Don’t respond. Be cool.
Devin’s private ready room resembled a pricey hotel room, with a plush sitting area and a fancy bathroom complete with a lighted makeup mirror and a stylist’s chair. A small bar dominated one corner. Privacy screens blocked off an area behind the living space. Probably a makeshift bedroom. Guitars, notebooks, water bottles, and articles of clothing were scattered across the sofas, coffee table, and chairs.
Devin plopped down on the couch. “You are coming to the postconcert blowout at the Trade Winds Casino?”
“I guess. Why you having it there?”
“Because it’s a total dive. Cheap drinks, haggard cocktail waitresses, a crummy wedding chapel, a greasy-spoon diner, all with a honky-tonk theme straight from the fifties. It’s perfectly retro and I’m feeling nostalgic.”
Devin grabbed an acoustic guitar and propped his bare feet on the coffee table. He strummed a haunting melody. He’d stop, scribble in a notebook, then pick up where he left off—both the conversation and his guitar playing. He’d always done that, talked while he noodled with the strings and wrote music when it looked like he was screwing around. Sometimes it was hard to reconcile Devin the scrawny, happy-go-lucky kid with Devin the songwriter who penned such dark songs about love, lack of it, and no redemption.
“What’s been goin’ on in your world?” he asked.
“Same old same old. Trying to win enough money in barrel racing to justify doin’ it for another year.”
“What will you do if you don’t?”
“Maybe enroll in trade school and get a degree as a vet’s assistant, since I know a lot about livestock. Fletch has always said I could go to work for him.”
He stopped playing to jot something down. “I take it you’re not going home much?”
“Did Hank or Abe say something to you?” she asked sharply.
“No. I’ve sensed restlessness in you the last couple of times we’ve talked. What’s keeping you from ditching the rodeo life and settling down in Muddy Gap?”
“And do what? I’m the odd one out in the Lawson family. I’ve got no place to live. My brothers are married with families of their own. Harper and Bran are married. My new buddy Tierney married Renner Jackson. Tanna is the exception, which is why she insists I spend my off-tour time with her in Texas.”
“Weren’t you seeing some guy, kinda seriously?”
“Breck and I were hook-up buddies and it wasn’t exclusive.” At least not on Breck’s end. “I’m not looking to get married. What about you?”
Devin snorted. “Not hardly. I don’t lack for hook-up offers, and that’s fine by me. Touring is a bitch. But I ain’t bitching because this career is fickle. I can have a song at the top of the charts, sell out big venues, and the next year won’t land a recording contract. It happens all the damn time, and it will happen to me eventually, so I’m gonna ride this ride as long as I can. Then maybe I’ll find a woman who ain’t impressed with the celebrity and just wants a simple country boy from Wyoming.”
“Tell you what, Dev. If your career hits the skids and I’m still trying to find my place in the world, I’ll marry you. I know you from the days you sported a mullet. I saw you barf after gutting an antelope. And I’m thankful for the cool cred you gave me my first year on the Cowboy Rodeo Association tour when you showed up after an event and whisked me off to dinner in your tour bus.”
“We had fun that night, huh?” Devin gave her a considering look. “All right. If in a couple of years we’re both unhappily single, we’ll tie the knot.”
“Although, sex might be weird. Vaguely—”
“Incestuous,” they finished simultaneously and laughed.
“Not to mention her brothers would f**king kill you,” Kyle drawled behind her, “but it’d probably be worth it.”
Celia whipped around to see Kyle exiting the screened-off area. “Why do you always have to scare me half to death?”
“Like you scared me when I left the bathroom and found a f**king note on the bed?”
Shit.
“At least she left a note,” Devin pointed out.
“I don’t appreciate bein’ ditched, Celia,” Kyle said in that deep, sexy rasp of his.
She stood, hoping neither man noticed her body swaying from the drinks that were catching up with her. “Being forced to hang out with me has to cramp your style, bull rider.”
“That might be true if I had a style. And you can’t force me to do anything. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t wanna be.”
Devin sighed. “No fighting. I need only good vibes in here, okay?”
“We’ll just go over here,” Kyle said, directing Celia to the bar. He filled two shot glasses with three fingers of tequila.
“So we callin’ a truce?” Celia murmured.
Kyle’s eyes pinned hers. “I thought we’d called a truce on New Year’s.”
“Kyle. Don’t. Not now.”
“You promised we’d talk about this and we haven’t. So we’re gonna talk about it now. Why did you come to Vegas?”
“For Devin’s concert,” she said way too fast.
He got right in her face. “Really?”
Stop being such a chickenshit. Celia threw her shoulders back and met his heated gaze head-on. “No.”
“At least that was honest.” Kyle inched even closer. “What are you so afraid of?”