Page 61 of Five Mountain Daddies

I nod. “Just having a fewdrinks.”

“Well, you be careful, youhear.”

I cock my head. “Why?”

Someone looms up behind me, and before I can turn to look at him, I hear this deep, booming laugh. “You warning this poor girl about me,Marn?”

“Of course I am,” she says, winking. I turn and get a look at the guy standing behind me, and I have to do a doubletake.

He’s enormous. It’s the first thing I notice. Big, broad shoulders, stubble on his chin, cocky grin, handsome face. His eyes are a deep sea-foam green, and his hands are easily bigger than my head. He looks down at me with that same cocky grin, and I feel some chills run down myspine.

As soon as he sits in the stool next to mine, and Marn the bartender hands him a beer without asking, I know I’m in trouble. I’m drinking in The Shaft, which is the miner’s bar in town. It’s really the only bar that I know, since my father employs pretty much the wholeclientele.

He doesn’t employ them anymore, I mentally correctmyself.

“What’s your name?” the big man asksme.

He’s probably my age, I realize with a start. I assumed he was a lot older, but there’s no age in that face, although there seems to be a lot of experience. His clothes are simple but clean, although his hands look like any coal miner’s, with soot under the fingernails embedded so deep that he’d have to tear off his fingers to get rid ofit.

“Amelia,” I say without thinking. I cringe, realizing that he might put two and two together, but fortunately he justnods.

“I’m Samuel,” hesays.

“He’s trouble,” Marn interjects as shepasses.

“Don’t listen to old Marn there,” Samuel says, winking at me. “She’s just jealous. Got a thing for me, yousee.”

“Please,” Marn says, rolling her eyes. “And enough of that ‘old’ bullshit, youasshole.”

He booms another laugh, and I find myself smiling. It’s incredibly infectious, and I notice a few other guys glancing over at him like they’re in on thejoke.

“What brings you here, Amelia?” he asksme.

I shrug a little. “Business,” Isay.

He gives me a look and smirks. “Business, huh? What kind ofbusiness?”

“Personalbusiness.”

He laughs and I smile right along with him. “Sounds confusing to me.” He takes a long drink of his beer, practically finishing half of it. I have to admit, this guy is absolutely obnoxious, but he’s also shockingly attractive. Big and tall and muscular with the sort of hands that know what they’re doing, I haven’t been around a man like him in a long time. I’m used to the intellectual type, smart rich boys from good families, but this Samuel guy is the opposite of that. He’s hard, a little rough, but also completely at ease in his ownskin.

“Do you work in the mine?” I find myself asking him withoutthinking.

“How could youtell?”

I nod at his hands. “Fingers.”

“Ah.” He holds them up. “The hands of a worker.” He eyes me for a second. “Let me guess. You’re alawyer?”

I stare at him, surprised. “How’d youknow?”

He booms another laugh. “I guessed,” headmits.

I shake my head, looking away. I can’t stop smiling around this guy. Maybe it’s the alcohol, but suddenly I’m forgetting about my problems, about my dead father, about the fate of his company. They’re reading the will tomorrow, and I know my life’s about to change even more than it already has, and I feel so desperate to cling on to the way things were. I know that’s all gone,though.

Really though, I think it’s just this man, just thisSamuel.

“Where are you from?” heasks.

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