Bounty (Colorado Mountain 7)

I saw his flinch before he hid it.

He knew the barb he’d thrown stung and did that in a big way.

We’d been dancing around the fact that I was at one place, he was in another and we both knew what one wanted and the other didn’t.

That being me wanting him and Deke not wanting me back that same way.

He’d pushed the boundaries back, gave me the friendly.

But he’d done it never being a dick about establishing precisely what those boundaries were we’d never cross.

Until now.

“Jus—”

“You look like you’re rarin’ to get home so I’ll let you do that,” I muttered, shifting to move away.

Deke caught my forearm.

I turned my eyes to his.

“Jus,” he said softly, his hand putting on pressure like he wanted to bring me closer.

I put pressure on the other way, slipping it out of his grip.

“See you tomorrow, Deke.”

I started to walk away.

“Jus—”

I turned back to him.

“Sorry about your mom,” I said. “Hate that happened. I’m really sorry. Both parents gone, that sucks for you and I get that’s in a big way. But I hope you don’t take it wrong when I say it’s good to finally know why you stood me up.”

Another flinch before, “Jussy—”

I didn’t want to run. I didn’t want to make a bigger drama of it than it already was.

So I just lifted a hand behind me in a wave good-bye, not looking at him, but I did walk really fast back to the bar.

It took me a while, having to force smiles, stop and take a few photos, scribble my name on a few napkins, but I finally got to my purse at the bar.

I muttered shit I didn’t remember to get out of talking to Krys, Lauren, Jim-Billy.

Then I left, going to my truck.

In all this, Deke did not come after me.

And I would realize that I was now becoming addicted to the pain that came with less and less pleasure because I gave into that pain as I walked to my truck.

This meaning I looked toward where Deke’s bike had been.

Both the bike and Deke were gone.

* * * * *

Deke

Jussy’s song “Chain Link” sounding out of his phone, Deke sat on the couch in his trailer and read online encyclopedia entries.

She was right. There was other stuff to talk about.

A lot of it.

“Chain Link” wasn’t his normal thing. Shit like the Allman Brothers and the Foo Fighters were his normal thing.

And Johnny Lonesome.

But it was beautiful.

Jussy’s voice singing her own song was better than her standing onstage in a biker bar belting out Linda Rondstadt, and she’d fucking killed that. Rondstadt had one of the best voices in the business. That sweet goodness that could pack a punch. Rise from that low right up the scale to hit high and not once lose its power.

Jus had that.

She had presence up there too. Her smile, Christ. It did a number on him sitting in her fucked-up house eating a sandwich.

Onstage it was spectacular.

Reading about her Deke saw he was not the only person who thought that.

One album of her own, nominated for awards. A tour where the critics raved about her live performances. She wrote for the Blue Moon Gypsies and had more than a couple dozen other credits, including as a producer. Fuck, he even knew each of her songs the Gypsies performed because he might not listen to songs like “Chain Link” (and even if he didn’t, he still thought it was a fucking gorgeous song), he listened to the Gypsies, including their slower stuff, which was what Jussy did for them.

She was out of his reach.

He knew that the minute she’d walked into Bubba’s. He had not known that with the biker babe slumming she’d been doing with her girlfriends years ago in Wyoming, stepping into that role so completely, he didn’t get that first whiff she was what she was. But he knew from the first time he saw her in Carnal she was untouchable.

Now he knew she wasn’t just untouchable, she was not even in his stratosphere.

Even if Deke could get past the working for her barrier (and he couldn’t) then the money barrier (and he couldn’t with that either) then the rootless life barrier (and that also wasn’t going to happen), he couldn’t get past this.

That said, that night he did it quiet, not outright ugly, but he still struck out, pissed for whatever reason he was, not wanting where those feelings came from to show, and he’d been a straight-up dick.

She didn’t deserve that. She’d kept herself to herself, guarded for good reasons with the life she led, and he knew from the last couple of days she’d come to a place she was ready to share it with him.

But the reasons she kept it to herself were good reasons. It wasn’t anyone’s to have until Jus decided to give it to them.

He lifted his head from staring unseeing at his phone to staring unseeing at his trailer.

Fuck, he had to get them back there. He had to do what he could to heal that hurt because, as whacked as it was, he still figured it hurt him to hurt her more than the hurt he gave her and he figured this because he was right then feeling that pain.

But he gave her that hurt, he saw it, fucking hated it, so he had to do something about it.

She meant something to him and she didn’t hide he was coming to mean something to her. He broke that so he had to mend it.

He stared down at the phone in his hand as “Chain Link” shifted to another song that was Jussy’s.

There was a photo on her online encyclopedia entry. She was at a mic, chin down and twisted, like she was looking at her guitar.

And she was smiling in the way she always smiled. Big and out there and open. Like tonight onstage. Like sitting in her fucked-up house on drywall while they ate sandwiches.