Rode Hard, Put Up Wet: Cowboy Romance (Rebels & Outlaws 2)

So in spite of all his reassuring himself, it wasn't really much of a surprise when Stan came into the bar with his hat pressed on low. He had a habit of doing that when he was spoiling for a fight. Which meant that Chris had to be extra careful not to let him, in spite of himself.

The bartender took a deep breath in.

"Mornin', boss."

"You want to tell me what the hell happened yesterday?"

Chris kept his shoulders relaxed. That would be the first thing to go. When his shoulders got tight, he might as well walk right out the door, because at that point it was only a matter of time until voices got raised, and then it wasn't going to back down from there.

"What do you mean, boss?"

"You know full damn well what I mean." Something deep down in the bartender's belly didn't like being eyeballed like that. He swallowed that frustration. "Things go nuts, and I'm up to my neck in complaints—and what do I find but you're at the center of it. Walloped not one, but two customers? That right?"

"Wasn't my intention to do anything of the sort, boss."

"Don't talk to me about intentions."

Chris raises his eyes. It's a mistake, and he realizes it a moment later, when he feels frustration starting to flare up, and for a tense moment he almost feels as if he's going to lose his temper.

It's close, but he manages to get control of himself in spite of the strong urge to lash out. A little part of him relaxes. Maybe the years have had a positive effect on his dem

eanor after all.

"You would have rather I let some kid get shot?"

The boss looks at Chris with a flat expression. No, that wouldn't have been preferable, Chris knows. But couldn't someone else have done it? Someone who wasn't already the cause of all sorts of rumors spreading around the town?

That would have been a thousand times better. Just next time make it so someone else is involved.

"No," Stan finally concedes. "You're right."

"I'm sorry that it happened. I keep thinking I should've had a better sense for the feeling in the room. But I did the best I could under the circumstances."

Chris works to drop his shoulders. Keep them relaxed, don't let them hunch up. Don't get mad. Stay calm.

His eyes are on Stan's body as he stands on the other side. It's a skill that Chris picked up in his old life. Something you need to know, how pissed the other guy is. You have to know all the time. No room for any doubt, not ever.

If someone's about to pull a gun, you have to know before he knows it himself. And Chris watches his boss's body language for any signs of anger, growing or shrinking.

His own shoulders sag a little. He closes his eyes longer than a moment. And then the anger slips off his shoulders. "Yeah. You're probably right."

"So what should I do then?" Chris asks it in a conversational way. Like he's handing the reins over to Stan. The fact is, though, that there's no answer. What he's really doing, in the end, is dropping the problem right in Stan's lap. Another soft reminder that it was a difficult situation with no real answers.

"Look—I don't—" He doesn't finish the sentence. The older man tenses up again. Time to massage him back into relaxing. Then he steps back and leans against the bar, his eyes on the floor. "Just don't worry about it."

"And when Mickey comes back in, whenever Sheriff Roberts is done with him?"

He makes a thoughtful face, and doesn't answer for a couple of minutes. "Just—don't start anything, alright?"

"You got it, boss. Won't start anything at all."

"If he decides he's got a problem, call Jim over. I'd much rather Jim dealt with it in that case."

Chris bristles a little at the suggestion. "Yeah," he says finally.

There was a time when a Broadmoor wouldn't dream of letting someone else fight his battles for him. That was a long time ago, though. For Chris, it might as well have been forever ago. Like a dream from a long time ago that he'd never exactly woken up from.

Letting someone else deal with it in this case, he thought, might just be the right answer. Because all eyes would be on him for a while. It didn't change things, not really. Everyone's eyes were always on him, because he was the mad dog roughneck out-of-towner who had no accounting for his whereabouts or why he'd come into town.