You’re not listening to me, are you?” Mia asked.
“Sorry.” Lucy stood, only to find Joey flirting with the margarita girls at the end of the bar. “I’m trying to—”
“Find someone to take that cowboy’s keys, I know.” Mia stood and shrugged into her denim jacket. “It’s just as well, Jack’s going to be waiting up.”
As she spoke, Mia—usually as reserved and quiet as a nun when it came to sex—couldn’t keep the womanly smile from curling the corners of her lips.
Lucy refrained from doing anything as childish as pretending to gag. But if her sister didn’t stop flaunting her sex life all over the place, Lucy was going to have to resort to name-calling just to vent her envy.
Lucy hugged her sister, holding her closer for a moment, longer than what might seem necessary even between two sisters who dearly loved each other.
“I’ve been sitting here for two hours waiting for you to tell me what’s bothering you,” Mia whispered.
“Bothering me?” Lucy leaned back, making sure her smile was bright. “Nothing bothers me. It’s a rule of the universe.”
But Mia’s amber eyes drilled right into Lucy’s head and it took every weapon in her arsenal to keep her smile in place. Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” ringtone blasted from deep in the purse on the chair beside her for the tenth time that night.
“You going to answer that?” Mia asked.
“Nope.”
Mia sighed, defeated. “You’re okay to drive?”
“Good as you.” They both glanced down at the plate of nachos and light beers on the table. Both beers were half-full. Growing up around an alcoholic had ingrained a certain caution around booze.
Mia squeezed Lucy’s shoulder and left, winding through the tables and out the door of the Sunset Bar and Grill. Lucy took a deep breath and turned toward the bar, pulling down the jersey Armani shirt she had bought at a resale shop. She wanted to give the girls a chance to do the convincing for her as she stopped a drunk train from leaving this particular station.
“Hey there, cowboy,” she said, stepping up to the man digging through his pockets for his keys while fighting to stay upright.
He yanked his keys free of the beat-up denim coat. “Found ’em.” He sighed, as if he’d been satisfied on some deep soul level by the appearance of those keys. He turned and she shifted into his way.
“Where you headed?”
“Home.” He glanced up and did a drunken man’s double take. Slow and sloppy. “Unless you want to have a drink with me?” His smile was charming despite the booze behind it and she smiled back.
“I think you’ve had enough. Why don’t you let me call someone to come pick you up?”
“No one to call.” He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t I know you?”
She looked back at the man. At first glance he looked like every man under thirty who walked through this bar, with cowboy boots, a tan, weathered face and strong chin. But those brown eyes…
“Holy crap,” he muttered, listing toward her slightly. “Lucy Alatore. You showed me your boobs at the state football game.”
Oh, Lord. Reese McKenna. “One of my proudest moments.”
“I won that game.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Your boobs were pretty.” He stared down her shirt and she reached to hike her pewter jersey shirt up higher on her chest.
“Still are.”
“Can I see?”
“Nope. But how about I drive you home?”
“Well, now, I like an aggressive—”
“You’re drunk, Reese. And you can’t drive. Not like you are right now.”
He stared down at his keys as if he were waiting for their input. As if the two of them were old friends who had been in this situation before.
“Come on,” she said quietly. “I’ll take you home.”
“I don’t…I don’t want to bother you, Lucy.” His smile was embarrassed, and she saw a sweet glimpse of that luck-kissed boy she went to high school with.
“You and I know there aren’t any cabs around here, Reese.” She patted his arm, strong and thick under his shirt, while lifting her palm up for the keys. After a moment he dropped them in.
Lucy led him out into the cool, clean air of Wassau, California, population: Podunk. In city limits, there were about twice as many cows as people. Main Street stretched down toward the Sierras, lit up for a few blocks by four streetlights.
Her beat-up Civic sat in all its rusted glory to her left. But Reese’s keys had a fancy foreign emblem on the key chain and out of curiosity she hit the lock release button.
The lights that flashed belonged to a slick sports car crouched in the far corner of the parking lot, sticking out like a sore thumb surrounded by dirty pickup trucks.
Let’s see, she thought, beat-up Civic or fancy sports car?
It wasn’t even a question.
“We’ll take your car,” she said, the heels of her Prada-knockoff boots grinding into the gravel.
Please, God, don’t let that car be stick shift.
Reese climbed into the passenger seat and tucked his hat down over his eyes, looking like a man about to sleep it off.
“Hold up, Reese, where do you live?”
“Staying out at Jeremiah’s place.”
“Jeremiah Stone?” Well, well, well, this night just keeps getting better. Playing chauffeur to a drunken Reese got a whole lot more appealing with Jeremiah Stone at the other end. “I didn’t know he was back in town.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he muttered, and then, shifting deeper into his bucket seat, he seemed to pass out.
Stone Hollow was the ranch next to the Rocky M, the ranch where she grew up and was currently calling home. It was currently her home while her life in Los Angeles fell to pieces.
Jeremiah, five years older than her and Reese, had been a local legend in Northern California. A rodeo stud, he left town
