his mind where Kate was concerned. Neither of them practiced tact in the other’s presence.
She sputtered. “I’m not uptight.”
“You’re something.”
Kate’s lip curled upward. “Now I don’t really want you to buy me a drink. I don’t like your motives.”
“I’m not going to sneakily give you a rum and Coke. I’m ordering you a soda.”
“But it was not born out of generosity.”
“Will you please stop making it impossible for me to do something nice for you.”
“But you aren’t doing something nice for me,” she insisted. “You were trying to...calm me. With booze.”
He turned, and Kate took a step back, pressing herself against the bar. He leaned forward, gripping the bar with both hands, trapping her between his arms. “Yes, Katie, honey, I was.”
Her dark eyes widened, her mouth dropping open. Color rose in her cheeks, her chest pitching sharply as she drew in a quick deep breath.
He looked at Kate quite a lot. He saw her almost every day. But he’d never really studied her. He didn’t know why in hell he was doing it now.
There wasn’t a trace of makeup on her face, her dark lashes long and thick but straight rather than curled upward to enhance her eyes. There was no blush added to her cheeks, no color added to her lips. It exemplified Kate. What you saw was what you got. Inside and out.
And for some reason the tension that had been gathering in his chest spread outward, spread around them, and he could feel a strange crackling between them. He wasn’t sure what it was. But one thing he was sure of. He’d made a mistake somewhere between calling her “honey” the first time, days ago, and the moment he’d pressed her up against the bar.
Everything he knew about her had twisted. The way Kate made him feel had shifted into something else, something new.
If it had been any other woman at any other moment, he might’ve called it attraction.
But this was Kate. So that was impossible.
And then the sort of dewy softness in her eyes changed, a kind of fierce determination taking over. She took a step away from the bar, a step closer to him, and reached up, gripping his chin with her thumb and forefinger, tugging hard, bringing his face nearer to hers. “Look, Jack,” she spat, hardening every syllable, “I think you need to back off.”
Her skin was soft against his, her hand cool. Her hold was firm, uncompromising, like Kate herself.
Unlucky for her, he didn’t compromise, either.
He leaned in, closing some of the distance between them. Her lips parted, and for just one moment he saw Kate Garrett soften. But it was only a moment. Then the steel was back, harder than ever. He waited for her to back down, waited for her to step away and hiss at him.
But she didn’t. She simply stood there, holding him fast, her breasts rising and falling with each indrawn breath.
The noise faded into the background, and the people around them turned into a blur as his focus sharpened on Kate. The only thought he had in his head was that this was without a doubt the strangest moment of his entire life.
They were playing chicken—he knew her well enough to realize that. She was challenging him, and she thought he would back down.
That was fine. It was almost normal. It was the undercurrent beneath the challenge, the one making his heart beat faster, making his stomach feel tight, that was giving him issues.
She leaned in slightly and without even thinking, he took a step back, breaking her hold on his chin. Breaking whatever the hell thread had wound its way around them.
“I’m going to get you that soda,” he said, knowing his tone sounded way harsher than he intended. “Go hang out with your friends. I’ll meet you over there.”
He expected her to argue, but she didn’t. She just nodded and moved around him cautiously, her dark eyes glued to his for a moment before she averted them and made her way to her group.
He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
Well, that was fucking weird.
“Monaghan,” Ace, said sidling over to his end of the bar. “Can I get you something?”
“Two Cokes,” Jack said, resting his forearms on the bar.
Ace laughed and pushed his flannel shirtsleeves up. “Sure. You want me to start a tab for that?”
“I’ll pay now,” Jack growled.
Ace grabbed two glasses and filled them with the nozzle beneath the bartop. “So... Kate Garrett?”
“What about her?” Jack asked, feeling irreversibly irritated by the other man now. Because he could feel himself being led somewhere, and he didn’t like it.
“You and her are...”
“What? No. Fuck no.”
“It looked like something to me. So I wondered.”
“It was nothing,” Jack said, ignoring the rush of heat in his blood that made him wonder if it was more than nothing. “Just messing with her.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Ace said, smiling broadly. “Anyway...why not?”
Anger surged through Jack’s veins. “For one because I like my balls where they’re at. And if I ever touched Katie, Connor and Eli would remove them. And then Liss would sew them onto the top of a winter hat as a festive decoration. Additionally? She’s a kid.”
“She’s not a kid,” Ace said, his eyes fixed across the room. “And I’m not the only one who realizes that.”
Jack turned and looked and saw Kate nearly backed up against the wall by some asshole cowboy who had his hat tipped back and his jeans so tight his thighs were probably screaming for mercy. He was leaning in, holding her hostage.
Because he was an asshole. And never mind that Jack’d had her cornered only a few minutes ago. It was totally different. No matter what Ace thought, he wasn’t trying to get into her pants.
But that guy was.
“Excuse me,” Jack said, grabbing the sodas and moving away from the bar.
He stalked across the room, his eyes on Kate and the cowboy. And then he stopped, the two frosty glasses sweaty in his hands. He had no clue what the hell he was doing. About to bust in on Kate flirting with some guy... Chad something, if Jack remembered right. Your standard frat bro with spurs.
Not the kind of guy he would recommend she talk to. But she could if she wanted to, and he had no say in it.
She was right. He wasn’t her older brother.
A fact he was very aware of right then.
