No direction.
“Why not?” she demanded.
“Drink’s not on my list.” He scanned the bar one last time, wondering if perhaps the bartender he was looking for was on a break.
“Who has a list in a bar?” she demanded.
“Me.”
Was he blowing it again? Allowing himself to be distracted? The last time he’d deviated from his primary mission, it had set off a cascade of disaster, resulting in Jace’s death. If he could go back in time, he’d stab his own eardrums instead of listen to the former major’s hoarse siren’s whisper about needing to survive for true love, needing to get home to a woman who shone like the sun and whose eyes were as turquoise as the Adriatic Sea.
Cross had seen the Adriatic. No woman in the world had eyes like that. He’d been a fool, and now Jace was dead, and Cross was wasting time in a hotel bar when he could break in and steal the watch whenever he wanted—or not. He was still on the fence. He didn’t need to be wasting time looking for Shane Knight. He needed to find a place to camp and then search out Jace’s friend, Alex Holt, tomorrow. Tell him that he would serve as his kids’ godfather in Jace’s stead and give him his contact info and then blow out of town.
Cross had little doubt that Alex—seeing his six-four, two-thirty of hard-packed muscle, harder, expressionless face, and scared, tatted skin would say ‘thanks no thanks.’
Coward.
Jace wouldn’t run. He’d commit. Persuade. Stay. Damn Jace and his big heart for dying.
No. Damn him for kicking off the whole disastrous chain of events by briefly going rogue because apparently, he had a previously unsuspected sappy, romantic streak that had reared its ugly head at the worst possible moment. If it weren’t so tragic, he could have told his brothers, and they all could have laughed their asses off—with Jace—while drinking his latest beer concoction.
But there would be no more beer brewed by Jace. No more team laughs. Cross had deviated from a mission for the first time in twenty years, and Jace had returned home in a box. And now each of the Coyote Cowboys had a year to complete a task from Jace’s homecoming list because he couldn’t. At the end of the year, they would meet again in Marietta to have a proper memorial for Jace and then…? Cross didn’t know. Would any of them stay in the small, impossibly cute Montana town in the aptly named Paradise Valley?
He knew without Jace he wouldn’t. Too many ghosts.
“Are you just totally rude or maybe on the autistic spectrum?”
Was the bridesmaid still here and talking? Why? Cross looked down—way down—at the diminutive but pushy bridesmaid, who was weaving on her dainty, high-heeled feet.
“Or are you gay?” She thrust her chest closer so that her very pert breasts in an overachieving push-up bra brushed his abs.
“Those are my choices?” He felt a whisper of regret that he felt nothing looking at her. No arousal. Not even irritation. It was like he’d died alongside Jace.
“You’re in a bar alone on a Friday. And you’re like smokin’ hot.” The bridesmaid held up her hand and ticked off the points. One. Two, and now a third finger. “My bestie is getting married next weekend, and I’d love a plus-one for her wedding, but if you’re only passing through, I’ll settle for a cowboy to ride tonight.”
He’d been gone from the States for a long time. Was it really this easy to hook up?
“Find another horse.” He spun around to leave, but the bridesmaid grabbed his belt and dug in her stilettos.
“I want a cowboy.” She jutted her chin forward.
Did she think she could Amazon-Prime a cowboy straight from the bar to her bed? He didn’t have the time or inclination.
“I haven’t been a cowboy for a lotta years, ma’am,” he said, watching her chocolate-brown eyes narrow and spark.
“Don’t ma’am, me,” she said. “I’m only twenty-five.”
His heart crunched. So young. So sad. About five years younger than his sister would have been had he not failed her.
“Ma’am.” If he had a hat, he’d tip it, just like he’d seen Sam Wilder of the Wild Wind Ranch do a thousand times when he’d been growing up, until fate had slapped him stupid and spun his life thread into something unrecognizable when he’d been twelve.
“Jerk.” She kicked his shin and stamped on his foot. He barely felt any of it as he still wore his motorcycle chaps and steel-toed boots from his ride. She huffed and stomped off, and Cross took one last look at the bar. What he’d expected to find here, even if Shane Knight had been working, he wasn’t sure. It’s not like she would wear a six-figure stolen watch to work in a bar. She could have sold it, but he was damn good on a computer and hadn’t been able to find any records of private sales of the watch he was maybe looking for.
His lack of commitment should concern him. Waffling got you killed fast.
While he mused his next step, realizing he was actually hungry and the smell of food was a tempting lure, a door he hadn’t noticed swung open and another bartender, crate of whiskey resting on her hip, glided behind the bar. Her long, white-blonde hair glinted in the lights and, for Cross, the rest of the bar and the people in it disappeared. What was happening? Was Shane Knight the former major’s true love?
‘I love a woman, a woman with a smile brighter than the sun. Her eyes are a crystalline aquamarine…’ Cross nearly clapped his hands over his ears so he didn’t hear that seductive whispering voice ever again. He could repeat the tale the prisoner had woven verbatim. He still had nightmares. But what was the major’s ‘true love’ doing in poky Marietta? She was supposed to be getting married next month. She was supposed to be expecting her and the former major’s first son.
‘True love,’ the prisoner had said. He had to live for his true love. Make it home for his true love and their child. How had Cross been even dumber than he’d imagined?
“True love my ass.”
He hadn’t realized until this moment how scaldingly stupid he’d been, how he’d been utterly ensnared in a make-believe drama. He’d desperately wanted Jace’s death to have meaning. But he’d been tasked with returning an heirloom from the woman that the major had vowed to love forever. So, who was the major marrying in a few months?
True love was a lie. It didn’t exist. He’d known that, and yet some dumb, childish part of him must have wanted to believe. True love couldn’t be in Marietta while her lying lover lived in his family’s legacy plantation-style horror of a mansion in Charleston.
Cross shifted position so that he was in a more shadowed area of the bar. It was a warm, welcoming room, decorated to set a mood, not to hide in, but Cross had made a career out of hiding in plain sight. He watched Shane Knight smile and chat and all the while he tried to make this situation make sense. When Cross had mustered out, former Major Brandon Montgomery Huntingdon III had contracted him. He wanted to thank him for his service and thank him for saving his life, especially as Cross had kept his mouth shut about the rescue. The Third was not supposed to have been in that country, much less captured. Cross had arranged his care and his trip home.
He’d not expected to see him again, but curiosity had bested him again. The former major had offered him a job as a bodyguard plus. Cross was pretty clear what the plus meant—errand boy to do all the dirty work. A fixer. Rich men liked to pretend their hands were clean. The salary offer had blown his mind. He’d even been offered health insurance and 401K options. WTF?