Billie gave her younger, fair-haired sister and roommate a deadpan look. Bobbie laughed and went to deliver drinks to a table. Billie turned back to the bar as cheers rang out by the mechanical bull. She looked across the room and saw Dare climbing onto it, eating up the attention, but his gaze skirted over those eager women’s heads, and he winked at Billie.
“Did you two ever hook up?” Kellan grabbed a bottle from behind her and started making a drink. He was a part-time bartender and law school student, with deep dimples and a sunshine-and-whiskey personality—always in a good mood but tough when he needed to be.
We’re not going there. “What is this, Gossip Central?”
“I’m just curious. I think you’d make a great couple. You’re both badass.”
“I hope you make a better lawyer than matchmaker.” She nodded toward his customer, who was watching him intently, as if he could make him move faster. “I think he wants that drink you’re holding.”
As the night wore on, the bar got even more crowded. Billie went into the stockroom to restock the liquor, and when she came out, Dare’s groupies were waving money, egging him on as he climbed onto the bar and began dancing to “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.” The man was two-hundred-plus pounds of hip-thrusting, tongue-wagging sex on legs. Bobbie and Kellan were dancing behind the bar as they served drinks, and while most customers were enjoying his show, there was a handful who looked shocked and slightly appalled.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” Billie mumbled as she set the bottles down and scanned the crowd for Dare’s brothers, who could usually help wrangle him in. But Doc and Cowboy were nowhere to be found. She spotted his cousin Raleigh “Rebel” Whiskey and held her palm up, giving him a Do something stare.
Amusement rose in Rebel’s eyes. He shouted, “Good luck,” and took a swig of his beer.
Was she the only sane person in the bar? She stomped over to Dare. “Get off my bar!”
He grinned down at her, cupping his ear. “What’s that? You want me to shake my ass?” He turned his butt toward her and shook his infuriatingly hot ass, causing an uproar of cheers and laughter.
“Take yourself to the strip club down the road!” Billie hollered.
That cocky grin widened. “You want me to strip?” Hoots and whistles rang out as he whipped off his shirt and swung it around his head.
Billie put her hands on the bar. “Off, Dare! And I don’t mean your pants!”
A collective squeal rang out from the women he’d been with all night. Dare grabbed Billie’s arms, hauling her onto the bar. He wrapped his thick arm around her waist, gyrating against her, those piercing dark eyes reaching into her soul, reminding her of all the years they’d done shit like this and laughed all night.
“Come on, Wildfire, you know you want to cut loose with me.”
Her chest constricted at the nickname he’d called her since they were kids and had rarely used the last few years. But on the heels of that warmth came the sharp, painful truth. Her feelings for Dare were the reason Eddie was dead. She was the reason Eddie was dead. She stuffed those warm feelings down deep and sneered. “I want to cut something, all right. Put on your damn shirt, get off my bar, and take your showboating ass onto the dance floor.”
“Only if you’ll dance with me.” He tightened his hold on her, hips grinding, broad chest brushing enticingly against her, as women yelled, “I’ll dance with you,” and “Damn, look at those hips go!” Some guys had puppy-dog eyes that got them special favors. Dare Whiskey had about a hundred ways of looking at a woman to get what he wanted, and as he tilted his head, brow furrowing, eyes pleading, a seductive smile playing on his lips, Billie’s mind spun back to the last time she’d been sucked in by that look.
The night they’d hooked up—and he’d broken her heart.
She leaned closer, putting her mouth beside his ear, and promised, “One dance.”
The elated grin on his face almost made her feel guilty as they climbed off the bar, much to his entourage’s chagrin, and he reached for her. “Let’s dance, sweet darlin’.”
She tossed him a clean towel. “The only dance I’m doin’ is tending to customers while you wipe down that bar.” She felt the heat of his stare as she strutted into the stockroom with Bobbie on her heels.
“Why are you like that to him? He’s just having fun.”
Billie turned on her. “Because this is a business, and if someone gets hurt, we’re liable. Do you want everyone thinking they can come in here and do shit like that?”
“No, but it’s Dare. He’s always done it. I don’t get it.”
“There’s nothing to get. This is our family business, and it’s about time we stopped running it like it’s a playground.” Bobbie was an elementary school teacher, and she only worked part-time at the bar, while Billie managed it full time and took the business more seriously.
Bobbie crossed her arms with a pinched expression. “Can you just tell me why you’re such a jerk to him lately? I know things changed after Eddie died, but it’s like you’ve suddenly got no patience for him, and I’ve never seen him do anything but be your friend.”
Because grieving without him was more terrifying than any stunt, and every time I look at him, I remember the betrayal in Eddie’s eyes right before his fatal accident. But the more I push Dare away, the stronger he comes at me to rekindle our friendship, and that makes it harder for me to keep that wall between us. Basically, I’m messed up, because I want to tear down that wall as badly as I want to bolt in the other direction. She clamped her mouth shut before any of that escaped, letting the ugly truth continue eating away at her like a ravenous rat trying to gnaw its way out.
She grabbed two bottles of alcohol and headed back to the bar, catching sight of Dare dirty dancing with his groupies. I need to get out of this town. She’d told herself that forever, but she’d never leave. Traveling over the summers for her motocross races when she was younger had proven what she’d always known. She belonged in Hope Valley, even if it meant being around Dare Fucking Whiskey.
Pushing that thought away, she escaped to the one place she didn’t have to think—behind the bar. Unfortunately, Bobbie followed her again.
“Billie…?” Her sister lowered her voice, and a challenge rose in her eyes. “You’re not jealous of those women with Dare, are you?”
“Are you insane? Do you think I want to be a notch on his belt? It’s a wonder the damn thing hasn’t shredded.”
DARE SAT AT a table with his older brother Callahan, who went by the road name Cowboy, and their cousin Rebel, listening to them shoot the shit, while he chewed on thoughts of Billie. She hadn’t looked his way in more than an hour, and that pissed him off. He was so damn tired of missing her—the real her—he was sick with it. If he were one of his therapy clients, he’d give himself a list of tools to sever those ties, starting with the obvious—stop showing up at the Roadhouse. But he could no sooner do that than he could forget how it felt to finally have her in his arms again on that fucking bar, her fierceness and bullheadedness be damned. That woman had owned his heart since they were kids.