Page 41 of Home to You
“Mmm,” she hummed, propping an elbow on the bar. “And what exactly are you feeling optimistic about?”
“That you’ll let me keep talking to you for a little while.”
Cal set the glass in front of her and popped the cap on my beer, sliding it across the bar. I took a long pull, trying not to look like I was buzzing from the fact that she hadn’t shut me down yet.
She considered me for a beat. “And what makes you think I’m worth the effort?”
I set my bottle down and met her gaze head-on. “Because the second I walked in, I saw you and couldn’t look away.” Not surprised, exactly, but something … softer flickered in her expression. “You’re beautiful,” I continued, the corner of my mouth tipping up. “Though you don’t need me to tell you that. It’s not just the packaging, either. It’s the way you carry that beauty. Like you know exactly who you are and fuck anyone who doesn’t know it, too.”
She studied me for a long second. “That almost sounded sincere.”
“Because it was.”
A beat passed between us, quiet and charged, until she dragged her gaze over the crowd. I watched as she took in the room, pausing every couple of seconds on a small group of women. Folks dressed like they belonged in a Montana honky tonk on a Friday night. The type of blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls most guys I knew would give their left nut to sleep with. Eventually, she turned back to me.
“Tell me something real, Gage,” she said, voice low. “Something you don’t say to every woman who sits at this bar.”
I stared down at my hands wrapped around the beer bottle, surprised by how much I wanted to give her exactly what she was asking for. I lifted the bottle to my lips and took a long pull, using the moment to figure out why I wanted to tell this woman things I’d never said to anyone else. “You looked untouchable when I first saw you. Still kinda do, to be honest. But now that I’m sitting here, you don’t seem cold. You seem … careful. Weary.”
Her eyes flashed—not with offense, but with something that looked like maybe I’d seen more than I was supposed to.
She set her wine glass down slowly, her expression turning thoughtful. “You’re good at reading people, then?”
“Only when I want to understand them.”
“And you want to understand me?”
“I want to know everything. Even if it’s just for tonight.”
“Hmm,” she hummed again, and I was beginning to think that was her way of filling the silence when she didn’t know what she wanted to say, but she didn’t want to stay quiet.
“What brings you to Bridger Falls?” I asked, steering the conversation away from my inadvertent proposition. To be clear, I wanted to sleep with this woman … whose name I still didn’t know … but I hadn’t meant to come right out and tell her that. Not yet, anyway.
“I’m just visiting.”
“Short trip?”
She hesitated. “We’ll see.”
“You ever been to Montana before?” I asked.
She took another sip of her wine. “Once.”
“And?”
“I liked it.” Her eyes met mine over the rim of her glass. “What about you?” she asked. “What are you doing here tonight?”
“Same thing everyone else is doing.” I gave her a half-smile, the one my brothers always teased me about, but which usually had a woman ready to drop her panties. “Blowing off steam after a long week.”
She shifted on the stool, crossing one leg over the other. “And what do you do for a living?”
Huh. Not the question I expected. I blinked, caught off guard by the shift. I figured she’d tease me for trying too hard to flirt with her, not pivot to job interview mode.
I found I didn’t mind the change in direction. Hell, I figured it meant she was interested.
I took another pull of my beer, considering. I’d tell her anything she wanted to know—hell, I kind of wanted to—but first? She had to give me her damn name. “I’ll trade you,” I said, setting the bottle back down with a decisive thunk and meetingher gaze directly. “You tell me your name, and I’ll answer any question you have.”
She held my gaze for a beat, her fingers drumming once against the bar in what might have been indecision. Then she relented with a faint smile. “Siena.”
