back into town all those years ago, it hadn’t felt quite like he’d imagined. Sure, the air was the same. The main street was the same. Most of the people were the same.
But he was different. He supposed that made everything else feel a little different, too.
You can’t go home again, and all that stuff.
He got into his truck, starting the engine. He had to stop back home, deposit his supplies, and then make his way over to the bar. Where he was sure to have another uncomfortable encounter. With a woman he felt decidedly unbrotherly toward.
He thought back to last night. To his close encounter with Sierra.
She wouldn’t beg. That was the thing. That was why he’d said that. To make it easy to keep his hands off her.
When she had closed the distance between them last night, when those delicate fingers brushed against the collar of his shirt, he had been certain of one thing. He wanted her. More than he could remember wanting any woman in recent years.
In fact, there had only ever been one woman like that in his memory. Only one woman he had ever lost his control with. One woman he had abandoned good sense to have.
And that had ended in a fiery crash of doom that had destroyed him and everything around it.
She wouldn’t beg. So he wouldn’t touch her. It was that simple.
And maybe tonight he would find another woman to take home. Someone who would help him take the edge off of this need, this arousal.
That was a much better thought than his family and Sierra combined.
He would focus on that, and forget the rest. He was good at forgetting the bad things. Everyone needed to have their strengths.
He cranked up the radio, turning up the country station. And he looked out the window at the view, that cleansing, perfect view. Misty clouds dropping low over the pine trees, casting everything in a muted shade of gray that extended down to the ocean, liquid fog stretching as far as the eye could see.
For a few blissful moments, there was nothing except the song on the radio, and that view.
And he definitely did not think about Sierra West.
* * *
SIERRA WAS KICKING ASS and taking names tonight. Well, she was kicking metaphorical ass and taking orders for food and drink. But in her world right now, it amounted to the same thing.
Everything felt a little more familiar tonight, and she didn’t feel quite so much like she was flailing around in the dark as she completed her tasks. And whenever she found herself not busy with customers, she went and folded bar towels. Because she knew how to do that. She also didn’t ask Ace for help.
After last night, she didn’t know how to deal with him. Well, really, she didn’t know how to deal with herself. When it came to Ace she was in a whole seascape of uncharted water. But at least she felt like she had some guideposts here in the bar.
She proudly delivered another order back to the kitchen, then set about to straightening up while she waited exactly five minutes to go check on her last table. She was determined to do an excellent job. And she was doing an excellent job.
She wasn’t a stranger to trying hard. She didn’t half-ass her horse riding. She took barrel racing seriously. Mostly because if she didn’t, she knew she could wind up flat on her back on the ground in the arena, getting trampled by her own steed. But she was starting to realize that life was a whole lot more like barrel racing than she had initially given it credit for.
And lo, she had been trampled by the steed.
But she was getting back up. That was important. If she was sticking with the horse analogies, then it meant that when you got thrown off life, you just had to get back on. She frowned. Well, she wasn’t exactly getting right back on. That implied going back to doing the same thing. She was changing things. Everything. She was after some kind of ownership in her daily existence. Because before this she’d had none. Everything belonged to her father, to the West family.
Well, she was going to get some things that belonged to her. Starting with this work experience.
She turned back around with her stack of folded bar towels, ready to put them under the counter, and paused when she saw her sister, Madison, standing there. “Maddy. What are you doing here?”
“Colton told me you were here.” Madison wrinkled her nose, tucking a strand of light brown hair behind her ear. “He said you had a job.”
“Yes.” She was still clutching the stack of towels. “This is my job.”
“You’re a...barmaid?”
“I’m not a barmaid. It’s not like I’m wearing lederhosen.”
“I don’t think you have to wear lederhosen to be a barmaid.” Madison held on to her purse, clutching it tightly in front of her, as though she was afraid if she released her hold on it she might have to touch something else. As though the place might infect her. “I think you just have to be a maid. Who works at a bar.”
“I’m serving tables.”
“You could just come home.”
Oh, there was the bottom line. “No, Madison,” she said, emphasizing her sister’s full name, which she rarely used, “I can’t. And you of all people should understand why.”
Madison’s expression turned to stone. “Whatever I’ve been through in the past isn’t really about this. I know that finding out about Dad hurt. It hurts me. Finding out that Jack is related to us, that he spent all of his life with nothing so the dick could protect his reputation... I don’t like it. And my staying is not an endorsement. But my life is at the ranch. I don’t see the point in burning everything down because of Dad. Mom is in the car...”
Sierra’s heart twisted. “How is she?”
“I think not as surprised as the rest of us. Upset. But you know she isn’t going to do anything.”
Her throat tightened. “I just can’t. I’m not upset at you, or Mom, or Colton for not... I just can’t.”
“Why? I mean, honestly, you’re right. If anyone was going to leave because of this, you would think it would be me. Cheating married men are basically my least favorite. But my business is tied to the West family ranch, and to Dad’s name. And I can’t just overlook everything that he’s done for us because of a mistake he made over thirty years ago. It’s a mistake that’s older than we are, Sierra. We’ve never known him before the mistake.”
“You keep calling it a mistake. But a mistake is something that happens once. And you don’t mean to do it. Every year, every birthday, he ignored Jack. And he kept on doing it year after year—”
“Don’t tell me you have warm fuzzy feelings for Jack Monaghan,” Madison said.
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“He was fine without involving himself in our business from where I’m standing. Anyway, I just don’t believe that’s the primary problem you have with Dad.”
“I don’t know. I don’t really know how I feel about Jack. That’s true enough. But... I’m a West. That’s what I am. My name is everything to me. It got me everywhere I’ve ever gone in life. But it isn’t what I thought it was. This whole reputation that Dad has constructed... How many lies is it built out of?”
Madison’s green eyes softened. “I know. I know that’s hard. But does it matter? Dad loves you. He loves us.”
“And he doesn’t love his other son. He...he sold him. Traded him for a spotless reputation. I understand why Mom can’t leave him. But I wish she would. I wish she would ask for better.”
“It isn’t that simple. Do you honestly think at this point being a sixty-year-old divorcée is better for Mom than just sticking it out with him? Colton