Slow Burn Cowboy

She breezed through the dining room and took her place at the counter-height table that she and her friends typically occupied on their nights at the bar.

She sighed, picking up a menu and examining the dinner column, even though she knew exactly what was served at Ace’s. Just in case he’d added something new.

Ultimately, she decided that she was going to order a hamburger. And when the server came with her basket of fries, she did just that.

“I was able to get one of the girls to close up for me.” Lane looked up and saw her friend Alison approaching the table. Her red hair was disheveled, dark shadows beneath her eyes. “I think I might need a vacation.”

“You definitely do. I think you’ve been working more than overtime getting the bakery stable over the past couple of years.”

Alison took her seat across from Lane and immediately stuck her hand in the basket of fries. “True. And I also lost two of my long-term employees last week, so I’ve been scrambling to try and fill holes in the schedule. I haven’t had anybody approach me for a while about a job. Which is good, I guess. Since I have a reputation of hiring people in dire circumstances, I can only suppose that there isn’t anybody hanging out in a dire circumstance. But I’d be more grateful if I wasn’t working my fingers to the bone.”

“That’s not a very appealing visual. Considering that your fingers touch baked goods.”

Alison made a scoffing sound. “Why did you order those pale, anemic fries?” she asked, as she took another one.

“Oh, you mean real fries instead of your imposter sweet potato nonsense?”

“They’re better. That’s just a fact,” Alison said, reaching into her purse and pulling out her phone, checking it quickly.

“What? Who are you? What is our friendship?”

“Rebecca said she’s almost here.”

As if on cue, Rebecca walked into the bar and crossed the room, heading straight for the table. “Sorry. I tried to get here sooner but Gage was at the store helping me close.”

“I imagine that’s relationship code for doing something that is absolutely not helping you close your store,” Alison said.

Rebecca turned bright red. “Possibly.”

Lane tried to ignore the stab of jealousy in her stomach. She had been single going on way too long now. It was getting old.

It was incredibly petty to have any sort of jealousy regarding Rebecca’s relationship with Gage West. It had been hard-won, the obstacles between them seemingly impossible to overcome given the fact that Gage had been at fault for an accident that had caused Rebecca serious scarring—inside and out. If anyone deserved happiness, it was Rebecca.

However, her friend’s happiness certainly highlighted Lane’s own aloneness. Granted, to a degree it was a choice. She didn’t exactly have the time or energy to devote to a relationship right now.

Too bad her discontentment had nothing to do with rationality. She knew that she didn’t want a man in her life at the moment—not in a romantic capacity—it was just that her bed felt very empty sometimes.

And looking at Rebecca, who fairly glowed with satisfaction, it felt very, very empty indeed.

“Gross,” Lane said, not thinking it was gross at all. In fact, she thought it was downright enviable. “Do you need to order? Because Alison and I didn’t wait for you.”

“I called it in,” Rebecca said, “mostly because I knew neither of you would wait.”

Rebecca’s hamburger ended up arriving before Alison’s or Lane’s, which seemed unfair on top of everything else. Not only had she very recently had some sex, she was also indulging in a hamburger a full five minutes before her friends. Her single, celibate friends.

When Lane’s food did show up, she attacked it with gusto. She had the vague thought that she was very likely using her hamburger to help soothe some of the unsettled feelings that were left behind after witnessing Finn’s confrontation with his brother. But it was no big news to her that she used food to deal with her feelings.

There was a reason that she had opened a specialty food store, and it was only partly because the old business had been established but needed to change hands right around the time she had been financially able to make that step.

She had always loved the Mercantile on Copper Ridge’s Main Street, ever since she had moved to the small town on the Oregon coast when she was seventeen. She loved the exposed brick on the walls, the warm, homey feeling and the easily accessible samples of bread and different types of infused olive oils.

The fact that she got to work there all day almost every day was one of her favorite things about her life. So what if she had a serious emotional crutch in the form of food? She had managed to find a way to continually keep herself surrounded by said crutch.

“I thought you were eating dinner with Finn?” Alison asked, eyeing Lane as she continued to feast on her burger.

She swallowed her bite, and then took a slow drink of her Diet Coke. For some reason, she was hesitant to bring discussions of Finn into the group. But then, that wasn’t unusual. Her friendship with Finn was specific. Its own thing.

It wasn’t easy or completely open the way her relationships with Alison and Rebecca were. But how could it be? He was a man, and she wasn’t blind to that fact. Not only that, he was older than her. And he’d been friends with her brother, Mark, before he was her friend. But as the years had progressed, and Mark moved away, the gap had seemed to close between the two of them.

He was kind of like an older brother. Except a little more equal. She supposed the exact definition didn’t really matter. But she still often felt the need to put up a wall between that relationship and her relationship with her girlfriends. She told them everything, but telling them everything about Finn bordered on being a violation of him, and that was what she tried to avoid.

“Well, I was. But... He had a visitor?”

“Please don’t tell me he forgot that you were coming over and hooked up with some girl,” Alison said, her nose wrinkling. Alison was always prepared to think the worst of men. She tried to keep the negativity to a minimum, and Lane knew that. But she also knew that the other woman had ample reason to have a low opinion of the species.

Lane hesitated. “No. He didn’t do that. He wouldn’t do that. You know Finn, he’s... Well, he’s a little bit nicer than that. It’s just he has kind of an infusion of family right now. Because of his grandfather.”

Alison looked contrite. “Right. I forgot about that. How is he?”

Lane shrugged. “As good as can be expected. He knew that Callum was going to go soon. I just think even when you expect it there’s nothing easy about it. Plus, he has to deal with his brothers now. And that’s just a whole thing.”

“Family invariably is,” Rebecca said.

“Speaking of family,” Alison said. “How is Jonathan warming up to Gage?”

Lane’s attention was momentarily pulled away from the conversation by something flickering on the TV screen above the bar. And then everything faded into the background.

Because there he was.

Cord McCaffrey, newly a senator, darling of the media, instant internet sensation and Lane’s personal trial by fire. How was any of this fair? Here he was, in her bar, disturbing her French fry time.

The man was like an incredibly charismatic cockroach. He could not be killed. Not that she wanted him killed; it was just she wanted him a little less successful and a little less in her face. Also, a little less beloved by all.

Seeing him on the screen, in a power suit with a power tie, giving a speech so well constructed it could make angels weep, she felt tiny. Tiny and insignificant. She hated that. She had achieved a lot in her life. Without help from her family.

And mostly, she didn’t miss them. Mostly, she didn’t ever think about the big house she had once lived in in Massachusetts with her old money blue blood parents. Mostly, she was very happy living in a tiny, seaside town on the Oregon coast, as far away from them and their judgment as it was possible to get without crossing the ocean.

But seeing Cord dredged up memories. And God knew she had been seeing him way more often than usual lately.

“Lane?”

She blinked, looking across the table at Rebecca, whose expression was one of concern. Suddenly, she remembered where she was. She had been outside of herself for a moment. Outside of her body, possibly outside of Oregon. Somewhere else entirely.

Twelve years in the past maybe.

“What? Sorry, I spaced out.”

“You seemed distracted by Senator Good Hair.”