Page 1 of Still A Cowboy
Chapter One
Cal Bennett limped through the front door of the Seaglass Saloon just as the old clock behind the bar struck midnight. The wind howled behind him and a fresh sheet of rain slapped him directly on the ass, as if the storm had personally targeted that particular part of his body and was now shoving him inside for good measure.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m going,” he snarled, dragging the door shut before the weather could shove him the rest of the way.
One look around, and he could see the place was packed. People shoulder-to-shoulder, laughter buzzing over the clink of pint glasses and the hum of something half-magical in the air.
And then…silence.
A real honest-to-goodness hush went over the place, and every blasted head turned toward him. All except one head, that is.
A woman near the bar was too busy choking to notice him.
She hacked, gasped and beat a fist against her chest, then somehow powered through anddowned the rest of the pint. A man who had to be pushing ninety was next to her, and even though he had his attention pinned to Cal, he was patting the woman’s back.
The woman waved him off, breathless now. “Thanks for the Mooncatcher, Gus. I’ll get you a fresh one before the legend kicks in and you end up stuck with me.”
She turned, blinking as she caught sight of Cal. She looked him up and down, then up and down again before she swore.
“Shit,” she spat out. “Please tell me you’re not my soulmate.”
As comments went, Cal was pretty sure that was one he’d never heard before. And he’d been proposed to on horseback, pepper-sprayed by a bride’s jealous ex, and once had a woman throw a lasso at him outside a casino bar.
But this? This was new.
A wave of whispers tore through the saloon like wildfire on dry West Texas grass. Cal caught bits and pieces, snatches of words, half-formed sentences, and from what he could tell, the crowd was split somewhere between delighted, stunned, and just plain weird.
Or maybe they were all just shit-faced since this was indeed a bar.
“That’s Mooncatcher lager, right?” asked a blonde in the corner booth, her voice pitched with excitement.
“Full moon tonight, though you can’t see iffor the storm,” her burly companion added, and he nodded solemnly.
“That’s the legend. Midnight, full moon, lager, true love!” chimed in the perky barmaid as she pulled a fresh pint, clearly thrilled to witness the moment.
“Well, damn. Guess it works,” muttered the old guy who’d patted the coughing woman on the back. His tone was a cross between half amused, half resigned.
“Kiss him,” the blonde in the corner booth shouted, and that got a rather disturbing round of cheers and applause.
Yeah, they were all shit-faced.
Cal shifted his weight again to take some pressure off his throbbing, aching knee, and he adjusted his grip on the duffel still slung over his shoulder. The woman, who was now staring at him like he might be a hallucination, marched toward him.
She didn’t say a word.
Instead, she reached out and pinched his arm. Hard.
“You’re real,” she muttered. No delighted, high pitched excitement for her. Her tone fell more into the area ofwhat fresh hell is this? “I thought I might be hallucinating from the lack of oxygen caused by the coughing. But you’re real. You’re actually really, really real.”
Cal raised an eyebrow. “Glad we cleared that up. Do I know you?” he tacked onto that.
But he was certain that he didn’t. No way would he have forgotten meeting her. Or ever catching a glimpse of her for that matter. Yep, she would have stuck in his mind all right. Still, he looked her over, to make sure they hadn’t crossed paths at one time or another.
Her long dark brown hair was twisted into a loose knot that probably started the night neat and gave up somewhere around the dinner rush. She had the kind of face that didn’t need much makeup—freckles, sharp green eyes, and a mouth that looked as if it had more opinions than patience. Her boots were scuffed, her jeans paint-splattered at the hem, and her t-shirt had the Seaglass Saloon logo over the left pocket along a smear of something suspiciously like ketchup on the right.
She wasn’t polished.
She was real.
