her hands clasped in front of her, holding on to her handbag, her blond hair swirling around her as she took stock of the rabble and ruffians in the room.
And he had...he had felt the floor of that bar fall out from underneath his feet.
He had wanted her, immediately. Viscerally. It had been an instantaneous and deep desire unlike anything he had ever felt before.
Then, he had seen the diamond ring sparkling on her left hand. It had only loomed larger in his vision as she had walked over to where he was sitting. He’d had all those seconds, those long moments of watching her make her way across the room to decide he didn’t give a damn who had given her that ring or what it meant. He wanted her. And if she was going to let him have her...well, then he wasn’t going to waste a thought on the poor bastard who’d given her the diamond.
He’d thought that right up until she’d walked up and kissed his friend right on the mouth.
She was Damien’s wife. Of course.
Because the first woman to make him feel like he couldn’t breathe in longer than he could remember was obviously going to be married to a friend of his.
Even if she hadn’t been married to Damien...they were not meant to be. She had been unfriendly to him from the beginning. It wasn’t even her divorce from Damien that had triggered the unfriendliness.
He still wanted her. Dammit.
And he didn’t do that stuff. He didn’t want and not have. Sex, as far as he was concerned was a recreational activity. People didn’t need to make such a big deal out of it. But, he also preferred to like the women he banged. And he preferred it if they didn’t want to decapitate him.
Lindy fell into that category.
The divorce...
Yeah, that was complicated, but it had a little bit more to do with her not liking him rather than him being concerned about preserving a relationship with Damien.
As far as he was concerned Damien was a dickhead. Cheating on Lindy had been an asshole thing to do. There was no defending it. Wyatt wouldn’t even try. Some men shouldn’t get married. Wyatt was one of them. But, he hadn’t gotten married. Damien had. And he had owed it to his wife to be faithful to her. The damned man hadn’t even tried as far as Wyatt could tell.
It had all come out later, when Damien had drunkenly slurred over a beer about the end of his marriage that he had cheated on Lindy multiple times over the years. Being on the road with all that temptation around was too much for him, he’d said. When the buckle bunnies couldn’t find a cowboy to get laid with they would always take him.
And it was all Wyatt could do not to ask him if he was screwed in the head. Because what the hell man would want another woman when he had that one in his bed? Wyatt sure as hell wouldn’t.
Of course, he had never tried monogamy, so he supposed he couldn’t actually judge. But he did.
Still, the fact that he didn’t exactly want his friend to know that he had illicit fantasies about the other guy’s wife was one reason he had held back on lecturing him too much. The other being that he just wasn’t the right man for that job.
A shiftless manslut who had never had a committed relationship in his life was the last person on earth who should hand out lectures on marriage.
“She does not like you.”
Wyatt turned around and saw his brother Grant standing there, looking amused with the situation.
He supposed he should be happy to see Grant looking amused at all, since his brother rarely did. But, he wasn’t. Not when it was at his expense.
Wyatt had never claimed not to be a selfish bastard.
“She doesn’t,” Wyatt agreed.
“And you want her.”
“She’s a shrew,” Wyatt said, by way of answer, crossing his arms, watching as that little red car of hers drove away.
“A hot one,” Grant pointed out.
“You sleep with her then. I don’t want to have to dig her fingernails out from under my skin after.”
“It’s my understanding you end up with fingernails embedded in your skin when it goes well,” Grant said, his tone dry.
“Unless she does it because she wants to mortally wound you.”
“From where I’m at right now, I’m not sure I see a drawback either way.”
“Go.” Wyatt made a shooing motion with his hand. “Get some. Refresh your memory.”
Grant lifted a brow, the lines on his forehead deepening. “Not likely.”
Wyatt locked eyes with his brother. “Get out of town. Find a woman who doesn’t know you and your entire life story.”
“You know,” Grant said. “I tried that once. She remembered me. From the news.”
“Damn.”
His brother’s marriage had ended up famous.
An eighteen-year-old who married his high school sweetheart even knowing she wouldn’t live long had been a tragic and wonderful gesture, as far as the world was concerned.
As far as poor Grant was concerned, it had just been life and love. In the end, he had suffered a hell of a lot. But that’s what he was famous for. Being true-blue to a woman who was long gone.
No one had asked if he wanted to get famous, of course. It had been one of the last things Grant wanted. Second only to his wife dying.
Which had thrown Grant right back into the headlines. Wyatt was sure that made hooking up...complicated.
Wyatt Dodge did not like complicated. It was just one of the many reasons that he was not going to follow the road his attraction to Lindy wanted to take him down. Nope. And hell no.
Anyway, getting things off the ground with Get Out of Dodge was too important.
If he succeeded, then no one would ever have to know the reason why.
And that was the ideal situation.
“I appreciate you being here,” Wyatt said. “I hope you know that.”
“I do. But, it’s not like I had anything truly amazing that I was leaving behind. A job at the power company for little more than a decade...sure. The retirement was going to be good...” Grant shook his head. “How long can you possibly live for the future? I mean, socking away money, punching a time card all to invest in years you might never even see? What the hell is the point of that? Can you answer me that, Wyatt?”
Wyatt rubbed his chin. “I’ve been riding bulls for the last...fifteen years? I am not the person to ask about thinking ahead. If I had been thinking ahead I never would have done that.”
His spine sure would’ve thanked him, and unlike so many others, he had never even
