Her Forever Cowboy

Alisha frowned. The dark-haired man was making it sound as if he was doing a good thing. “How noble of you.”

Brett didn’t rise to the bait. He was not about to argue with the woman. He wasn’t in the business of changing people’s minds, only in telling it the way he saw it. “Dunno about noble, but it does keep everyone alive,” he informed her.

Dan lightly took hold of Alisha’s arm, wanting to usher her out while the young doctor who could very well be the answer to his prayers was still willing to remain in Forever and lend him a hand.

Glancing over her head, he indicated to Brett that he had a feeling that if his new recruit remained here, talking to him for a few more minutes, she might be on the first flight out of the nearby airport—headed back to New York.

“Next stop, Miss Joan’s Diner,” Dan announced.

“Hey, Lady Doc,” Brett called after her. Pausing by the door, she turned to spare him a glance. “Nice meeting you.”

“Yes,” she replied coolly. “You, too.” The door closed behind them.

“Wow, if that was any colder, we’d have to bring out the pickaxes to break up the ice around you,” Liam commented.

Brett saw no reason to dispute that assessment. However, true to his ever increasingly optimistic, positive nature, he pointed out, “That means that we can only go up from here.”

Liam shook his head. It was clear that wasn’t what he would have come away with. “You know, Brett, when I was a kid, I never thought of you as being the optimistic type.”

“When you were a kid, you never thought,” Brett reminded him with an infectious, deep laugh. Then he pretended to regard his brother for a moment before saying, “Come to think of it, you haven’t really changed all that much—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Liam said, shaking his head as he waved away his brother’s comment. Glancing toward the door, he asked Brett, “Think she’ll stay? She didn’t look too impressed with the place.”

“Neither was Dan when he first arrived,” Brett reminded his brother. “But Forever’s got a lot of positive things going for it, and besides, it’s got a way of growing on people.”

“Yeah,” Liam laughed shortly as he went back to checking out the musical instruments. “Well, so does fungus.”

“And that, little brother, is one of the reasons why no one’s ever going to come up to you and ask you to write the travel brochure for Forever,” Brett said wryly.

Liam looked at him quizzically. “Forever’s got a travel brochure?”

Brett sighed and shook his head. “Sometimes, Liam, I do despair that all that higher education you were supposed to acquire while I was here, slaving away to pay the bills, was just leaking out your ear as fast as it went in.”

Liam frowned at his brother, but his mood left as quickly as it had materialized. Ever since he was a child, it was a known fact that Liam didn’t have it in him to stay mad at anyone, least of all his brothers.

Finished with what he was doing, Liam went on to step two of his process. “I’ve got to go round up the band and make sure everything’s set for tonight.”

Brett nodded as he went back to cleaning an already gleaming counter. He wasn’t content until there were at least two coats of polish on it, buffed and dried.

“You do that, Liam,” he told his brother. “You do that—just as long as you remember to get back here by six.”

Liam stopped just short of opening the front door. “I don’t go on until nine,” he reminded Brett.

“Right,” Brett agreed, sparing his brother a glance before getting back to polishing, “but you’re tending bar at six. Tonight’s our busy night,” he added in case Liam had lost track of the days, “and I can’t manage a full house alone.”

“Get Finn,” Liam told him. “He doesn’t have anything else to do.”

Brett caught his brother’s meaning. That he felt he had found his calling and wanted to be free to put all his energy toward it.

“Don’t belittle your brother just because he hasn’t found his heart’s passion yet,” Brett chided. “It doesn’t come to everyone at the same time.”

“How about you, Brett? What’s your passion?” Liam asked.

“I like running the bar.” He made no apologies for it. His running the bar had been the family’s saving grace. Rather than feel restrained by it, he was grateful for it and enjoyed being the one in charge of the place.

But Liam looked at him in disbelief. “And that’s it? Nothing else?”

Brett took no offense at the incredulous tone. Liam was young and couldn’t understand anyone who had a different focus, or aspirations that differed from his. He’d learn, Brett thought.

Out loud he said, “I like having my brothers pitch in without having to listen to some complicated internal argument that they feel obliged to repeat for me out loud.”

Liam’s handsome baby face scrunched up for a moment, as if thinking took every shred of concentration he had at his disposal. “That’s supposed to put me in my place, isn’t it?” he asked.

Brett flashed a tolerant grin at him. “Nice to know that all my money for your higher education wasn’t completely misplaced. Okay, go,” he said, waving Liam out the door. “Get your band ready and get back here by six.”

The expression on Liam’s face testified that he’d thought this argument had been resolved in his favor. “But—”

Brett pretended he didn’t hear his brother’s protest.

“With luck, I’ll get Finn to help. He doesn’t whine,” he added for good measure.

“Oh, he whines. You just don’t hear him” were Liam’s parting words.

But Brett had already tuned him out. There were still things to see to before Murphy’s officially opened its doors for the evening.

Chapter Two (#ulink_d46b0858-98b7-5d0a-8e0a-980338a1f6a5)

“It’s open, but I’m not serving yet,” Brett called out in response to the light knock on the saloon’s front door.

He thought it rather unusual that anyone would be knocking rather than just trying the doorknob and walking in. Most everyone in town knew that the door was unlocked not just during normal business hours—hours that extended way into the night—but also during nonbusiness hours if any one of the Murphys were down on the ground floor. The only time the doors were locked was if they were all out or if one of them was upstairs.

The upper floor housed a small apartment that had once been occupied by Patrick Murphy, their father’s older brother, when he was alive and running the family establishment. Although Brett and his brothers lived in a house close to Murphy’s, there were times when Brett stayed in the apartment after putting in an exceptionally long night, too tired to walk home. And there were those times when he just wanted to grab a little time away from everyone in order to recharge batteries that were almost perpetually in use.

“That’s fine because I’m not drinking yet,” Olivia Santiago replied as she walked into Murphy’s.

Turning around to look at the tall, slender blonde, one of Forever’s two lawyers, Brett was more than a little surprised to see the woman here at this hour—and alone. It wasn’t even noon.

He stopped restocking and came to the bar closest to the front door. “And to what do I owe the pleasure of having the sheriff’s wife grace my establishment?”

“I’m not here as Rick’s wife,” Olivia told him, sliding onto a bar stool.

Brett reached for a bottle of ginger ale, knowing that was the lawyer’s beverage of choice before six o’clock. Taking a glass, he filled it and then moved it in front of her, before pouring one for himself.

He took into account the way she was dressed. Olivia had on a dark gray jacket and a straight matching skirt. A soft pink shirt added a touch of warmth to her appearance. Nonetheless, she was dressed for business.

“Then this is an official visit?” he surmised.

“If you mean am I here as a lawyer, the answer’s yes,” she confirmed, then paused to take a sip.