“Well, they’re hooking up but we never ditch each other. They’re around.”
Though, maybe Bianca wasn’t. But Lacey wouldn’t take off without letting me know she was going and letting me see who she was taking off with so I could look him over, cast my judgment and decide if I would allow her to go.
“They know you’re in a corner writing poetry while they’re hooking up?” he asked.
I drew in a quick breath at his words.
Maybe he wasn’t serious.
Maybe he was ticked.
Ticked I was alone in a corner, forced to fall into my notebook while my girlfriends flirted and danced and had fun, basking in attention from the guys they’d wrangled, leaving me alone in that corner with my notebook.
“It’s all good, Deke,” I promised him.
He studied me and didn’t say anything before, suddenly, he turned his head to look toward the bar. He turned it again to look outside to the patio and then again to me.
When I had his attention, he still didn’t say anything.
I was about to when he finally did.
“Fuck, never seen such pretty hair.”
Now that was a compliment and something in me knew he didn’t give many. Not even to girls he bought drinks.
Not like that.
I felt the tears sting the backs of my eyes.
Wither to dust
Crumble like rust
Do it at your side
“You ride?” he asked abruptly.
“Uh…my own bike?” I asked back.
“On the back of one, babe.”
Yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
“Yes,” I answered immediately.
“Here on a ride with my bro. We’re takin’ off now ’cause we gotta meet someone. You open tomorrow to go for a ride?”
“Absolutely,” I again answered immediately.
He nodded again, his serious hazel gaze starting to fire.
He wanted me on his bike.
I wanted to be on his bike but I wanted more, oh so much more to be the woman he wanted with him on his bike.
“You want me to pick you up wherever you are or you wanna meet me here at the bar?” he asked.
“Lacey and Bianca and me are at the dude ranch.”
His lips quirked.
I felt like throwing my head back and screaming my victory at that minor show of amusement that I gave him.
“Eleven. I’ll pick you up at that ranch,” he declared.
I nodded but asked, “You know it?”
“See your point. No. Don’t know jack about this place. Bein’ where we are, though, there’s the possibility of there bein’ fifty dude ranches so sock it to me the name.”
“Shooting Star,” I told him.
He looked to the patio, jerked his chin up at somebody (undoubtedly his “bro”) and back to me.
“Eleven, Shooting Star.”
I nodded, heart racing, even in all the adventures I’d had, never, not once, not even back before the shine was beginning to tarnish, not ever looking forward to anything more in my life than seeing Deke at eleven the next morning at the Shooting Star Dude Ranch.
In a blink that was a shock to the system for a variety of reasons, I found my chin captured between the pad of his thumb and the side of his forefinger.
In another blink, his face was my whole world.
“Get back to your girls,” he rumbled. “No woman, pretty or not, should have her face in a book writin’ poetry and it’s not about writin’ poetry. It’s about you bein’ aware of where you are and what’s happenin’ around you. This ain’t no coffee house, baby girl, have a care.”
You, the only thing I need when I have everything
You, the breath I breathe I only get when you’re laughing
Chain links
Worn jeans
Wither to dust
Crumble like rust
Do it at your side
“Okay, Deke,” I replied quietly.
He did a slow nod as he released my chin but twisted his hand, forefinger extended, so he could slide the tip of it from the top of my throat along the soft skin under my jaw to the point of my chin.
I felt that light touch burn and when I lost it, I wanted to lean toward him to keep the connection, even if I only got another second.
“Eleven, Justice,” he said.
“Eleven, Deke.”
When I finished saying his name, he left his beer where it lay, turned and walked outside.
He disappeared around the side of the building.
He didn’t look back.
*
Ten hours later, I waited on the porch outside the reception area of the Shooting Star Dude Ranch.
I’d had not a wink of sleep.
I was not tired.
*
Eleven hours later, I was still waiting.
*
Twelve hours later, I went to find my girls to get a drink.
*
Deke never came.
Chapter One
I’d Take Them
Justice
Seven Years Later