“Ain’t about luck. It’s about style.”
Gull watched Dobie bop over to a table of four women, and decided the man had a style all of his own.
Enjoying the moment, Gull leaned an elbow back on the bar, crossed his ankles. Trigger, true to his word, already had a partner on the dance floor, and Matt—true to his Annie—sat with Little Bear, a rookie named Stovic and one of the pilots they called Stetson for his battered and beloved black hat.
Then there was Rowan, chowing down on the orange-coated nachos at a table with Janis Petrie, Gibbons and Yangtree. She’d pulled on a blue T-shirt—snug, scoop-necked—that molded her breasts and torso. For the first time since he’d met her she wore earrings, something that glittered and swung from her ears when she shook her head and laughed.
She’d done something to her eyes, her lips, he noted, made them bolder. And when she let Cards pull her to her feet for a dance, Gull saw her jeans were as snug as her shirt.
She caught his eye when Cards swung her into a spin, then stopped his heart when she shot him a wide, wicked smile. He decided if she was going to kill him, she might as well do it at closer range. He ordered another beer, carried it over to her table.
“Hey, fresh meat.” Janis toasted him with a dripping nacho. “Want to dance, rookie?”
“I haven’t had enough beer to dance to whatever this is.”
“They’re so bad, they’re good.” Janis patted Rowan’s empty chair. “A few more drinks, they’ll be nearly good enough to be bad.”
“Your logic tells me you’ve walked this path before.”
“You’re not a Zulie until you’ve survived a night at Get a Rope.” She glanced toward the door as a group of three men swaggered in. “In all its glory.”
“Local boys?”
“Don’t think so. They’re all wearing new boots. High-dollar ones.” She topped off her beer from the pitcher on the table. “I’m guessing city, dude-ranch types come to take in some local color.”
They headed toward the bar, and the one in the lead shoulder-muscled his way through the line. He slapped a bill on the bar.
“Whiskey and a woman.” He punched his voice up, deliberately, Gull imagined, so it carried above the noise. The hoots and laughter from his friends told Gull it wouldn’t be their first drink of the night.
A few people at the bar edged over to give the group room while the bartender poured their drinks. The lead guy tossed it back, slapped down the glass, pointed at it.
“We need us some
females
.”
More group hilarity ensued. Looking for trouble, Gull concluded, and since he wasn’t, he went back to watching Rowan on the dance floor.
Janis leaned toward him as the band launched into a painful cover of “When the Sun Goes Down.” “Ro says you work in an arcade.”
“She talked to you about me?”
“Sure. We pass notes in study hall every day. I like arcades. You got pinball? I kill at pinball.”
“Yeah, new and vintage.”
“Vintage?” She aimed a narrow look with big brown eyes. “You don’t have High Speed, do you?”
“It’s a classic for a reason.”
“I love that one!” Her hand slapped the table. “They had this old, beat-up machine in this arcade when I was a kid. I got so good at it, I’d play all day on my first token. I traded this guy five free games on it for my first French kiss.” She sighed, sat back. “Good times.”
Following her gaze as it shifted to the bar, Gull glanced back in time to see the whiskey-drinker give a waitress passing by with a full tray a frisky slap on the ass. When the woman looked around, he held up both hands, smirked.
“Asshole. You can’t go anywhere,” Janis said, “without running into assholes.”
“Their numbers are legion.” He shifted a little more when Rowan stepped off the dance floor.
“That’s my seat.”
“I’m holding it for you.” He patted his knee.
She surprised him by dropping down on his lap, picking up his beer and drinking deep. “Big spender, buying local brew by the bottle. Don’t you dance, moneybags?”
“I might, if they ever play something that doesn’t make my ears bleed.”
“You can still hear them? I can fix that. Time for shots.”
“Count me out,” Gibbons said immediately. “The last time you talked me into that I couldn’t feel my fingers for a week.”
“Don’t do it, Gull,” Yangtree warned him. “The Swede has an iron gut. Got it from her old man.”
Rowan turned her face close to Gull’s and smirked. “Aw, do you have a tender tummy, hotshot?”
He imagined biting her heavy bottom lip, just one fast, hard nip. “What kind of shots?”
“There’s only one shot worth shooting. Te-qui-la,” she sang it, slapping her palm on the table with each syllable. “If you’ve got the balls for it.”
“You’re sitting on my balls, so you ought to know.”
She threw back her head on that sexy saloon girl laugh. “Hold them for a minute. I’ll get us set up.”
She hopped up, swung around a couple times when Dobie grabbed her hand and gave her a twirl. Titania to Puck, Gull thought.
Then she hooked her thumbs in her front pockets and joined him in some sort of boot-stomping clog thing that had some of the other dancers whistling and clapping.
She shot a finger at Gull—and damn, there went his heart again—then danced over to the bar.
“Hey, Big Nate.” Rowan leaned in, hailed the head bartender. “I need a dozen tequila shots, a couple saltshakers and some lime wedges to suck on.”
She glanced over, gave the man currently grabbing his crotch a bored look, shifted away again. “I can take them over if Molly’s busy.”
The crotch-grabber slapped a hundred-dollar bill on the bar in front of her. “I’ll buy your shots and ten minutes outside.”
Rowan gave the bartender a slight shake of the head before he could speak.
She turned, looked the drunk, insulting bastard in the eye. “I guess since you lack any charm, and the only way you can get a woman is to pay her, you think we’re all whores.”
“You’ve been wiggling that ass and those tits out there since I came in. I’m just offering to pay for what you’ve been advertising. I’ll buy you a drink first.”
