Rough Country (Tannen Boys Book 3) Read online

  Actually, there is some good information in what he shared, answering at least the first of my questions—why the hell Hank had let her behind the bar. If she’s a relative, it makes sense that he’d trust her. Why didn’t she just say so?

  Which leaves me to my second question . . . what’s she doing later tonight? Because I’d like to get to know her better.

  Maybe I can do something with Richard’s information. I give him a nod of appreciation and sip at my water, watching and waiting impatiently for her to come my way. The tension in my body rises with every customer she talks to, every lift of her lips for someone else, making it difficult to keep my ass on this stool. I want to stride right behind the bar and demand her attention again.

  Back and forth she goes, and after a few trips up and down the bar, I realize she’s intentionally avoiding me. She’s not even looking my way, skipping over my barstool as she scans customers.

  Fuck that. But I’ve got enough respect for Hank to not pass into the no-man zone of his behind-bar space. If I did, I would definitely get his Slugger to my knees because this bar is the only thing keeping me from backing Willow up against the long stretch of wood and learning everything about her. So I make the safe choice, something I’m not always known for.

  Waving her down, I see her throat work as she swallows, but she heads my way.

  “Another J.D.?”

  She thinks we’re keeping this all business. We’re most definitely not.

  “Yes, please.” I’m an asshole, but I’ve got manners, especially when I need them, and something tells me I’m going to need every trick I’ve got with Willow.

  While she pours, I try to engage her. “Richard says you’re Hank’s niece? That why he let you into the sacred space known as ‘behind the bar’?”

  “Yeah, though my years of experience as a bartender probably didn’t hurt.” Her eyes sparkle behind her glasses as she pricks back at my unflattering assumption. Well, if my sister, Shayanne, said that, it’d be a sarcastic snapback. Willow seems to just be stating facts.

  “Must be why he also said you’re a good bartender. Actually, his words were ‘damn good’. Which is high praise from him.”

  I swear there’s the slightest hint of pink on her cheeks, but it might be the neon lights. She looks down the bar and scolds with a single word. “Richard.” He grins and shrugs like ‘whatcha gonna do?’ and she rolls her eyes, any tiny bit of ire already evaporating as she laughs along with him like they’re old friends.

  I lean in. “Don’t be mad at him. He’s just trying to help me out.”

  She leans in too, elbows on the bar and head tilted my way. “You usually need help? Seems like you’ve got your pick of women to take home tonight.”

  That was most definitely an insult, the slight crinkle in her pixie nose clearly showing her distaste as she looks past me. I can imagine what she sees. Bar bunnies, mostly local girls, who see me as some sort of mythical unicorn-level creature, a dirt-roughened cowboy who sings about love and forever. The truth? I’ve seen love and I know it’s real, but I’ve never been in love myself. I figure I’ll know it when I feel it, though.

  “Not my style. I’m a pickier sort, and right now, I need all the help Richard can give me because I think I’m in real danger of striking out.” My eyes tick down to her pink lips, which tilt up ever so slightly, letting me know I’m not that close to the danger line.

  “What’s your type?” she says, barely louder than a whisper so that the conversation is just between us. “Maybe I can help you out too.”

  I scan her slowly. “A blonde with glasses, a nose I want to rub with mine, lips I want to taste, sweet smiles she hands out to everyone she sees, she heavy pours Jack Daniels for me, a new to town city girl I’d love to show around so she can take pictures of anything her heart desires.” Tension builds in the inches between us with my every word.

  I’m coming on hard, and I know it. I pray it’s not too much because this is me holding tight restraint over every caveman urge I have, gentling them for her as best I can.

  She ducks her chin for a second before lifting it again. Completely unaffected by my charm, she asks, “Does that usually work?”

  She doesn’t believe me, thinks I’m feeding her bullshit like some bar schmuck looking for a hookup. The worst part is that I’m telling the God’s honest truth.

