Smooth-Talking Cowboy Read online

  She hopped out of the red truck as quickly and delicately as possible, but even so, her skirt hiked itself up a few inches above her knees. She hurriedly pulled it down, and when she chanced a look back at Luke, she saw that he was looking at her a bit avidly. He smiled, and that same flipping sensation she had felt in her stomach when she had first spotted his truck made an irritating return.

  “I still have your number from the beach trip,” he said, referencing a time over the summer when a group of them had driven in a caravan over to the coast for a beach barbecue that she had ultimately found a bit too sandy to enjoy. “I’ll text you. Let you know how things go with your car.”

  “Thank you,” she said, trying to avoid sounding wooden and uptight, both things she had been accused of being several times over.

  He was actually being nice, even if he was mixing some annoyance with it.

  “You are very welcome.” He reached up, grabbed the brim of his hat and tipped it slightly, and she felt something inside of her tip in response.

  “I’ll look for that text.” She gripped her bag tightly and walked quickly toward the refurbished barn that was now a rustic but elegant dining room.

  When she walked in, both Lindy Parker and her ex-sister-in-law, Sabrina Leighton, were standing at the window, staring out of it, and then turned to look at her with curious expressions on their faces.

  “What?” Olivia asked, blinking.

  “Who was that?”

  “No one,” Olivia said, and then suddenly realized how all of it looked. Her denial hadn’t helped. “I got a flat tire.”

  Lindy only stared, and Sabrina’s mouth quirked upward at the corner. “And you hitchhiked here?”

  “No. I know him. I mean, he did pick me up on the side of the road. But, he’s...a family friend.” Of Bennett’s family, but she didn’t add that last part. Because it only underscored just how tangled up her life was with Bennett Dodge, and the whole rest of the Dodge family. That Luke was embroiled in her life simply because she had spent so much time at the dude ranch growing up.

  Because her father and Bennett’s father had always been so close, and because Olivia had carried a torch for Bennett for her entire childhood, all through high school, and then finally, that torch had become something real after college.

  Her memories, her connections... She had so few that weren’t involved in the Dodge family in some way. And now she wasn’t really involved with them anymore.

  Her thoughts had gone off track, and she had a feeling that Lindy and Sabrina were interpreting her silence to mean something different.

  Lindy’s follow-up question confirmed that. “A family friend?”

  “Yes. He rescued me and is going to fix my car. Which seems really nice, but since he was on his way to Tolowa, it was actually just logical.”

  “Okay,” Lindy said, clearly disbelieving.

  Olivia sighed, and then her eye caught sight of something glittering on Sabrina’s finger. “Sabrina. What is that?”

  Sabrina curled her hands into fists. “We don’t have to talk about it, not if you don’t want.”

  Olivia didn’t have to answer, because she knew exactly what it was. An engagement ring. Which meant that Sabrina’s boyfriend of almost no time at all had already proposed to her.

  Because apparently Olivia Logan was the only person in the entire county who was commitment proof.

  “Congratulations,” Olivia said, forcing a smile for as long as she could before turning away to keep from crying. She shed her long coat and hung her purse up on the peg, then took a deep breath, closing her eyes. She was not going to be a baby about this. She was going to be happy for her friend.

  The whole world didn’t stop just because she was going through a heartbreak, and she knew that. She still had to go to work, people still had to get engaged, her tire was still going to go flat, and Luke Hollister was still going to be a pain. Life went on. The world still turned.

  “Thank you,” Sabrina said, smiling. “It’s hard to believe. Especially since until a couple of months ago I was mostly convinced that I hated Liam. And now I’m marrying him.”

  Those words hit Olivia in a funny way. Because she had never been confused about her feelings, not like that. She had always known that she loved Bennett Dodge. The same way that she’d always known she had to work to make her parents proud. To make sure she didn’t cause them worry. The same way she had known since high school she wanted—needed—to be different than her sister. Better.

  Olivia was, and always had been, confident in her feelings.

  When she felt something it was set in stone. Just like she had always known that she didn’t like whiskey, shellfish or Luke Hollister. And that was just how it was.

  CHAPTER TWO

  BY THE TIME Luke Hollister pulled his truck into the driveway of Get Out of Dodge, it was lunchtime, and he had been paying closer attention to his texts than he would like to admit.

