I used that to my advantage and stood from my chair, moving toward the bar to order another drink instead of waiting for the waitress to come around and have to listen to my new friends pick out a guy for me.
Standing at the bar, I rested my elbows on the top and waited for the bartender to free up so I could wave him down and place my order.
“Hi, there.”
I turned and looked to my right to the man who’d just come up to the bar beside me. “Hi.”
“You’re new here, aren’t you? I’ve never seen you before.”
“Man, is this town that small?” I asked on a giggle, making the man smile. He had a nice smile with straight white teeth. He was also good-looking. Not on Micah’s level, but more on par with Alex.
He shook his head good naturedly. “Sorry, that probably sounded pretty weird, huh?”
“Nah. It wasn’t that bad. And yes, I’m new. Moved here about two weeks ago.”
“Well, welcome to Hope Valley. Hope you’ve been enjoying it so far. I’m Greg.”
I turned more toward him and gave his hand a shake, the warm fuzziness I was already feeling thanks to my tipsy state making this handsome guy’s attention feel pretty damn nice. “Hayden. And I am, thanks. This place is really great.”
He took a step closer, making his interest known. There was no spark of attraction on my part, but there was no harm in a little innocent flirting, right? It was fun. “So, Hayden, I’ve got two questions for you. First, what is it you do here in Hope Valley?”
“I’m working over at Divine Flora. What’s the second question?”
“The second question is . . .” He took another step toward me, closing more of the distance. “Can I buy you a drink?”
I opened my mouth to reply. The plan was to politely decline, however, before I had a chance to do that, a deep, husky voice spoke from behind me. A voice I recognized, and one that caused arousal to flood through my body. “That’s not gonna happen.”
Well shit.
Chapter Eight
Micah
It was well after ten by the time we finished our clandestine debrief with Linc and the small team he’d put together to assist with the Callo investigation. The central topic—as well as the biggest concern—discussed in that meeting was one Ms. Charlie Belmont.
She’d managed to give us the names of two more players in the operation, one a low-level street dealer we already had our eye on and the other an officer with the Hidalgo sheriff’s department a couple towns over.
It went without saying that Leo and I were unhappy she wouldn’t see reason and get clear, but what surprised us both was the level of pissed-the-hell-off Linc’s guy Dalton exhibited when we told him that, once again, she’d shot down our request to let us get her out safely.
“You either get her to accept she’s no longer a player in this game, or I’ll go in there and drag her off the board my goddamn self,” he’d snarled, drilling his finger into the top of the conference room table.
We’d shut the meeting down after that, knowing we weren’t going to get anything more accomplished other than giving each and every one of us a raging migraine. We waited to get the all-clear from Xander, who was monitoring the cameras at the alley behind the building to make sure no one was watching before pushing through the heavy steel door and stepping into the night.
“Don’t know about you, but I need a fuckin’ drink,” I gritted out, rubbing my temples as we moved through the alley toward the main drag of town.
“Dani and the rest of her posse are at The Tap Room,” Leo said. “I say we head that way and throw a few back. At least, once we’re done, I can drag my woman’s ass home and into bed.”
“Sounds good to me.” I needed a bourbon and a soft, warm woman to help shake off the ugliness I felt clinging to my skin like mist on a gray, rainy day.
We made the short trek to the bar and saw it was packed for the night thanks to the band I could see playing on the stage through the windows.
I pulled the heavy glass door open and stepped inside, out of the autumn chill that was starting to take over our valley. Moving toward the bar, I did a scan, in search of a couple empty stools, but what I saw instead brought me up short.
“What’s the deal?” Leo asked when I stopped moving. He looked in the direction I was staring and let out a low whistle.
I knew the exact reason behind that whistle. It was the same reason all the blood in my body was currently rushing straight to my dick. Leo might have been in a blissfully happy, committed relationship, but the man wasn’t blind or dead. Hayden was standing at the bar, bent forward to rest her elbows on top. Her ass was on display for every needle-dicked piece of shit in her general vicinity, and there were more than just a few taking the chance to ogle her. At the number of eyes on her perfect ass, that irrational sense of anger I’d felt at Fresh Foods the night before, causing me to act like a dick for no good reason, came rushing to the surface.
“You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” I clipped under my breath, glaring at the woman who had the attention of half the men in this goddamn bar, myself included.
I could feel Leo turn his attention to me, but I couldn’t pull mine off the woman who’d been fucking with my head for weeks. “What’s the problem? Figured you’d already be movin’ in on a woman like that. You don’t act fast, no doubt another man in here’s gonna beat you to it.”
“Already had a woman like that,” I grunted. “In fact, I had that exact woman.”
“What? When—wait.” He started laughing at my expense. “No, fuckin’ way. That’s her, isn’t it? The woman from the weekend you did your sister’s baby shower in the city? The one you had a showdown with in the middle of the refrigerated section?”
“Sometimes I hate small towns,” I grunted to myself. I finally tore my gaze off Hayden’s ass to shoot my partner a murderous glare. “Glad you find this funny, jackass. Remind me to never confide in you about another damn thing.”
“Are you kidding? This is great. It’s been weeks you’ve been strung up on this chick. And Christ, man, I can see why. She’s—oh shit.” His humor instantly fled. “We got a problem.”
I shifted my focus back toward the bar and felt my blood turn to ice. “Fuck,” I hissed as soon as I spotted Cormack. The bastard was making his move right then, and he was making it on Hayden. “This can’t be happening, right now. Of all the shitty luck—”
“Not sure how the hell you’re gonna stop that, but you better think of something. Last thing we need is that asswipe turning his attention on your girl.”
“She’s not my girl,” I clipped, but even as I said the words, a voice inside my head was screaming for me to make him bleed if he so much as laid a hand on her.
She giggled at something he said and tossed that thick mane of hair back off her shoulder. A sick feeling hit the pit of my stomach like a sledgehammer when he smiled at her. He shifted closer, she turned toward him, and they shook hands.
I wasn’t aware I was moving until I nearly took down a waitress carrying a loaded tray. I issued a distracted apology and kept moving, closing in. I was just within earshot when I heard her honey-coated voice ask, “What’s the second question?”