Damon was right behind him. If Gray was a boulder, Damon was the avalanche: taller, meaner, jaw set to maximum, arms folded tight across his chest. He learned to punch as a kid, but I suspected he perfected the craft in the Marines, before retiring and coming back to gain even more muscle as a rancher.
They both scanned the room, and when they spotted me at the bar, the temperature dropped by at least fifteen degrees.
Walker went silent. Mason shifted on his stool, fingers drumming the wood.
Gray took the seat at the end of the bar, giving himself room on either side. Damon didn’t sit. He just leaned in, close enough to make his point.
“Well, well,” Gray drawled, blue eyes fixed on me. “If it isn’t the man himself, still lurking around town.”
I met his gaze, not blinking. “Evening, Gray.”
Damon’s mouth twisted. “Thought you’d be drinking champagne somewhere fancy, not slumming it with us.”
I shrugged. “I like this place just fine, but thanks for your concern, Dame.”
Walker tried to laugh, but it came out strangled. Addie materialized to pour two whiskeys, neat, sliding them down the bar with the efficiency of a practiced arm.
Nobody said anything for a long minute.
Finally, Mason broke the silence. “How’d the vaccinations go?” he asked Gray and I almost laughed at the normalcy of thequestion, like we weren’t all pretending this wasn’t weird as fuck.
Gray didn’t look away from me when he answered. “Good. Should protect the stable from all kinds of disease.”
I did laugh at that, unable to help myself. Gray fancied himself a man of metaphors now, apparently.
Damon chimed in, louder this time: “You should bottle that and sell it, Gray. Might need to protect more than just the horses in this town.”
Nobody laughed, not even Walker. The jab wasn’t subtle, but I was past subtlety. The mood was teetering, dangerous now. This was the moment where old wounds either healed or tore open for good.
Gray set his whiskey on the bar, folding his hands around it. “You fixin’ to stay, Ford, or is this a sightseeing trip?”
I took a sip of beer. “Not sure yet. But I bought a place, so it’d be a pain in the ass to move again.”
Damon looked skeptical. “You always did think you were better than us.”
“Bullshit,” I said, with a little more anger than I intended. “I never thought that. I just—” I stopped, not wanting to have this fight in front of a crowd, but suddenly tired of holding back. “I just wanted to make it out. Maybe see if there was something besides this town. I didn’t expect it to happen the way it did. I never meant to leave the way I did.” And then, under my breath I said, “It wasn’t my choice.”
I caught Gray’s eyebrows quirk up as if he heard me, but Damon kept at it, his eyes narrowing. “Funny, you didn’t seem to care about any of that while twenty goddamn years passed by.”
I felt my fists clench, but I forced them to relax. “I had my reasons.”
Gray finally broke his stare. He glanced at Mason, then at Walker. “Did you two know he was back in town, or was that a surprise for you too?”
Mason shrugged. “It’s a small town, Gray. Word gets around.”
Walker shot me a look, then turned to Gray. “He’s here for his mom. Stop being such a stubborn asshole.”
Gray nodded, but it wasn’t agreement—it was a cataloging of information, the way a rancher checks off headcount at the end of the day.
The silence after that was uglier. A few more regulars drifted in, giving us a wide berth. Addie poured more drinks, and the air filled with the low hum of the radio and the clatter of billiard balls from the back room.
Every so often, I’d catch Damon glaring at me, and I’d glare right back. Old habits, I guess.
After a few minutes, Mason made another attempt at civility. “You missing California yet?” he asked, voice pitched low enough that only the five of us could hear.
I considered the question, then answered honestly. “Not really.”
Walker grinned. “I bet the Cali girls weren’t ready for you.”