At the table, Gull thought,
shit
, and started to rise. Gibbons put a hand on his arm. “You don’t want to get in her way. Trust me on this.”
“I don’t like drunks hassling women.”
He shoved up, noted the noise level had diminished, so he clearly heard Rowan say in a tone sweet as cotton candy, “Oh, if you’ll buy me a drink first. Is that your pitcher?”
She picked it up and, with her height, had no trouble upending it over the man’s head. “Suck on that, fuckwit.”
The man moved pretty quick for a sputtering drunk. He shoved Rowan back against the bar, grabbed her breasts and squeezed.
And she moved faster. Before Gull was halfway across the room she slammed her boot on the man’s instep, her knee into the crotch he’d been so proud of, then knocked him on his ass with an uppercut as fine as Gull had ever seen when the drunk doubled over.
She back-fisted one of his buddies who’d been foolish enough to try to yank her around. She grabbed his arm, dragged him forward, past her. The boot she planted on his ass sent him careening into his friend as the man started to struggle to his feet.
She whipped around to man number three. “You want to try for me?”
“No.” This one held up his hands in a don’t-shoot-me gesture. “No, ma’am, I don’t.”
“Maybe you’ve got half a brain. Use it and get your idiot friends out of here before I get mad. Because when I get mad, I just get
crazy
.”
“I guess she didn’t need any help,” Dobie observed.
“That does it.” Gull laid a hand over his heart, beat it there. “I’m in love.”
“I don’t think I’d want to fall in love with a woman who could wipe the floor with me.”
“No risk, no point.”
He hung back as a half dozen Zulies moved in to help the three men to the door. And out of it.
Rowan gave her T-shirt a fussy tug. “How about those shots, Big Nate?”
“Coming right out. On the house.”
Gull took his seat again, waiting for Rowan to carry the tray over.
“Are you ready?” she asked him.
“Line them up, sweetheart. You want some ice for your knuckles?”
She wiggled her fingers. “They’re okay. It was like punching the Pillsbury Doughboy.”
“I hear he’s a mean drunk, too.”
She laughed, then dropped down into the chair Gibbons pulled over for her. “Let’s see what kind of drunk you are.”
4
G
ull watched her eyes as he and Rowan knocked back the first shot, as the tequila hit his tongue, his throat, and took that quick, hot slide to the belly.
That, he realized, was her first appeal for him. Those clear, cool blue eyes held so much
life
. They sparkled now with challenge, with humor, and there was something in the way they leveled on his that made the moment intimate—as much of a hot slide through the system as the tequila.
Matching his pace to hers, he picked up the next shot glass.
Then there was her mouth, just shy of wide, heavy on the bottom—and the way it so naturally, so habitually formed a smirk.
Small wonder he lusted for a good, strong taste of it.
“How ya doing, hotshot?”
“I’m good. How about you, Swede?”
In answer she tapped her third shot glass to his before they tossed back the contents together. She brought the lime wedge to her mouth. “Do you know what I love about tequila?”
“What do you love about tequila?”
“Everything.” After a wicked laugh, she drank the fourth with the same careless gusto as the first three. Together they slapped down the empties.
“What else do you love?” he asked her.
“Hmm.” She considered as she downed number five. “Smoke jumping and those who share the insanity.” She toasted them to a round of applause and rude comments, then sat back a moment with her full glass. “Fire and the catching of it, my dad, ear-busting rock and roll on a hot summer night and tiny little puppies. How about you?”
Like her, he sat back with his last shot. “I could go along with most of that, except I don’t know your dad.”
“Haven’t jumped fire yet either.”
“True, but I’m predisposed to love it. I have a fondness for loud rock and tiny little puppies, but would substitute heart-busting sex on a hot summer night and big, sloppy dogs.”
“Interesting.” They tossed back that last shot, in unison, to more applause. “I’d’ve pegged you for a cat man.”
“I’ve got nothing against cats, but a big, sloppy dog will always need his human.”
Her earrings swung as she cocked her head. “Like to be needed, do you?”
“I guess I do.”
She pointed at him in an
aha
gesture. “There’s that romantic streak again.”
“Wide and long. Want to go have heart-busting sex in anticipation of a hot summer night?”
She threw back her head and laughed. “That’s a generous offer—and no.” She slapped a hand on the table. “But I’ll go you another six.”
God help him. “You’re on.” He patted his pocket. “I believe I’ll take a short cigar break while we get the next setup.”
“Ten-minute recess,” Rowan announced. “Hey, Big Nate, how about some salsa and chips to soak up some of this tequila? And not the wimpy stuff.”
The woman of his dreams, Gull decided as he opted to go out the back for his smoke. A salsa-eating, tequila-downing, smoke-jumping stunner with brains and a wicked uppercut.
Now all he had to do was talk her into bed.
He lit up in the chilly dark, blew smoke up at a sky sizzling with stars. The night struck him as pretty damn perfect. Crappy music in a western dive, cheap tequila, the companionship of like-minded others and a compelling woman who engaged his mind and excited his body.
He thought of home and the winters that engaged and absorbed most of his time. He didn’t mind it, in fact enjoyed it. But if the past few years had taught him anything, it was he needed the heat and rush of the summers, the work and, yes, the risk of chasing fires.
Maybe it was just that, the combination of pride and pleasure in what he’d accomplished back home, the thrill and satisfaction of what he knew he could accomplish here that allowed him to stand in a chilly spring night in the middle of almost-nowhere and recognize perfection.
He wandered around the building, enjoying his cigar, thinking of facing Rowan over another six tequila shots. Next time—if there was a next time—he’d make damn sure they had a bottle of Patrón Silver. Then at least he’d feel more secure about the state of his stomach lining.