“Yeah, yeah. Look. Dicky, was it?”
“It’s Ricky.”
“Right. Dick. If you pull back onto Main Street, turn right, then head straight until you hit the curve in the road. Keep going until you get to the water tower…”
Ricky holds up his hands. “Wait, wait. Let me write this down.” He pulls out a notepad and scribbles. “Right at the water tower…”
Miles continues. “You’ll get to a dirt road. Follow it all the way down until you see a rooster statue made of old hubcaps and kitchen utensils and shit.”
I scrub one hand over my mouth, trying to contain mylaughter, my gaze narrowed on Miles while Rick continues writing furiously.
“You getting all this, Dicky?” Miles asks.
“Rooster. Got it.”
Miles nods. “Turn left at Randy the Rooster, and you’ll see the long gravel drive. Follow it as far as you can go and you’ll pull up just outside the big barn at Whispering Oaks Ranch.”
Ricky punctuates the notepad with a wild flourish. “Thank you, gentlemen. Appreciate it.”
When he leaves, Miles’s mouth spreads into a wide grin.
I chuckle. “Randy the Rooster? Really?”
Miles takes a sip of his beer and sets it on the coaster. “Poor fucker will be driving in circles trying to find it.”
“How the hell did you come up with that shit?”
“Married to a fiction writer, remember? I’ve picked up a thing or two.”
I lean back against the brick wall and cross my arms over my chest. “Think we should tell someone about that guy? One word to Rosie at the diner, and everyone will know about it.”
“Not a bad idea,” he says. “The dumbass will probably figure out I sent him on a wild goose chase. Then maybe he’ll do the smart thing and search up the ranch online instead of relying on some stranger in a bar.”
“Yeah. I’ll head over there on my lunch break.”
Miles stays long enough to finish his beer, and we chat about Maggie’s next book and their dog, Max. It’s mostly surface-level shit. I don’t open up to people, and Miles is similar in that way.
Stephanie, our other bartender on duty, comes in around five, and I head down the street to Rosie’s for a dinner break.
The bell chimes above the door when I step inside, the scorching summer heat giving way to the blissful chill of the central AC. The scent of fresh apple pie hits my senses asRosie places it in the display case. It only catches my attention for a fraction of a second before my eyes lock on the back of a woman sitting at the counter.
It’s been a few months since I last saw her up close, and she still manages to stop me dead in my tracks. I never could forget her, no matter how hard I tried; something always drew me back in.
Even though a decade has passed, I can still picture her on Sunday mornings sitting next to Connor at the breakfast table, and those late nights with her legs dangling off the tailgate and her guitar across her lap. Over the years, I catalogued every minor detail like I was studying for a test. She likes her coffee sweet and her candy sour. She loves cherries but hates cherry cola. She’s terrified of spiders and thinks ghosts are real.
That was then, and the Ruby from ten years ago has nothing on the woman sitting before me now.
Goddamn, she’s a sight for sore eyes.
Her long golden blonde hair is pulled into a ponytail threaded through a bright pink baseball cap. Her thick thighs spill over the sides of the stool, and don’t even get me started on her gorgeous ass in those painted-on blue jeans. Ruby Lynn Hayes is a wet dream come to life. She’s trying to blend in, but she’ll have to do better if she’s going to go unnoticed in this town.
I step up behind her, bending just enough so my lips are next to her ear. “Hey, Goldie.”
She startles, dropping the fork to her plate with a loud clatter, and spins to face me. “Jesus, Liam. You scared the shit out of me!” She playfully swats at my chest.
The simple touch sends a sudden jolt of electricity sparking through me.
I flick the brim of her hat. “You know this isn’t fooling anyone, right?”
