Smooth-Talking Cowboy

He really didn’t see the appeal in that.

“I gave Olivia a ride to work this morning,” Luke said, addressing the eight-hundred-pound breakup that seemed to be sitting in the middle of the table at the moment. “She had a flat tire.”

Bennett looked up. “Really?”

“Yep.”

He lifted a brow. “I bet she didn’t like that.”

“No. She did not. But then, you know she’s eternally surprised when the world dares go against her express wishes.”

“Yes,” Bennett said. “I do know that about her.”

Luke always had a hard time getting a read on Bennett’s feelings for Olivia. The relationship had been a funny one. Intense, on Olivia’s part. Which was why it was odd that she was the one who had done the breaking up. At least, from Luke’s point of view.

“She’ll come around,” Luke said. “I mean, if you want her to. She asked about you.”

Bennett took a bite of his chili. “Hey, she broke up with me.”

“Lindsay broke up with me once,” Grant said. They all looked at him, because Grant rarely mentioned Lindsay at least not by name. There was a lot of alluding to the past, to his marriage. But he didn’t say her name very much. “Seriously. We were seventeen.”

“Why?” Wyatt asked.

“It was when she got sick again. She was in recovery when we started dating. It came back and she wanted to let me go.”

“How’d you change her mind?” Luke asked.

“I proposed,” Grant said. “Told her I was in it for real, and it wasn’t up to her to tell me how to live my life. That I wanted one with her.”

They were silent for a moment.

“Proposing would have worked with Olivia,” Bennett said. “That is why she broke up with me. I didn’t propose to her on Christmas Eve.”

“What are you waiting for?” Luke asked. “I thought that was the plan. To marry her.”

It had seemed inevitable from the time the two of them had started dating a year ago. The obvious conclusion to something that they’d been circling for years. They were the two most respected families in town. Everybody knew that Bennett Dodge and Olivia Logan were destined to be together.

“Yeah,” Bennett said. “It was. But I don’t know. She broke up with me. So I’m taking the time to think about that. I care about her. She’s a sweet girl. I mean, maybe sweet is the wrong word. But she’s... She’s something.”

Luke chuckled. Yeah, Olivia Logan sure as hell was something. He finished up his lunch, then stood, going into the kitchen and rinsing out his bowl before passing back through the dining room. “I’ve got work to do,” he said. “Hey—” he directed that at Bennett “—you can work on decorating the cabins.”

“What?” Bennett asked, frowning. “How did I get nominated for that?”

“I’m your boss, little brother,” Wyatt said. “And I say you need to hang some curtains.”

Bennett laughed. “I’m the only one with a thriving business independent of this place. I’ll pay to have someone else come and do it before I go hang any damned curtains.”

“Save your money for some G-strings down at The Frisky Mermaid,” Wyatt said, referring to the strip club down in Tolowa. “Since that’s about all the skin you’re seeing these days.”

That forced Luke to think about the skin that Bennett had been seeing. Olivia’s skin. Pale and pretty, and easy to turn pink with indignation. He wondered if she turned pink all over when she got like that. If her anger heated her cheeks, and other parts of her body, too.

He cleared his throat. “Yeah,” he added. Feeling like it was a pointless addition, but needing to reorient.

Yeah, Olivia was hot. And there was something about that prim little attitude, that stuck-up manner of hers that got under his skin. Didn’t mean he should be thinking about hers.

“See you tonight,” Wyatt said.

“Yep,” Luke responded, already heading out of the mess hall and back toward the machine shed.

He had work to do. And if there was one thing that had always provided him with some measure of sanity, it was work.

CHAPTER THREE (#ube8ed8cf-5a66-59c6-af4d-1af7ec78b06c)

OLIVIA FELT LIKE there was a spotlight shining down on her as she walked into the Gold Valley saloon. Because she was alone, and she was certain that everybody in the room had taken note of that.

Happily, her boss, Lindy, had agreed to drive her back to her car, so she hadn’t had to call Luke to come and pick her up from work. And also happily, he had made good on his promise to fix her car.

She frowned slightly thinking of that. That had been... Well, it had been awfully nice of him. It had saved her the cost of a tow truck. And the cost of getting the tire fixed. It wasn’t like her dad wouldn’t have paid for it. But she didn’t want to inconvenience him. And he wasn’t very happy with the way everything had gone down with Bennett. Ultimately, he probably would have badgered her into calling Bennett to try and patch things up with him.

She wanted things patched up with Bennett. She did. Which was why she was here in the bar, alone.

She frowned and edged up to the bar, sitting gingerly on one of the tall stools. For somebody who really wasn’t a big bar person she sure did end up spending a lot of time in them. She didn’t do much drinking, and she didn’t especially like loud environments. But all of her friends seemed to. So when everyone went out after work they inevitably ended up either at Ace’s in Copper Ridge or here.

Laz Jenkins, the owner of the bar, sidled down to her end, a broad smile on his face. “Good evening, Olivia. Your usual?”

Her usual was a Diet Coke. She sighed. “Yes.” She looked down at the scarred bar top, at the contrast between her perfectly manicured hands and the rough-hewn wood. Then she looked up at Laz’s broad back. “Thank you,” she added, because she realized she had forgotten her manners. And Olivia Logan never forgot her manners.

It was early, and the bar was mostly empty, but she knew that they would be here. If she had wanted to avoid them, she would have gone down into Copper Ridge. Actually, if she had wanted to avoid them she would have gone home.

Her phone buzzed and she looked down.

Are you home yet?

It was from her mother. She lived in a little house on her parents’ property, so her mother probably had a fairly good idea that she wasn’t home.

No.

Will you be late?

Olivia sighed and brought up the little phone icon next to her mother’s name. “I’m at the saloon,” she said crisply when her mother picked up.

“Okay,” her mom responded.

“Is everything all right?” She always defaulted to worry. Which was funny, because Tamara Logan also defaulted to worry automatically. Olivia knew why. It was Vanessa’s fault. But Vanessa wasn’t within reach, which meant that Olivia was the focus of all her parents’ concern.

In high school, one slip in her GPA and her parents had been terrified she was on the same dark path as her sister. They were twins, after all. And if Vanessa was susceptible, why wouldn’t Olivia be, too?

She’d been treated like a rebellious teenager when she’d never once set a foot out of line.