“Small in the sense of population, but we have a lot of farmland.”
“Yeah. I forgot how peaceful it is out here.”
“I still don’t understand how your mother could leave all this behind,” Grandpa says ruefully. He turns on the radio right after that, flipping through stations. Only country music comes in.
The bar is crowded for a Thursday night. I feel like I’m walking through a movie set or something with all the pickup trucks parked in a gravel parking lot. Music drifts from the bar, and people sit on tailgates, talking and laughing. I hate that I love it so much.
Grandpa goes right up to the bar, and the bartender knows his name.
“Hey, Fred,” he says. “What are you doing here so late?”
“I’m taking my granddaughter out for a night on the town. She just got in from the east coast,” Grandpa tells him.
I turn around, taking it all in. This place is pretty damn neat, actually, and is filled with a lot of people my age and not the rednecks and truckers I thought would be here. I’m stereotyping, I know, and I feel bad about it.
“Ellie,” Grandpa says, and I don’t have the heart to tell him I don’t go by that anymore. “This is Logan. He owns the joint.”
“Co-owns,” someone else says, coming up behind me. I turn, and dammit, my heart skips a beat. Because this man is all sorts of gorgeous. Tall and muscular. Deep hazel eyes. The perfect amount of stubble covers his chiseled jaw. “Right?” He looks at the guy Grandpa is talking to. I take a step to the side so I can see him and do a double-take.
Because that man looks just like the hottie who’s behind me. I look back. Holy shit. They’re identical twins.
“Hey,” the one my grandpa introduced as Logan says. His eyes meet mine and I recognize something in them. A distance, maybe? A longing for the thing that will finally make his empty heart feel full? I only know because I feel the same way. It’s a strange moment, one I can’t fully explain, and one I’m blaming on the old bottle of cheap wine. But I see something in him, something that differs him from his twin, and I know from that moment on, I’ll always be able to tell the two apart. “Welcome to Eastwood. First drink’s on the house.”
“Thanks,” I tell him, feeling a bit of color rush to my cheeks. Grandpa gets two guys at the bar to give up their stools. We sit and he orders me a bourbon on the rocks. I’ve been a cheap wine drinker my whole adult life. I’m a lightweight when it comes to the hard stuff.
I sip my whiskey faster than I intended and am drunk by the time I finish my drink. Grandpa gets up to throw darts with someone he knows, and I tell him I’m going to stay at the bar, happy to just people watch.
Logan sets another bourbon on the bar top, switching it out for my empty glass. “Second one’s on the house too. You look like you’ve had a night.”
I cock an eyebrow, not sure if I should take it as an insult or not. “What gave that away? It couldn’t possibly be the fact that I came to a bar at one AM on a Thursday with my grandpa.”
Logan laughs and my God that man is gorgeous. I slide the whiskey over and take a sip, trying to look seductive but end up clipping the glass against my teeth and sloshing it down my face.
“Are you going to be in town long?” Logan asks, grabbing empty glasses from the bar.
“I don’t know,” I reply after I take another drink. Really, I have nowhere else to go. Eastwood was a last resort, and I’m tired of running from my problems. They tend to find me no matter where I go. But I have no reason to stay. Logan gets busy and I turn around, drink in hand, and notice a now hiring sign hanging in the window by the door.
I bite the inside of my cheek, mind going a million miles an hour. Before I have a chance to actually think this through, I spin back around in my barstool and set my drink down.
“Hey,” I say, getting Logan’s attention. “You’re hiring?”
He nods. “You interested?”
I smile. “Yeah. I am.”Chapter 1Logan“That is disgusting, sis,” I tell Quinn, shaking my head as I watch her pull maraschino cherries out of a glass of vodka with a spoon. “You know I can make you a real drink, right?”
She pops one in her mouth and nods. “I do, but I kinda like this. Actually, go ahead and make me one. You still owe me for filing your taxes.”
“You want another drink on top of that?” Dean raises his eyebrows, playing the part of concerned older brother too well. “Haven’t you had enough?”