  Just in case Olivia needed a ride.

  He shook his head as he took a left in the long driveway and pulled around to the back of the property to the heavy equipment barn.

  It was an involuntary reaction that he had to her. One he’d had for the past seven years or so. She always caught his attention when she was in the room. Like a shiny lure dangling in front of a fish.

  He made her mad. She didn’t like him, and that fascinated him. Everybody liked him. He could charm the panties off any woman and stay friends with her afterward. It was his gift.

  But not Olivia Logan.

  He got out of his truck and rounded to the back, opening the tailgate, a loud, rusted sound filling the air as it lowered. A smile curved his lips, imagining Olivia’s prissy little self sitting in the cab of his truck earlier today.

  She’d looked like she was terrified she was going to get his uncouthness on her, and she’d seemed particularly horrified by the thought.

  And for some damned reason that thought made his gut tight, made his blood run a little bit hotter and a little bit faster.

  Hell no. That woman was off-limits for a host of reasons. Starting with he didn’t get involved with women who wanted more than a night of fun and ending somewhere around her being Bennett Dodge’s ex-girlfriend.

  Bennett was like a brother to him and there was no way in hell he was stepping in the middle of that.

  He let out a long, slow breath, visible in the frigid cold air, and started to unload the bed of the truck. Wyatt had insisted they had to start making a little bit more of a show out of the place, so he’d been sent to pick up curtains, bed sets and rugs.

  It was Wyatt’s show, after all.

  The Dodge family might feel like his own in some ways, but he wasn’t part of them, not really. Still, if a man could become blood brother to a place, he had certainly become family with Get Out of Dodge. Enough of his own blood had soaked into the dirt, and he had absorbed a hell of a lot of its dust into his lungs.

  Not that he and Wyatt were at odds when it came to what to do with the ranch. But sometimes Luke felt nostalgic for how it had been ten years ago. When he’d first arrived with no knowledge of how to work a ranch, no money in his pocket and no one on earth who cared if he was dead or alive. Back then, Quinn Dodge had run the place. The patriarch of the Dodge family was a gruff, no-frills kind of man, and Luke had appreciated his method of doing things.

  Wyatt Dodge wasn’t a frilly guy himself. The oldest of the Dodge children was just pragmatic. He had recognized that with the influx of tourism coming into the neighboring coastal town of Copper Ridge, they could certainly capture some of that for Gold Valley. Luke agreed. But he also resented the fact that the back of his truck was filled with doilies.

  “You got the stuff,” Wyatt said, walking into the shed and wiping his forehead with his forearm.

  “I did,” Luke said. “And, I think we should make Ja
mie get all of the rooms decorated. Tell her it’s women’s work.”

  “Right. I’m not in the mood to die at the hands of my little sister, thanks. She would probably hit me in the face with a shovel and ask me if that’s women’s work, too.” Wyatt leaned back, stretching and then grunting, putting his hand down on his lower back. “You know what else is a stupid idea?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Riding bulls into your midthirties. My back was ready to quit way before I was.”

  There was a lot of money to be had in the rodeo as long as a man was good at what he did, and as long as he was smart with the money he made. Wyatt Dodge was smart. “Good thing you gave it all up to become an interior designer at your dude ranch,” he said.

  Wyatt snorted. “You hungry?”

  “Starving.”

  “If you want to head on over to the mess hall there’s some leftover chili in there.”

  The food situation was another issue they were actively working to sort out. Wyatt had been searching for a cook that could provide an authentic dude-ranch-type experience, but could do it in an elevated kind of way. At least, those were the words that he had used. That was another thing that Luke was fine with as it was.

  Luke didn’t particularly like change.

  He didn’t think the place needed to change. He’d spent his childhood entertaining himself. Riding his bike outside alone for hours, and when the weather was bad, inside watching old Westerns on the classic movie channel.

  He’d always wanted to be a cowboy. A man who lived for the land. Who lived for honor and riding off into sunsets.

  Then he’d moved to Gold Valley and found that dream at Get Out of Dodge. Now he felt like it was slipping away, along with his place in it.

  Silently, he followed Wyatt into the kitchen, got down a bowl and filled it up with a good measure of chili, then piled a bunch of cheese and sour cream on top. Then, the two of them walked back out into the empty dining room and took seats at one of the long tables.

