Sunset Surrender

“Whoa, Sophia,” Luke said with a shake of the head. “I just graduated to Three a few months ago.”

Ward gave her a skeptical look.

Sophia took Logan’s challenge. “I’d be happy to prove you wrong.”

The waitress came sprinting by to deliver a round of drinks to the booth. “You folks need a table?” she asked Luke. “’Cause we’re getting slammed. It’s a twenty-minute wait.”

“That’s fine. We’ll wait,” Luke said with a firm nod, clearly protecting Sophia. “Slade. Table for two.”

Logan set his beer bottle down with a thud and his dark eyes sharpened on her. “Chickening out?”

Luke shook his head at Sophia, his eyes darkening with caution, but it was too late for his warning. Her mind was made up. For one, she wouldn’t let Luke baby her and, two, Logan needed to be put in his place. When Ward rose to offer her a seat, she lowered down and slid across the booth, making room for him to sit beside her.

“I’m not chickening out,” she said triumphantly to Logan, and then turned to flash Ward a generous smile. “Thank you, kind sir.”

Ward nodded, color rising up on his neck. “Welcome.”

Logan’s mouth twitched, and he sighed with resignation as he made room for his brother in the booth. “Yeah, sure. Why not.”

“Cancel that table for two,” Luke said to the waitress as he took a seat beside Logan. “Looks like we’ll be joining them.”

“Sure thing. I’ll be back in a sec with menus.”

Before the waitress turned away, Luke stopped her with a gentle command. “No need. We know what we want.” Luke met with Sophia’s eyes once again. She nodded, giving the waitress her order. “I’ll have a Number Three.”

“Make that two Number Threes,” Luke said with a sigh, “and two beers.”

“No beer for me,” Sophia said. “I’ll have water.”

The waitress made a mental note.

“You’d best bring three glasses of ice water then, for starters,” Ward said, looking a bit concerned. “Those habaneros will drain the last ounce of moisture from your mouth.”

“Sure, I’ll be back with waters, beer and two Number Threes.” The waitress moved on and Sophia found herself facing Logan directly across the booth.

It wasn’t a hard picture, seeing the two Slade cowboys sitting side by side. They had similar good looks. The biggest difference was that Luke’s eyes were blue, like his mother’s, and his hair was a sandy color, rather than Logan’s dark brown. But the men were worlds apart in personality traits.

Luke inclined his head toward Sophia. “Beer might have quenched your thirst better.”

“I don’t drink.”

“Ever?” Luke asked, looking a little astonished. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“You couldn’t possibly know,” she said quietly, holding in her anguish. Luke didn’t know everything there was to know about the grown-up woman she’d become, unlike Logan, who thought he knew everything about her. “My father was an alcoholic,” she explained, “and I’ve never found a taste for the stuff. It’s my way of rebelling.”

Not that she felt obligated to give a reason, but her father’s story was a constant reminder of the pitfalls and fragile nature of the human spirit and she especially wanted Logan to understand that her life hadn’t been all peaches and cream. His family didn’t have a monopoly on heartache. Despite being married to a loving beautiful woman, Sophia’s father had left her mother with a three-year-old child to raise. As an adult it was still pretty hard for her to rationalize his actions, though she’d tried hard to work through being fatherless most of her life. Alberto Montrose chose a love affair with liquor that ultimately ruined him. The last Sophia had heard, which was more than ten years ago, her father had been seen wandering the streets of San Francisco, ragged and homeless. Liquor was his wife, child, addiction and downfall, all rolled up into one.

“Enough said,” Luke announced, wearing a compassionate expression. “Water is underrated anyway.”

“Yeah, you can’t live without it,” Ward offered needlessly.

Logan chuckled, and sipped his beer, watching her as if she were a spectacle. “Your stomach’s gonna rebel in a few minutes.”

This time Luke wasn’t disagreeing. “You’re in for it, Sophia. But you always were a daredevil. That much I do know.”

“Me? What about wrestling bucking broncos for five years of your life?”

“Six,” Ward and Luke said in unison.

“And I wasn’t wrestling with them, darlin’. I rode them for nine seconds at a time.”

“Most times, it was five seconds in the saddle, and the rest of the time on the ground, eating the horse’s dust,” Logan offered, happy to give Luke a bad time.

“Eating dust may be easier than eating Number Threes.”

Sophia gave the men an eye-roll and shook her head. “I will consider myself properly warned by all three of you. I promise you I’ll hold my own.”

She moved her long hair to one shoulder and shuffled in her seat, adjusting to the booth’s cushion to get more comfortable. Logan watched her movements, his gaze flicking over her body until their eyes finally met in a daring stare. A hot sprinkle of desire spread through her belly like warm sugar. For the slightest pinch of time, Sophia spotted a glimmer of admiration in his eyes for what she was about to do. Which, in her estimation, wasn’t all that admirable. She would eat a bowl of Kickin’ chili. How hard would that be?

And in that moment, no matter how much she hated to admit it, she saw Logan in a different light. She saw him as someone who could match her spirit, someone she might enjoy being around and someone who could fill the gaping void threatening to swallow her up. A shell that no one, not even a wonderful man like Luke, could ever fill.