  “Not a line. Mean every word.” I move my hand to my chest, feeling the racing thump against my palm. “Cross my heart.”

  She nods. “Uh-huh.” But she looks a little less sure that I’m being slick.

  Olivia reappears at the end of the bar. “You have no idea how much I hate to interrupt this, but three margaritas or table two is gonna riot.”

  The moment pops like a bubble and Willow stands upright. “Oh, sorry. I’ve got them.” She moves down to the other end of the bar, and I feel the loss of her, though she’s only a few feet away, her eyes focused on the mixers in front of her.

  “Not used to seeing you like this,” Olivia says, a question laced in the comment.

  “Okay.” Words aren’t my strong suit unless I’m singing them, and those take me weeks, or sometimes even months, to get just right.

  “Take it slow and don’t hurt her. She’s got something going on, something she’s not sharing.” Olivia follows my eyes down the bar, looking at Willow and seeming more like a big sister than the barely-adult she appears to be.

  “What makes you say that?”

  Olivia looks at me like I’m stupider than the goat on our farm that keeps getting stuck in the fence when she tries to escape.

  “A girl doesn’t up and leave her life for no good reason. So be easy with her. She’s not them.” She looks pointedly at table two, the margarita girls who are dressed up in miniskirts, fancy boots with fringe, and plunging necklines.

  “That’s why I’m sitting here and not there.”

  Olivia backhands my shoulder, pleased. “Good answer, Bobby.”

  Willow reappears, setting down three margaritas for Olivia, but before I can say a word, she’s off again. Back to ignoring me and doing her work.

  I get it, she’s busy. And I can wait. I’ve got nowhere better to be than right where she is, gleaning every tidbit of intel I can about this woman who has captured my attention more than anyone else ever has. And she’s barely said a word to me. There’s just something about her that is drawing me in.

  Magical threads pull me into you, and I swirl into your orbit, lost to anyone but you.

  Chapter 4

  Willow

  His eyes, dark as night and heavy with intention, follow me. I can feel them, the heat singeing me as I work.

  A couple of women have approached Bobby while he’s sitting at my bar, but both walked away after a few minutes of ignored conversation. My insides buzz a little because not only did he not talk to the women, he didn’t even look at them. Oh, no, those eyes stayed locked on me the whole time.

  At first, I’d discreetly checked to make sure I hadn’t had a nip slip or raccoon eyes, something that would explain the stare treatment, but the thumbs-up Olivia shot me told me loud and clear that Bobby’s attention wasn’t to gawk at the outsider. But rather that he’s interested . . . in me.

  That seems ridiculously unlikely, though.

  He’s a star, having held the entire room in his hand as he created a world of his own, inviting us into it in incremental bits with each song.

  I’ve never heard anything like him before, that deep and sultry voice making every emotion ring through my whole body, especially down low in my belly.

  I’ve never seen anything like him before, either, like he was supposed to be a pretty Hollywood boy but was born too rough and dark for anything prissy like that. He’s walking, talking, singing . . . sin.

  Currently, he’s also the last fifteen pictures on the camera gallery in my phone, not that I’ll show them to anyone or post them anywhere. Nope, those Bobby Tannen stage shots are all for me.

  As much
as I hate to admit it, I can’t help but look at him too, though I try to keep it to quick side glances. He’s broad-shouldered in the denim shirt he’s wearing with the sleeves rolled up to show his ropey forearms. I can honestly say I have never noticed a guy’s forearms until right this moment, but apparently, forearm porn is a very real thing. Who knew? Not me, for sure. He’s taken his cowboy hat off, setting it on the bar beside him, and his dark hair flips up at the ends in the back. His full lips are surrounded by a five o’clock shadow, and every once in a while, his fingers dance on the bar as though he’s playing a song. I wonder if it’s a habit and what song he’s hearing in his mind right now.

