eight
gage had worked late today so everyone had gone ahead without him. He could barely find a spot in the parking lot. And when he walked in, the scene rocked him back on his boots.
The bar in town was packed. Even for a typical Friday night, it was full up and people were crowded in like cattle in a chute. It was the busy season and new hands had hired on. Gage scooted inside and looked around to see who was there that he knew.
Hell, everyone was there. Mason and Walker nodded as he walked by the pool tables; several other hands were playing poker, and a couple were hitting on women.
Gage moved through the bar, surveying the strangers that mingled with the people he’d known since he’d been at the Bar M. For the first time in a lot of years, there were people he called his friends.
And didn’t that set off warning bells.
He wasn’t the type to set down roots. He liked people well enough to get by, but he didn’t get close to them. Drifting from one job to another suited him just fine. Staying in one place too long meant you’d get attached. And getting attached only spelled trouble. He’d long ago vowed never to get serious about anything, whether it be a place or a thing or especially a woman.
People might say they loved you, but Gage had personal experience in that department. Love was for fools, just a word people threw around when they wanted something from you. If you kept your distance and didn’t get close to people, you didn’t get hurt.
Gage was going to make sure never to fall into that trap. Love was nothing but trouble. Freedom was everything.
Speaking of trouble, he spotted Brea moving through the crowd. She sashayed over to her sisters, who were leaning against the bar talking to Sandy, the bartender. Brea wore a pair of tight jeans that molded to her ass, a green tank top that brought out the fiery red in her hair, and earrings that glittered despite the smoke in the bar. Damn, she looked good enough to eat.
The past few days they’d spent almost all their time together. She’d started helping him with horse training, claiming she was interested in what he did. He figured Jolene had given up on Brea paying attention to any ranch duties since she always seemed to want to be close to the corral where Gage was training.
Even tonight she’d wanted to linger behind and wait for him, but he wasn’t sure he’d even get done in time to make it to the bar, so he told her to go with her sisters, and she’d reluctantly agreed. She hadn’t wanted to leave him.
Not that he minded that. When she wasn’t around, he missed her and wondered what she was doing and where she was. Which was bad. Really bad. He never thought about women other than when he was with them. Out of sight, out of mind.
Except with Brea. Out of sight, on his mind. And that sent the warning bell clanging even louder.
Brea tilted her head back and laughed at something Sandy said. Brea had a beautiful laugh, and now that she’d come out of her shell, everything about her seemed to sparkle with life and laughter. He thought she’d been beautiful before, but now she sizzled.
And apparently others had started to notice Brea, too. While Valerie and Jolene headed out to the dance floor, Brea was left alone with Sandy. When Sandy went to fill a drink order down the bar, two guys moved up on either side of Brea, both leaning in to speak to her.
She looked kind of surprised, but she smiled at both of them and didn’t seem uncomfortable. One of the guys signaled Sandy with a twirl of his fingers for another round for all three of them. Brea sat on the bar stool and accepted the beer one of them handed her.
The guy on the left, tall and lanky with a smile meant to charm the ladies, pulled up a seat next to Brea and leaned in, his body language loud and clear as he leaned his arm on the bar so it would brush Brea’s shoulders. The other one, with long shaggy blond hair, tipped his hat back and stuck out his chest, straddled his bar stool and crowded Brea.
She didn’t seem all that crowded, though. She was laughing.
Gage’s hand balled into a fist and he thought of a hundred different ways he’d like to castrate the two cowboys.
“Looks like a couple of greenhorns are trying to muscle in on your woman,” Mason said as he and Walker moved up on either side of him.
“Yeah,” Walker said, laying a hand on Gage’s shoulder. “And you don’t seem too happy about that. So what are you going to do about it?”
His woman. They saw Brea as his woman. Was he that obvious? Maybe it was the clenched fist or the tight set of his jaw. Things between him and Brea had gone further than he’d thought they would. It was time to pull on the reins, hard.
He relaxed and shrugged. “She’s not my woman.”
Mason coughed and muttered, “Bullshit.”
Walker laughed and slapped him on the back. “You trying to convince us, or yourself?”
He leaned back against a thick column and crossed his arms. “Brea can do whatever she wants with whoever she wants. We just had some fun together, that’s all.”
“Uh huh. Keep talkin’, Gage. In the meantime, those cowboys are rustlin’ your filly.”
