Читать книгу Need Me, Cowboy - Maisey Yates - Страница 12

Three

Faith was not hugely conversant in the whole girls’-night-out thing. Mia, her best friend from school, was not big on going out, and never had been, and usually, that had suited Faith just fine.

Faith had been a scholarship student at a boarding school that would have been entirely out of her family’s reach if the school hadn’t been interested in her artistic talents. And she’d been so invested in making the most of those talents, and then making the most of her scholarships in college, that she’d never really made time to go out.

And Mia had always been much the same, so there had been no one to encourage the other one to go out.

After school it had been work. Work and more work, and riding the massive wave Faith had somehow managed to catch that had buoyed her career to nearly absurd levels as soon as she’d graduated.

But since coming to Copper Ridge, things had somehow managed to pick up and slow down at the same time. There was something about living in a small town, with its slower pace, clean streets and wide-open spaces all around, that seemed to create more time.

Not having to commute through Seattle traffic helped, and it might actually be the sum total of where she had found all that extra time, if she was honest.

She had also begun to make friends with Hayley Bear, formerly Thompson, now wife of Jonathan. When Faith and her brothers had moved their headquarters to Copper Ridge, closer to their parents, Joshua had decided it would be a good idea to find a local builder to partner with, and that was how they’d met Jonathan and merged their businesses.

And tonight, Faith and Hayley were out for drinks.

Of course, Hayley didn’t really drink, and Faith was a lightweight at best, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have fun.

They were also in Hayley’s brother’s bar.

They couldn’t have been supervised any better if they’d tried. Though, the protectiveness was going to be directed more at Hayley than Faith.

Faith stuck her straw down deep into her rum and Coke and fished out a cherry, lifting it up and chewing it thoughtfully as she surveyed the room.

The revelers were out in force, whole groups of cheering friends standing by Ferdinand, the mechanical bull, and watching as people stepped up to the plate—both drunk and sober—to get thrown off his back and onto the mats below.

It looked entirely objectionable to Faith. She couldn’t imagine submitting herself to something like that. A ride you couldn’t control, couldn’t anticipate. Where the only way off was to weather the bucking or get thrown to the mats below.

No, thanks.

“You seem quiet,” Hayley pointed out.

“Do I?” Faith mused.

“Yes,” Hayley said. “You seem like you have something on your mind.”

Faith gnawed the inside of her cheek. “I’m starting a new design project. And it’s really important that I get everything right. I mean, I’m going to be collaborating with the guy, so I’m sure he’ll have his own input, and all of that, but...” She didn’t know how to explain it without giving herself away, then she gave up. “If I told you something...could you keep it a secret?”

Hayley blinked her wide brown eyes. “Yes. Though... I don’t keep anything from Jonathan. Ever. He’s my husband and...”

“Can Jonathan keep a secret?”

“Jonathan doesn’t really do...friends. So, I’m not sure who he would tell. I think I might be the only person he talks to.”

“He works with my brothers,” Faith pointed out.

“To the same degree he works with you.”

“Not really. A lot more of the stuff filters through Joshua and Isaiah than it does me. I’m just kind of around. That’s our agreement. They handle all of the...business stuff. And I do the drawing. The designing. I’m an expert at buildings and building materials, aesthetics and design. Not so much anything else.”

“Point taken. But, yes, if I asked Jonathan not to say something, he wouldn’t. He’s totally loyal to me.” Hayley looked a little bit smug about that.

It was hard to have friends who were so happily...relationshipped, when Faith knew so little about how that worked.

Though at least Hayley wasn’t with Faith’s brother.

Yes, that made Faith and Mia family, which was nice in its way, but it really limited their ability to talk about boys. They had always promised to share personal things, like first times. While Faith had been happy for her friend, and for her brother, she also had wanted details about as much as she wanted to be stripped naked, have a string tied around her toe and be dragged through the small town’s main street by her brother Devlin’s Harley.

As in: not at all.

“I took a job that Joshua and Isaiah are going to be really mad about...”

Just then, the door to the bar opened, and Faith’s mouth dropped open. Because there he was. Speaking of.

Hayley looked over her shoulder, not bothering to be subtle. “Who’s that?” she hissed.

“The devil,” Faith said softly.

Hayley blinked. “You had better start at the beginning.”