  He stays there for over an hour, watching and waiting like a hunter, which must make me his prey. Somewhere around the beginning of the second hour, I decide this isn’t a prank and eventually stop feeling like I’m going to trip over my own feet or drop a glass and make a fool of myself. Instead, his intense silence turns into some weird form of foreplay. He nurses the single glass of whiskey, shoots me a cocky half-smirk that promises filthy things when he catches me looking back at him, and basically manages to make it seem like we’re the only two people in the room.

  I swear I can feel his gaze along my skin, drinking me in and driving me wild. And that’s from several seats away as I do my best to keep up with the incoming orders since Unc disappeared to the back. He swore he was fine, just needed to catch up with some liquor orders, and promised to return for closing duties. I didn’t believe him, but I let him take the break he was unwilling to confess he needed.

  As things start to slow down and customers go home, some alone and some partnered off, I finally make my way back toward Bobby feeling like an out-of-her-league moth drawn not just to a single flame but to a huge bonfire.

  He’ll burn me. I know it as surely as I know the sun’s going to rise in a few hours. Hell, he’d probably destroy me, leaving ash in his wake as he sauntered on to the next groupie.

  So it’s a good thing I’m not here for him. I’m here for Unc, and I don’t need any distractions.

  Not even Bobby Tannen.

  “Couldn’t avoid me anymore?” His voice is gravel and grit, like he gargled sand for breakfast, followed it with a diet of black coffee and whiskey, and then screamed his throat raw. It sounds more animal than man, but I know that when he sings, honey coats that gruffness, making his words melt into your heart.

  “I wasn’t . . .” The words taper off at the sharp rise of his brow. I’m busted. I know it. He knows it too, so there’s no point in pretending. “Sorry.”

  “Apology accepted.” He blinks and it’s like it never happened. “You think about my offer?”

  My mind whirls, not sure what he’s asking because his eyes have been offering me all sorts of things. As if he knows exactly the thoughts going through my head, he leans closer and whispers, “For me to show you around town. I can take you to all the best spots for pictures.”

  How does he make ‘pictures’ sound like ‘sex’? Or is that just my mind dipping deep down into the gutter?

  I push my bangs to the side, slipping them behind my ear so that I can focus and see him better. Seeing inside people, past their fronts and defenses, is what makes me good at what I do . . . both behind the bar and behind the lens.

  On stage, he somehow seemed softer. Or vulnerable, maybe?

  But now, at the bar, it’s like he’s closed off part of himself, going hard, dark, and aggressively flirtatious. I can’t decide if I like it or if it scares the shit out of me.

  Instead of answering his question, I ask one of my own, going well beyond the standard superficiality of bar room flirtation and straight into date-seven territory, which is usually more than enough to scare off the typical beer drinker looking for a hookup. “What’s your happiest memory?”

  “Hmm, deep question. Is this a test?” He spreads his hands out wide on the bar, and I notice just how large they are. They’d seemed almost delicate when he played his guitar, but now I can see the scars and torn cuticles. Working man hands. “So we’re clear, I like it either way.” He waits a beat then clarifies, “Test or not.”

  He knows what I’m doing, trying to run him off, but he isn’t swayed in the least. If anything, he seems more intrigued by the too-personal question. Why does that smile of his feel like the sun is shining on me?

  “Maybe it’s what I ask everyone who sits at my bar? Something to focus on the good times,” I say coyly, both of us knowing I don’t ask people that. But I asked him.

  And not because I’m trying to run him off but because I’m flirting with him.

  Me, Willow Parker, a quiet and invisible mouse, flirting with Bobby Tannen, the big, growly lion. Maybe he’ll let you check out his thorn?

  My mind is so weird sometimes.

  One of his dark eyebrows raises as if he’s reading my mind and agreeing with my assessment of my own oddity. But he answers my original question. “My eighteenth birthday, I was an asshole kid who thought he knew everything. Only one thing in my life kept me from the really stupid shit. Music.” He glances over his shoulder toward the stage and points to his guitar case, sounding a bit wistful as he continues. “My family saved to get me a new guitar. It wasn’t so much the guitar, though. When I opened that wrapping paper and saw Betty, I could feel their support. I still do every time I play.”

