“So what do you think?” Dave asks.
“About what?”
“About Maddie Pike?”
“I think she’s got her sights set on Dragon.”
“Jesse won’t let Dragon near her.”
“And you think he’ll let one of us near her?”
“Good point. Still… Doesn’t hurt to try.”
“Be my guest.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Dave hops off the stool and heads toward the back where the pool tables are.
“What will it be, Brock?”
I turn toward the bar. Brendan Murphy, his long orange hair pulled back in his signature low ponytail, stands there, a white bar towel in one hand.
“Give me a Cap Rock martini.”
“Another chip off the old block,” Brendan says.
“Hey, it’s damned good stuff.”
“You know it. Coming up.”
I turn back toward the pool tables. Dave has already sidled up to Maddie Pike and is helping her with her form. Which is hilarious because Dave sucks at pool.
But Maddie is batting her big brown eyes at him, totally letting him fiddle with her cue stick.
Funny. If I weren’t still thinking about Rory’s lips against mine, I might be quarreling with Dave over her youngest sister.
Brendan brings my drink. “Here you go.”
“Thanks, man. Put it on my tab.”
“Already done.” He turns.
“Hey, Brendan?”
“Yeah?” He turns and meets my gaze.
“Any news on who trashed your place?”
“Not yet. I’ve been checking in with Hardy every hour on the hour. Nobody seems to have a clue.”
“Hey, just so you know… Dale and Donny have filled me in on what you found under your floorboards.”
Brendan looks to his left and then to his right. “I don’t want to talk about that stuff here.”
“That’s cool. I just wanted you to know that we’re on it.”
“Hey, man, all I want to know is who the hell trashed my place. Then I want your family’s lien off my property.”
I nod. “I understand. I hope you trust that none of us have a clue what’s going on.”
“I’d like to trust that.”
“You can. We were just as surprised as anyone.”
“Even with all the rumors?”
“What rumors?”
“That the Steels own this damned town.”
“Yeah, we’ve all heard the rumors. None of us ever thought it was true.”
“I never thought it was true either. But then I found this lien.”
“One lien doesn’t mean ownership of the town.”
He nods. “Excuse me. I need to take an order.” He walks out from behind the bar to a table where two guys I haven’t seen before sit down.
One lien doesn’t mean ownership of the town. I play my own words back in my mind. Brendan only knows about the lien affecting his property.
He doesn’t know about the research that Donny and Callie did that proved our family has liens on almost every property in town.
I’m not going to be the one to break that to Brendan. At least not tonight.
I glance again at Dave flirting with Maddie, and I take a drink of my martini. Then I set it down as my phone vibrates on the wooden bar.
“Hey, Donny,” I say into the phone.
“Brock, hey. Where are you, man?”
“I’m at Murphy’s with Dave.”
“Yeah, okay. Listen. I need to go to Grand Junction tomorrow. Something to do with my dad’s case. You in?”
“Don’t you want to ask Dale?”
“I did. He’s finishing up the move to the new place.”
“Did I seriously just hear you correctly? This has something to do with your dad, and Dale doesn’t want to go?”
“Oh, he wants to go. But he had to make a choice, and his new wife trumps just about everything. Plus, I think my big brother is finally trusting me to handle things.”
“What do you need me for, then?”
“I don’t want to go alone.”
“Are you meeting someone big and scary?” I chuckle.
“For God’s sake, knock it off. It’s a nurse who worked on my dad’s case. But I think we should appear in numbers. Callie can’t go because she promised Rory she’d hang out with her tomorrow.”
“This means we can’t go back to the land near the Wyoming border.”
“It means we put it off another day, anyway.”
Yeah. Putting off looking for rotting corpses on Steel land? I can handle that. “Sure,” I tell him. “Count me in.”
I end the call and set my phone back down on the counter.
A hottie approaches me, brown hair, pretty blue eyes, and a seductive smile. “Hey,” she says.
“Hey yourself.”
“Buy a girl a drink?”
“Sure. What’ll you have?”
“What you’re drinking looks nice.”
Nice? A Cap Rock martini is not nice. It’s smooth and herbal and full of alcohol. “You think you can handle what I’m drinking?”
“I think I can handle three of what you’re drinking. And you.”
She’s coming on strong. Women who come on to me seem to have two types. There’s the I’m going to come on strong and dare you to turn me down type, and then there’s the I’m going to flirt softly and let you make the first move type.
I like both types, to be honest. And tonight? I’m horny as hell after kissing Rory and grabbing her ass, so the come on strong type is just what I’m looking for.