“I was about to,” Faith said.

The two of them watched as Levi went up to the counter, leaned over and placed an order with Ace, the bartender and owner of the bar, and Hayley’s older brother.

“That’s Levi Tucker,” Faith said.

Hayley narrowed her eyes. “Why do I know that name?”

“Because he’s kind of famous. Like, a famous murderer.”

“Oh, my gosh,” Hayley said, slapping the table with her open palm, “he’s that guy. That guy accused of murdering his wife! But she wasn’t really dead.”

“Yes,” Faith confirmed.

“You’re working with him?”

“I’m designing a house for him. But he’s not a murderer. Yes, he was in prison for a while, but he didn’t actually do anything. His wife disappeared. That’s not exactly his fault.”

Hayley looked at Faith skeptically. “If I ran away from my husband it would have to be for a pretty extreme reason.”

“Well, no one’s ever proven that he did anything. And, anyway, I’m just working with him in a professional capacity. I’m not scared of him.”

“Should you be?”

Faith took in the long, hard lines of his body, the dark tattoos on his arms, that dark cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes and his sculpted jaw, which she imagined a woman could cut her hand on if she caressed it...

“No,” she said quickly. “Why would I need to be scared of him? I’m designing a house for the guy. Nothing else.”

He began to scan the room, and she felt the sudden urge to hide from that piercing blue gaze. Her heart was thundering like she had just run a marathon. Like she just might actually be...

Afraid.

No. That was silly. Impossible. There really wasn’t anything to be afraid of.

He was just a man. A hard, scarred man with ink all over his skin, but that didn’t mean he was bad. Or scary.

Devlin had tattoos over every visible inch of his body from the neck down.

She didn’t want to know if they were anywhere else. There were just some things you shouldn’t know about your brother.

But yeah, tattoos didn’t make a man scary. Or dangerous. She knew that.

So she couldn’t figure out why her heart was still racing.

And then he saw them.

She felt a rush of heat move over her body as he raised his hand and gripped the brim of his cowboy hat, tipping his head down slowly in a brief acknowledgment.

She swallowed hard, her throat sticky and dry, then reached for her soda, feeling panicky. She took a long sip, forgetting there was rum in it, the burn making her cough.

“This is concerning,” Hayley said softly, her expression overly sharp.

“What is?” Faith asked, jerking her gaze away from Levi.

“You’re not acting normal.”

“I’m not used to subterfuge.” Faith sounded defensive. Because she felt a little defensive.

“The look on your face has nothing to do with the fact that he’s incredibly attractive?”

“Is he?” Faith asked, her tone disingenuous, but sweet. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Actually, until Hayley had said that, she hadn’t noticed. Well, she had, but she hadn’t connected that disquiet in her stomach with finding him...attractive.

He was out of her league in every way. Too old for her. Too hard for her.

Levi was the deep end of the pool, and she didn’t know how to swim. That much, she knew.

And she wouldn’t... He was a client. Even if she was a champion lap swimmer, there was no way.

He was no longer acknowledging her or Hayley, anyway, as his focus turned back to the bar.

“What’s going on with you?” Faith asked, very clumsily changing the subject and forcing herself to look at Hayley.

She and Hayley began to chat about other things, and she did her best to forget that Levi Tucker was in the bar at all.

He had obviously forgotten she was there, anyway.

Then, for some reason, some movement caught her attention, and she turned.

Levi was talking to a blonde, his head bent low, a smile on his face that made Faith feel like she’d just heard him say a dirty word. The blonde was looking back at him with the exact same expression. She was wearing a top that exposed her midriff, which was tight and tan, with a little sparkling piercing on her stomach.

She was exactly the kind of woman Faith could never hope to be, or compete with. And she shouldn’t want to, anyway.

Obviously, Levi Tucker was at the bar looking for a good time. And Faith wasn’t going to be the one to give it to him, so Blondie McBellyRing might as well be the one to do it.

It was no skin off Faith’s nose.

Right then, Levi looked up, and his ice-blue gaze collided with hers with the force of an iceberg hitting the Titanic.

And damn if she didn’t feel like she was sinking.

He put his hand on the blonde’s hip, leaning in and saying something to her, patting her gently before moving away...and walking straight in Faith’s direction.