Chapter 1
AdaI’ve come in contact with a lot of liars, but none quite so big as Google. I’m not trying to discredit the search engine, but I am trying to bring attention to its most annoying inaccuracies. In this case, telling me that the dive bar I was sitting in—only because it was the only establishment in the small town of Meadowlark, Wyoming, that was open past ten o’clock on a Sunday night—served food.
It did not.
Google’s stupid bar-graph busy-meter also said that the Devil’s Boot—not sure if that’s actually the name of the bar, considering that there’s not a sign anywhere that indicates that—wasn’t busy.
It was.
Not insanely busy, but busy enough to at least get the “moderately busy” designation on Google.
There was also a very boisterous cabal of old men at the bar—Google couldn’t have told me that. But if there’d been any pictures of this place on its business page, I probably could’ve deduced that for myself.
And avoided the Devil’s Boot altogether.
Stupid Google.
This place was exactly what I thought of whenever I pictured a small-town dive bar. There was old-school country playing on a jukebox and an excessive number of neon signs; it smelled like stale cigarettes, and there were spots on the floor that my Doc Martens stuck to when I walked.
I’m not a snob. I’ve got nothing against a good dive bar. I just didn’t think I’d end up sitting in one. Not today.
When I left San Francisco yesterday and started making my way to Wyoming, a dive bar would’ve been the last place I wanted to be the night before I started the biggest job of my career.
But I was hungry, and the small but weirdly quaint motel I was staying in tonight didn’t have the best Wi-Fi, so I left in search of sustenance and internet access, but I only found one of those two things. What kind of dive bar has no food but good Wi-Fi?
The kind with a very tall and very hot bartender who took pity on me when I asked about food and fished out a snack-size bag of Doritos from behind the bar and gave them to me with my whiskey and Diet Coke. I didn’t ask how old they were—I didn’t want to know—but I had a pretty good idea, considering they were almost soft. They tasted like the bag had been open for a while, though it was still sealed when I got it.
After that, I settled for a high-top table in the corner. On the wall behind it, there was a neon sign of a cowboy riding a beer bottle like a bull. The ridiculousness of it tugged at the corners of my mouth, and I liked that feeling.
Honestly, I didn’t know if eating the Doritos that could probably qualify for a senior citizens discount was better than eating nothing, but here I was, eating them.
I dusted the nacho cheese dust off my fingers so it wouldn’t dirty my iPad screen. I had pulled up the email threads between Weston Ryder and me, double-checking the time I was supposed to be at Rebel Blue Ranch tomorrow morning and making sure I had the map downloaded to my phone, just in case.
That was me, Ada Hart, nothing if not prepared.
I didn’t know much about Rebel Blue—just what Teddy had told me over the past few months. I knew Teddy from my first year of college. We went to the same school in Colorado—at least for my first year. After that, I ended up transferring to be closer to home.
Going home was now a decision that I deeply regretted, because it had led to what would forever be known as “the incident” to me, but also known as my wedding to others.
I shook any thought of that and him out of my head.
After I left Denver, I stayed in touch with Teddy—mostly on socials—and I was grateful for that now. She was the one who’d referred me to Weston, who I think was the owner of Rebel Blue, but I didn’t know for sure. When you google it—again, stupid Google—you only get the information that it’s a cattle ranch and that it’s nearly eight thousand acres.
I guess I could’ve asked Teddy, but I didn’t want to bug her. She’d done enough for me.
I didn’t know how to conceptualize eight thousand acres. F***ing massive is what I was thinking, when I heard one of the old men at the bar giving the bartender a hard time.
“What kind of bar runs out of ice?” he growled incredulously.
“The kind that has a bunch of sad old men that drink whiskey like water,” the bartender fired back. I looked up at them. The bartender had a small smile on his face, so he couldn’t be too upset with the jabs. “Gus is bringing some, so make that drink last for the next ten minutes.” He pointed at the glass in front of the man, and the man scoffed at him.
I felt my phone vibrate on the table and picked it up.
Teddy: Hey! Did you make it okay?
Me: Yeah—just doing some prep before tomorrow.
Teddy: EXCELLENT.
Teddy: This is going to be so fun.
Teddy: I’ll stop by this week.
Teddy: Can’t wait for you to shine!
I saw that I also had a text from my business partner, Evan—he was the contractor—and my mom, who was no doubt telling me that I was wasting my time in Wyoming.
Maybe I was, but for some reason, I really didn’t think so.
I slid my phone back onto the table and flipped it facedown. I needed to focus. Over the past four months, I’d exchanged hundreds of emails with Weston. We’d discussed his vision, we’d decided on timelines, crews, and costs. People always thought that tearing down walls was step one, but it was actually like step three hundred. I was going over steps one through two hundred and ninety-nine when a giant ball of white fluff appeared at my feet.
“Waylon! Goddammit,” I heard the bartender yell. I assumed Waylon was the dog sitting at my feet and staring up at me with his tongue hanging out and a crazed look in his eyes.
What an angel.
I leaned down and gave him a scratch on his very soft and furry head. Huh, less than a few hours in Meadowlark and this place was pulling smiles out of me at a record-setting rate.
“Seriously?” I heard the bartender whine. “Who the hell brings his dog to a bar?” I looked up just as a man walked in the door.
Damn. What the hell were they putting in the water in Meadowlark, Wyoming?
From here I could see that he wasn’t as tall as the bartender, but close. His open flannel shirt covered a white T-shirt that clung to his chest. My eyes glided over him until they hit his worn-out cowboy boots.
Maybe it was because I’d been surrounded by tech bros in Patagonia vests for too long, but this man was doing something for me.
I bet he had rough hands. Working hands. For a split second, I imagined what they would feel like if he dragged them across my body.
Nope. No. Definitely not.
Do not go there.
We were not about to have fantasies about the mystery cowboy in the dusky dive bar—no matter how good-looking he was.
I was here to work.
I got snapped back to reality by my new furry friend licking my hands—probably tasting the elderly Dorito dust.
I couldn’t help but listen to the exchange between the bartender and the cowboy. Eavesdropping was one of my favorite hobbies. “What kind of bar runs out of ice?” the cowboy shot at the bartender. The group of old men whooped in agreement.
“Where’s your brother?” the bartender asked.
“Busy.” The cowboy shrugged his shoulders.
“Where’s my ice?”
“Truck.”
“You couldn’t bring it in?”
“I figured you could do that part.” The bartender shook his head but came out from behind the bar and walked out the door. It was obvious that there was some sort of bond between these two. I didn’t think they were brothers—they didn’t look alike—but there was something.
Not brothers, but definitely bros.
“Get your dog,” the bartender said on his way out. “Please.”
The cowboy’s eyes started scanning the bar—probably looking for his dog—but landed right on me. Me, whose hand was currently getting a thorough licking, and who was unashamedly and unabashedly staring at the cowboy.
I should’ve looked away, but I didn’t.
I couldn’t tell what color his eyes were from here, but I wanted to.
We stared at each other for way longer than was socially acceptable, and he flashed me a small smile that hinted at a dimple on either side of his face.
Not f***ing dimples.
Those should be illegal.
Or at least require some sort of warning before flashing them at people.
Warning: Dimples may appear and cause panty-dropping.
It looked like he was about to start toward me, but our weird and intense stare-off was interrupted by the bartender putting an ice cube down the back of the cowboy’s shirt.
Copyright © 2024 by Lyla Sage. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