  The benches weren’t the most comfortable seats, it had to be said, but it was familiar. Home, as far back as he liked to remember.

  The doors opened again, and in came Bennett, followed by Grant, Wyatt’s younger brothers who had decided to go all in on the ranch when Wyatt had started this reinvigoration process.

  “I’m starving,” Grant said. “Chili?”

  “What does it look like?” Wyatt asked.

  “Like you got up on the wrong side of the bed,” he returned.

  “Don’t ask stupid questions of a man who has been up since before dawn.”

  Bennett snorted. “You’re always like this. Don’t go blaming a lack of sleep. Anyway, this is your venture, jackass. The rest of us are just along for the ride.”

  “No one made you come. You got on the ride.” Wyatt spread his arms wide. “Get off at any time.”

  “Right,” Grant said, “because there were a field full of options available to me.”

  All of the Dodge brothers had spent their lives working the ranch in some capacity or another while supplementing their incomes with other work over the years. Grant had gotten married at eighteen and had taken a job working at the power company, where he had worked his way up over the years, needing a place that provided benefits because his wife had been sick.

  He had carried on working there even after Lindsay had died. But when Quinn Dodge had remarried and retired abruptly a year ago, and Wyatt had decided that it was his time to try and give the ranch new life, Grant and Jamie had both decided to go all in with him.

  Bennett, on the other hand, had a thriving veterinary practice working on ranch animals. But still, because he was his own boss, working with his friend Kaylee Capshaw, he did get to determine his own hours, and that meant he was able to invest time and a decent amount of money into the ranch.

  Also, the fact that they had their own vet was damned helpful.

  As for Luke, for him it had always been Get out of Dodge. But the more it changed, the more the Dodge children took control, the more he realized it had never really been his.

  “Hey,” Wyatt said to Grant, “you had a desk job. A lot of men would like a desk job.”

  “Yeah, those men have never had one,” Grant said drily, moving to the dining room and heading toward the kitchen. Bennett followed close behind.

  “You keep giving them a hard time and they are going to mutiny,” Luke commented.

  Wyatt lifted a shoulder. “They won’t.”

  That was Wyatt all over. Sure of his place in the world. Sure of his authority.

  Bennett and Grant returned and took their seats at the table with their bowls of chili.

  “I’ve got vaccinations in a couple of hours,” Bennett said. “So, if you have anything you need me to get done, now’s the time to ask.”

  “What’s that for?” Grant asked, “Rabies?”

  “Scabies,” Wyatt said, “probably.”

  “I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” Bennett said.

  “Why?” Luke asked, figuring it was time to join in the harassment of the youngest Dodge brother. “Is it something worse? A below-the-belt issue?”

  “Vaccinating a litter of puppies,” he said.

  “You coming out drinking tonight?” Wyatt asked. The question was directed at Bennett. “Because you really should. Considering you’re a free agent now.”

  “You never harass Grant about being a free agent.”

  Grant let out a harsh breath. “Because I’m not really.”

  “You should,” Luke said to Bennett. Eager to smooth over that momentary rough patch. That was what he did. It was why people liked him around. “You can come, too, Grant. At least just because there’s alcohol.”

  “Not my thing,” Grant responded.

  Luke wasn’t going to press it. In his opinion, it was time for Grant to move on. Lindsay had died eight years ago. Of course, that was an easy conclusion for him to draw, since he had never been in love before. He didn’t know what it was like to lose someone he felt that way about.

  He had lost his mother, but that was different.

  “Since when is beer not your thing?” Bennett asked.

  “I like to do my drinking alone,” Grant answered.

  “That’s concerning,” Wyatt said.

  Grant lifted a shoulder. “I’m concerning. That’s not a newsflash. Anyway, you guys go out. Drink. I’m going to go home like an old person and sit in front of the TV.”

  Luke didn’t see the appeal in that at all. But then, he wasn’t a huge fan of solitude in general. He found that the louder it was, the less he had time to think. And he liked that. In general, he preferred to drink or fuck until he fell asleep. Because the alternative was to lie there and let memories chase around in his head like rabid foxes.

  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.”

  “Lind
say 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.”