a very good poker player for all her wide-blue-eyed protestations to the contrary when she first joined their weekly games.
Kate opted to stay silent, continuing on that way while the cards were dealt. And she was dealt a very good hand. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep her expression steady. Sadie was cocky. Jack was cockier. And she was going to take their money.
By the end of the night Kate had earned several profane nicknames and the contents of everyone’s wallets. She leaned back in her chair, pulling the coins toward her. “Listen to that. I’m going back home, dumping all this on the floor and swimming in it like Scrooge McDuck.”
“No diving in headfirst. That’s a sure way to spinal trauma. It isn’t that deep of a pool,” Connor said.
“Deeper than what you have. I have all your monies.” She added a fake cackle for a little bit of dramatics.
“Then I will keep all the pie,” Liss said.
“That’s my pie,” Jack said.
“You have to stay in fighting form, Monaghan. Your bar hookups won’t be so easy if you lose your six-pack,” Liss said cheerfully.
“I do enough work on the ranch every day to live on pies and still keep my six-pack, thank you very much.”
“You aren’t getting any younger,” Sadie said.
The conversation was going into uncomfortable territory as far as Kate was concerned. Really, on all fronts it was getting to an awkward place. Jack and sex. Jack’s abs. Yikes.
“I would return volley,” Jack said, “but I’m too much of a gentleman to comment on a lady’s age.”
“Gentleman, huh?” Eli asked. “Of all the things you’ve been accused of being, I doubt that’s one of them.”
Jack squinted and held up his hand, pretending to count on his fingers. “Yeah, no. There have been a lot of things, but not that one.”
“Anyway,” she said, unable to help herself, “you comment on my age all the time.”
“I said I never commented on a lady’s age, Katie.”
She snorted. “I am a lady, asswipe.”
“I don’t know how I missed it,” he said, leaning back in his chair, his grin turning wicked.
For some reason that comment was the last straw. “Okay, hate to cut this short, but I have an early morning tomorrow.” That was not strictly true. It was an optional early morning since she intended to get up and spend some time with Roo. “And I will be stopping by The Grind to buy a very expensive coffee with the money I won from you.”
Jack stood, putting his hands behind his head and stretching. “I’ll walk you out. I have an early morning, too, so I better get going.”
Dammit. He didn’t seem to understand that she was beating a hasty retreat in part to get away from him. Because the Weird Jack Stuff was a little more elevated today than normal. It had something to do with overexposure to him. She needed to go home, be by herself, scrub him off her skin in a hot shower so she could hit the reset button on her interactions with him.
She felt as if she had to do that more often lately than she had ever had to do in the past.
The thing was, she liked Jack. In that way you could like a guy who was basically an extra obnoxious older brother who didn’t share genetic material with you. She liked it when he came to poker night. She liked it when he came into the store. But at the end of it she was always left feeling...agitated.
And it had created this very strange cycle. Hoping she would see Jack, seeing Jack, being pissed that she had seen Jack. And on and on it went.
“Bye,” she said.
She picked up her newly filled change bag and started to edge out of the room. She heard heavy footsteps behind her, and without looking she knew it was Jack. Well, she knew it was Jack partly because he had said he would walk her out.
And partly because the hair on the back of her neck was standing on end. That was another weird Jack thing.
She opened the front door and shut it behind her, not waiting for Jack. Which was petty and weird. She heard the door open behind her and shut again.
“Did I do something?”
She turned around, trying to erase the scowl from her face. Trying to think of one thing he had actually done that was out of line, or out of the ordinary, at least. “No,” she said, begrudgingly.
“Then why are you acting like I dipped your pigtails in ink?” he asked, taking the stairs two at a time, making uncomfortable eye contact with her in the low evening light.
She looked down. “I’m not.”
“I seem to piss you off all the time lately,” he said, closing the distance between them while her throat closed itself up tight.
“You don’t. It’s just...teasing stuff. Don’t worry about it.”
Jack kept looking at her, pausing for a moment. She felt awkward standing there but also unable to break away. “Okay. Hey, I was thinking...”
“Uh-oh. That never ends well,” she said, trying to force a smile.
“What does that mean?”
“I’ve heard the stories Connor and Eli tell. Any time you think of something, it ends in...well, sometimes broken bones.”
“Sure,” he said, chuckling and leaning against the side of his truck. “But not this time. Well, maybe this time since it centers around the rodeo.”
“You don’t ride anymore,” she said, feeling stupid for pointing out something he already knew.
“Well, I might. I was sort of thinking of working with the association to add an extra day onto the rodeo when they pass through. A charity day. Half-price tickets. Maybe some amateur events. And all the proceeds going to...well, to a fund for women who are starting over. A certain amount should go to Alison’s bakery. She’s helping people get jobs. Get hope. I wish there had been something like that for us when I was a kid.”
Kate didn’t know anything about Jack’s dad. As long as she’d known him, he hadn’t had one. And he never talked about it.
But she got the sense that whatever the situation, it hadn’t been a happy one.
And now mixed in with all the annoyance and her desire to avoid him was a strange tightening in her chest.
“Life can be a bitch,” she said, hating the strident tone that laced its way through her voice.
“I’ve never much liked that characterization. In my estimation life is a lot more like a pissed-off bull. You hang on as long as you can, even though the ride is uncomfortable. No matter how bad it is on, you sure as hell don’t want to get bucked off.”
“Yeah, that sounds about like you.”
“Profound?”
