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“Yeah. He’s in back.” Zane pointed to the open doorway leading to the jail cells and the storage room. “But I wouldn’t bother him unless you absolutely have to.”
Shaking his head, Gabriel said, “I heard he was grumpy.”
“As a hungry bear.” Zane grinned.
“Why? Because Jocelyn and Logan are out of town?”
Zane shrugged. “Maybe. Could be lots of things, I guess.”
If Zane had planned to say more, it was cut off by Kendall’s sudden appearance in the doorway beneath the hand-painted jail cells sign. “What do you want, Gabriel?” His tone suggested irritation. Not the way he wanted to start this conversation.
“Hi, Kendall,” Gabriel started in an overly civil tone.
“No.” Kendall moved over toward the desk. Zane shifted his feet off the corner and stood up as if expecting Kendall to oust him from the chair.
“I didn’t even ask you anything yet.” This did not bode well.
“Well, word on the street is that I’m a grumpy bear.” He sent a glare to a grinning Zane. “What did you expect?” One of Kendall’s rare smiles then appeared. He was joking.
Gabriel pushed out a quiet sigh of relief. “I need to ask a favor.”
“No,” he said again.
He sounded more serious, but Gabriel ignored his negative response. “The motel in town is filled to the brim, and I have a friend who needs a place to stay. I was thinking that since Old West Town will be closed for the next couple of days—”
“A friend? What friend?”
“Her name is Suzanna Creighton—”
Kendall laughed out loud. “Oh, her name is Suzanna. Tell me, how long have the two of you been friends, Gabriel?”
He crossed his arms in order to gather time to think of something intelligent to say. “I don’t think that’s relevant.” Gabriel once again didn’t care for the way this conversation was going.
“Is it more or less than one day?”
Damn it. “Okay. Fine. Her car broke down ten miles out of town. I had it towed to my shop. Dylan had to order the part to fix it. And with all the television people still covering the story of the kids being rescued from the mineshaft, Seth’s place is completely filled up. She has nowhere else to go. Unless of course I invite her to our private home.”
“No.”
Gabriel narrowed his gaze and unfolded his arms. “No to letting her stay at the saloon for a couple of days or no to letting her stay at my private home?”
Kendall put his hands flat on the desk. “Take your pick.”
Gabriel straightened his spine. “I don’t need your permission to invite anyone to my house.”
“Then why are you asking?”
“I’m asking for her to stay in the saloon.”
“No.”
“Why not?” He hated that he sounded like a petulant child unwilling to take no for an answer.
Kendall threw his hands in the air. “First of all, we aren’t set up for guests to stay at the saloon hotel. We have no staff, no one to make the beds, clean the rooms, or secure the interior property.”
“I’ll take care of all that.”
“Are you just going to lock her in for the night?”
“No. I’ll stay with her, and—”
“Awesome. Then when people find out—and they will—we can restate fervently how we don’t use the place for after-hours sex fests. I’m certain they will believe us.”
“My sex life is none of your fucking business.”
“It is if you plan to partake of it with your brand new friend in the Old West Town Saloon after hours.”
“Wow. You are grumpy.”
“So why are you here pushing all of my buttons?”
“Because I’m trying to help a friend.”
“Is she pretty, this friend of yours?”
Gabriel grinned. “Beautiful.”
“Is she also friends with Nathan?”
His eyes closed briefly in contemplation before centering his gaze on Kendall, silently pleading for him to change his mind. “Not yet.”
“And you’d rather incur my wrath than ask Nathan to bring a stranger—I mean—a brand-new friend home?”
