MALLORY HAD DISAPPEARED. Without a single word. Without so much as leaving a voice mail.
Gunner Ellison stood at the open door to the Renegade and slipped off his sunglasses. He’d expected to see her standing behind the bar just like always, staring back at him with those sexy green eyes and that killer smile. But the place was empty. The solid oak tables and chairs were gone. So was the pool table, the jukebox and the dartboard. In the window was a sign that said Closed for Good.
Too many sleepless nights and the long plane ride had nearly knocked him on his ass. Exhausted, Gunner rubbed his eyes, hoping this was nothing but a bad dream. Then he took another bleak look around.
Everything. Gone.
He just didn’t get it. She still had another week left on her lease. They’d talked about her raising drink prices in order to meet the steep rent hike. Other stuntmen he worked and drank with, and even the bikers who crowded her Valencia bar at all hours, none of them would’ve cared. Not if it meant keeping Mallory in business.
This was crazy. They were friends, damn it, and he’d offered to help her. Couldn’t she have waited for him to get back before giving up the place?
He’d been working on location in Argentina for four weeks. They’d talked a couple times after he’d first gotten there. But then she’d stopped taking his calls. And he had a terrible feeling he knew why.
They’d had sex. In the back room the night before he’d left. On the pool table, against the wall and maybe even on the old oak bar itself.
They’d both had a few drinks, though he hadn’t been too drunk when he’d pulled her into his arms. Maybe she’d been more wasted than he’d thought—she rarely had more than a beer around closing time—but something about that night had made them wild for each other. Tearing at each other’s clothes. Slow, deep kisses until neither of them could breathe. He’d tried to figure it out. Every night as he’d lain awake, remembering the taste of her, or the way she’d moaned.
“Can I help you, mister?” An older man wearing stained work clothes and mopping his bald head came from the back room.
“Any idea when the Renegade closed?”
“We started remodeling over a week ago. Got called at the last minute.”
Gunner swept a final gaze around the room. For ten years he’d been coming here. The place held a lot of memories, not just of Mallory. He’d felt like he belonged here after he’d gotten his shot in the stunt business. Coop, Mallory’s dad, had been a stuntman himself, hurt bad before he opened the bar. But he and the other guys who’d hung out at the Renegade had made Gunner, a damn rookie in the Stuntmen’s Association, feel like one of them.
Mallory had taken over the day after Coop’s funeral. It was going on six years now, but the place had been her home since her mother had run off.
“Well, mister, I’m afraid you’re gonna have to leave. It’s quitting time and I’m locking up.”
Gunner nodded. He’d forgotten the guy was there.
Pulling out his phone, he headed for his truck. He tried Mallory. And was sent straight to voice mail. She was really starting to piss him off.
He drove to her apartment on Rye Canyon, anger simmering in his gut. He was too exhausted for this bullshit. So they’d had sex. Didn’t mean they had to avoid each other.
Though he’d never been inside, he knew her unit was on the ground floor at the end. He didn’t see her car and cruised past a U-Haul truck that was blocking his view.
Gunner slowed when he saw a young woman with dark hair carrying a box into the apartment. Mallory’s apartment. His heart jumped a few gears and shot into overdrive.
When the woman emerged and headed to the U-Haul, Gunner lowered his window. “Excuse me. A friend of mine used to live in your apartment. Do you have any idea where she moved?”
She paused a moment. “I think Montana.”
Montana? What the hell? Who did Mallory know in—
Shit. “Hey, thanks,” he said, and pulled out. At the next corner, he stopped and grabbed his phone.
He didn’t have many people on speed dial, but Ben Wolf was one of them. If Mallory had moved to Montana it was because of their friend Wolf. After Gunner got some answers, then maybe he’d be able to get a good night’s sleep. Without dreaming of Mallory’s long, slender legs wrapped around his waist.
* * *
“IS THERE ANY chance at all you can still get here by this evening?” Mallory Brandt asked, then held the phone a foot away from her ear. The man had to be near deaf. His voice was so loud she could’ve heard him from the back room.
“No, ma’am. It’s my truck,” Dexter said. “The brakes are shot. Gotta get them replaced.”
“Okay.” Granted, she knew nothing about cars, but she suspected his brakes hadn’t suddenly crapped out without warning. When she’d responded to his ad for the used mechanical bull, Dexter had promised he could deliver it by today. “So, that means...what?”
“Mebbe you can borrow a vehicle and pick Fanny up yourself,” Dexter said, a shrewd dip in his tone. “I’ll knock off forty bucks.”
Mallory rubbed her bloodshot eyes. So that’s what this was about...he’d decided he didn’t want to drive the seventy miles to Blackfoot Falls. “Not possible,” she said, wondering if he knew that a bull was male. “New brakes can’t be cheap. Maybe you can borrow another truck and deliver Fanny. That way you’ll have money to pay for your repair.”
Dexter sighed. “Mebbe tomorrow.”
“Let me know.” She disconnected the call and kept her cussing to a low murmur.
She was alone in the front of the bar. Mike, the finish carpenter, was tending to a few details in the back where the bull would be set up. If the stupid thing ever made it. Damn, she’d really wanted it here for opening tonight.
Oh, well, she’d been warned that people operated at a slower pace here in northwest Montana. She shouldn’t let a minor delay annoy her. Everything had gone smoothly with the renovations. The big old saloon had sat empty and neglected for fifteen years according to Sadie, who owned the Watering Hole, the only other bar for miles, and who was also the mayor.
When Mallory had questioned the need for another drinking establishment, she was assured she’d have all the business she could handle. Things were looking up in the small town. The ranchers who’d suffered from the poor economy had begun hiring men again. Other changes in the area had brought some tourism, and a film crew was shooting a Western miniseries around the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
After three weeks, she was still in awe of them. Of course she’d seen the Rockies many times in movies and in photos. But here, all she had to do was step outside the bar for a
