a great idea,” Sierra said. She reached out and put delicate fingers on Jack’s shoulder, and everything in Kate curled into a tight hissing ball. She did not like that.
“I can’t take much credit,” Jack said. Except he really should have been taking all the credit.
“I’d love to participate in a barrel racing event,” Sierra went on.
Jack cleared his throat and took a step away from their little huddle. “Well, just give Kate a call about it and she’ll add your name.”
“And anything else I can do to help...”
“We’ve got it,” Jack said.
Sierra looked confused at Jack’s short reply, as though no man had ever turned down the opportunity to spend extra time with her. “Okay. I will...call Kate, then.”
Jack nodded, his jaw tense. And Kate was perversely satisfied by the fact that Jack didn’t seem at all enticed by Sierra’s clear interest.
On the heels of her satisfaction came annoyance at said satisfaction. Jack could do what he wanted with whoever he wanted.
Though Sierra was one of her few female friends and she had to admit it would be weird if the other woman was sleeping with someone Kate was so close to.
Jack. Sleeping with Sierra.
Immediately, she pictured a messy bed and a tangle of limbs. Jack’s big hands running down a bare back. Long hair spread out over a white pillowcase. Only, for some reason, the woman in her vision wasn’t a blonde with a riot of luxurious curls. Instead she had straight dark hair...
Kate bit down on the inside of her cheek. “Yes,” Kate managed to force out, “call me.”
“Hey, some of us are headed to Ace’s,” Sierra said. “You want to come?”
“I came with Jack...”
“That’s fine,” Jack said, cutting her off. “She can go. We’ll both go.”
“Great.” Sierra smiled brightly. “See you there.”
Kate rounded on Jack, the tension from earlier taking that easy turn into irritation. “Did you just give me permission to go somewhere?”
“I’m your ride.”
“Yes. My ride. Not my dad.”
He chuckled. “Oh, honey, I don’t think for one second that I’m your dad.”
“Stop calling me that,” she said, ignoring the rash of heat that had broken out on her skin when he’d spoken the endearment.
It made her angry because she was not his honey. Not now, not ever. She clenched her teeth and her fists, turned, and walked out of the room, headed out into the warm evening air.
“I can’t call you honey, I can’t call you Katie. I can’t win,” he said, his voice coming from behind her.
She turned around to face him. “You could call me Kate. That’s my name. That’s what everyone calls me.”
“Connor calls you Katie.”
A strange sort of desperation clawed at her chest. “Connor is my brother. If you haven’t noticed, you aren’t. Now let’s go to Ace’s.”
JACK WAS FEELING pretty irritated with life by the time he and Kate walked into Ace’s. He was pretty sure his half sister had attempted to make a pass at him, and Kate was acting like he’d put bugs in her boots.
He also couldn’t drink, because he was driving.
Irritated didn’t begin to cover it.
He was getting pretty sick and tired of Kate’s prickly attitude and now he’d gotten himself embroiled in a whole thing with a woman who was the human equivalent of a cactus.
He really needed the drink that he couldn’t have.
Though maybe if Kate had one, she would calm the hell down.
“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked.
“A Coke,” she said.
“You want rum in that?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because making an ass out of myself in front of a roomful of people is not on today’s to-do list. I’m a lightweight.”
He laughed. “Okay, I’m a little bit surprised that you would admit that.”
“Why?”
“You’re the kind of girl who always has to show the boys up. I would think you’d want to try to drink us under the table.”
She arched her brow. “I’m way tinier than you. I’m not drinking you under any table.”
“All right, one Coke for you.”
He turned and headed toward the bar, and to his surprise, she followed him rather than going over to the table where her friends were already seated. “Why are you buying me a drink?”
“I was hoping to trick you into getting drunk so you wouldn’t be so uptight,” he said, because he always said what was on his mind where Kate was concerned. Neither of them practiced tact in the other’s presence.
She sputtered. “I’m not uptight.”
“You’re something.”
Kate’s lip curled upward. “Now I don’t really want you to buy me a drink. I don’t like your motives.”
“I’m not going to sneakily give you a rum and Coke. I’m ordering you a soda.”
“But it was not born out of generosity.”
“Will you please stop making it impossible for me to do something nice for you.”
“But you aren’t doing something nice for me,” she insisted. “You were trying to...calm me. With booze.”
He turned, and Kate took a step back, pressing herself against the bar. He leaned forward, gripping the bar with both hands, trapping her between his arms. “Yes, Katie, honey, I was.”
Her dark eyes widened, her mouth dropping open. Color rose in her cheeks, her chest pitching sharply as she drew in a quick deep breath.
He looked at Kate quite a lot. He saw her almost every day. But he’d never really studied her. He didn’t know why in hell he was doing it now.
There wasn’t a trace of makeup on her face, her dark lashes long and thick but straight rather than curled upward to enhance her eyes. There was no blush added to her cheeks, no color added to her lips. It exemplified Kate. What you saw was what you got. Inside and out.
And for some reason the tension that had been gathering in his chest spread outward, spread around them, and he could feel a strange crackling between them. He wasn’t sure what it was. But one thing he was sure of. He’d made a mistake somewhere between calling her “honey” the first time, days ago, and the moment he’d pressed her up against the bar.
Everything he knew about her had twisted. The way Kate made him feel had shifted into something else, something new.
If it had been any other woman at any other moment, he might’ve called it attraction.
But this was Kate. So that was impossible.
And then the sort of dewy softness in her eyes changed, a kind of fierce determination taking over. She took a step away from the bar, a step closer to him, and reached up, gripping his chin with her thumb and forefinger, tugging hard, bringing his face nearer to hers. “Look, Jack,” she spat, hardening every syllable, “I