He wouldn’t look. He didn’t. Not until Walker and Mason tired of giving him a hard time and went back to the pool table. Then his gaze shot back to the bar stool where Brea . . . had been sitting. She wasn’t there anymore.
Neither were the two guys.
Goddammit. Where was she?
“Were you planning on hiding from me tonight?”
He whirled around to find Brea standing behind him. He smiled down at her. “I’d never hide from you. You looked busy.”
“Oh, those guys?” She rolled her eyes. “They swooped in and hit on me like they’d been living in the desert and hadn’t seen a woman in years. They were kind of obvious.”
“Is that right.”
“Yes.” She hooked her arm in his. “I wasn’t interested.”
“Why not?”
She stilled, then tilted her head back, a look of surprise on her face. “Duh, cowboy. Because I already have the man I want.”
Gage’s gut clenched. “Uh, Brea, I think we should talk.”
She frowned. “About what?”
“About you and me. But not here. Let’s go outside.”
“Okay.”
He led her outside, where it was quieter, but part of the crowd had spilled outside to smoke and talk, which meant they still didn’t have enough privacy. “How about we sit in my truck?”
They slid into the front seat, and Brea snuggled across the bench to sit next to him. She laid her hand on his thigh. “This is nice. Want to make out like teenagers?”
Dammit, he loved her sense of humor, the way she’d broken out of her shell and how comfortable she was in her own skin now. He loved everything about her. Which was why he was going to have to hurt her. Otherwise, he might start thinking he’d like to stick around, keep his job on the Bar M just so he could be near her. He might start thinking he was falling in love with her. And Gage was never going to fall in love.
“Darlin’, we’ve had a lot of fun together . . .”
Her smile died and she removed her hand from his lap. “Why do I think there’s a ‘but’ about to follow those words?”
“Brea, I made no secret of the fact that I’m not the kind of guy to settle down.”
She shifted to face him, but he saw it as her inching away from him. “I don’t recall asking you to marry me, Gage.”
“I know you didn’t. But I know where this is going between you and me. And I can’t go there with you. I can’t be the kind of guy you need.”
She slid farther away, her face showing her pain. He hated doing this to her, but better now than later. “Really. And what kind of guy is it that you think I need?”
He moved toward her, lifted her chin so she’d be forced to look at him, so she’d read the truth in his eyes. “Someone who’ll love you like you deserve to be loved. Someone who’ll be there for you every day, who won’t leave you.”
“You’re leaving.”
He shrugged. “Sooner or later, yeah. I don’t put down roots. I like to keep my life fluid.”
Her eyes filled with tears and she blinked a few times. He knew she was trying to keep from crying, which only twisted his insides more. He wanted to pull her against him and hold her, kiss her, tell her he didn’t mean anything he just said. He wanted to take a chance for the first time in his life, and tell her how he really felt.
But he couldn’t.
“So you’re ending things with me now so I don’t get hurt later.”
“Something like that.”
“How utterly noble of you, Gage, sparing my feelings like this. I mean, I’m sure women fall in love with you all the time, so you must be used to this.”
“Brea . . .”
She held up her hand. “Please, don’t bother trying to placate me. I’m so glad you told me before I did something stupid, like tell you how grateful I am for everything you’ve done for me, for making me feel like the woman I always wanted to be but never thought I could be. How, thanks to you, I don’t feel like a wallflower anymore, and that’s why those men approached me tonight. It was because you showed me I’m attractive and worthy of being desired. It’s just too bad you’re too much of a coward to see this out, because it could have been really damn good between us.”
“Brea, that’s not what—”
“Spare me whatever practiced speech I’m sure you’ve used before, Gage.” She lifted tearful eyes to his. “I’m not going to fall apart and hide in my room. You’re not crushing me. You’ve already shown me I’m worth more than that. So you did a great job coaxing this butterfly out of her cocoon, and some other guy will be the lucky recipient of all your work.”
She popped open the door and slid out, slammed it shut and graced him with a smile that made him want to beg her forgiveness.
“I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for out there, Gage. But I have to tell you, I think what you’re looking for is right here. And I think what you really need is me.”
She turned and walked away, her head held high.
And he realized as he watched her open the door and head back into the bar that the dumbest thing he’d ever done in his life was let her go.