  “Your parents must be proud of you.”

  He shrugs heavily. “They’re both passed now. But I like to think so. Mom’s probably two-stepping around a cloud, pissing off the angels with her loud clapping and whistling.” He smiles like that image speaks to him, but there’s a tinge of sadness to it. He doesn’t mention his father, so neither do I. People are open books about some things and not others, and I learned long ago to be okay with that.

  “She sounds like fun,” I tell him.

  He lays his hand back on the bar, his pinky finger a bare inch from mine. I’m acutely aware of the small space, wondering if the heat I feel is radiating from him or my insides melting to mush and racing out to my extremities. “What about you? Happiest memory?”

  Tit for tat seems fair, I guess, especially since I started this round.

  “My first paycheck from photography. Not because I needed the money, though I did splurge on a fancy dinner. No ramen noodles that night. No, this girl got a whole rotisserie chicken,” I joke, remembering how I’d eaten the whole thing with my hands while sitting on the floor because I didn’t have a couch yet. More seriously, I say, “But like you, it was that it symbolized something greater. That my art was worth something, that I was worth something.”

  “What was it a picture of?”

  I shake my head, feeling ridiculous for getting choked up over something so trivial. “Something stupid. It wasn’t that. It was what it meant to me.”

  His eyes narrow, his voice going impossibly deeper. “What was it?” he demands.

  I sigh, already knowing I’m going to tell him. “Promise not to make fun of it?” He doesn’t agree, but I say it anyway. “A doughnut. A close-up of a big pink doughnut with multi-colored sprinkles.”

  He laughs, a deep, rusty chuckling sound that forces a smile to my face.

  “Don’t laugh at me. It was a big deal. That doughnut got me a whole chicken!” And now I can’t help but laugh too. “It had the doughnut shop owner’s wife smiling in the background too, so proud of her doughnut baby.”

  “Doughnut. Baby.” He repeats my words, and we both laugh harder, our heads getting closer as we share in the private joke.

  The moment freezes, and I suddenly become very aware that he’s moved his pinky finger over mine and our mouths are inches apart. He licks his lips, and I know with every fiber of my being that he’s going to kiss me. I’m waiting, ready, damn near holding my breath in anticipation of tasting him, of being under him if only for a kiss across a sticky bar.

  Bar.

  Oh! The bar.

  And the world outside the bubble I was in with Bobby comes roaring ba
ck into focus. I pull back, my hands feeling the instant cold at the loss of contact with him. “Work. I have to . . . work.”

  His lips part ever so slightly on an exhale, and I know he was just as primed for that kiss as I was. But he lets me go.

  Just in time, too, because Unc comes around the corner calling out, “Last call. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

  “Do you even know that song?” My words are too fast, but not as fast as my heart is racing.

  “What song?” he grunts, passing me to get back into his sacred space behind the bar. “Would you help Olivia out and do a round of bussing glasses so we can get out of here tonight?”

  That’s the first time Unc has asked for my help nicely instead of bossing me around as though my very presence is somehow both welcome and unwelcome at the same time. I’m calling it progress.

  “Sure thing.”

  I grab a dish tub and start my way around the room, grabbing empties as I go and letting my mind race away.

  What was that? What just happened? Oh, my God, I almost kissed Bobby Tannen. It is a well-known fact that hot musicians do not kiss girls like me. Nope, never happens. But it did. Well, almost.

  Distracted, I lean over table nine, trying not to interrupt the guys’ conversation. But the blond closest to me runs the back of his hand up my arm and a creepy shiver runs down my spine.

  “Hi there.” He’s not drunk, or at least he’s not slurring and his eyes are focused. But he’s clearly lost his ever-loving mind.