Burning Scrub’s bachelorparties weren’t earthshaking events by anyone’s standards, and Beau’s party was maybe even a little duller than average, because Benny’s presence put an extra damper on things.Nothing was going to spoil the old man’s great-granddaughter’s wedding day.
By nothing, he meant Adam and Jayce.Sheik Ali too.Leon Schmidt, Beau’s agent, was also on hand to make sure no harm came to his client.Leon hadn’t forgotten how Ali—in his role as Sheriff Earp—had tried to hang Beau and almost succeeded.
Burning Scrub had two main party venues.One was the church, currently prepped for the wedding.The other was Shooters Saloon, named for the number of weapons discharged within, and not shot glasses emptied, which said more about the residents of Burning Scrub than their attention to historical detail.
Local ordinances in the Old West banned weapons from establishments that served alcohol to cut down on the potential for violence.Lawmen, however, were exempt from the ban.And because Benny took his role as the town’s spiritual leader far more to heart than the town paid attention to detail, the saloon served homemade, nonalcoholic apple cider instead of whiskey.
The men played Texas hold ’em for pennies.Belle’s grifter mother had taught Beau how to deal for one of their cosplay events, so he dealt the cards to guarantee Sheik Ali came out as the winner, because Ali was a client as well as a guest.Beau didn’t appear to have any problem with how his party worked out.
The guy was ridiculous in how happy he was.
Jayce didn’t play cards.He sat at the bar and nursed his lukewarm apple cider.Malika’s earlier efforts to get him to find fault with Belle rather than Beau wouldn’t let him alone.The sheik’s sister was a huge pain in the butt—she was spoiled and demanding and the way she looked down her nose at him made his teeth itch—but she also had a way of viewing things from an angle that made him stop and think.Pointing out that he wasn’t real competition for Beau hadn’t endeared her to him, however.
Except she wasn’t wrong.Being famous wasn’t why Beau had won Belle.It was because of the way he looked at her.And Belle, Jayce conceded, deserved a man who went foolish whenever he heard her name, and Beau certainly did that.Belle had tried to explain it to Jayce, but he hadn’t wanted to hear it.
Tonight, seeing how much Beau looked forward to marrying Belle, and how he’d made sure she got the wedding she wanted and not one that his fans might expect, Jayce finally saw that he’d handled things wrong.Sure, the Belle he’d known before she met Beau would have fit nicely into his plans for the future.But he hadn’t spared enough thought as to how he’d fit in with hers.
And as much as he hadn’t wanted to see it, the woman marrying Beau tomorrow was no longer the woman Jayce had believed Belle to be.She was still kind, and sweet, but she also did things sometimes that he didn’t understand.
He didn’t understand Malika any better.Her only issue with an arranged, polygamous marriage was coming into it second, whereas the thought of having to keep track of more than one woman’s mood swings gave him cold shivers.Especially if one of those women was Malika.
Now he saw why his dad got so confused when it came to his mother and the things she sometimes did.Thosefreeloading, black-footed ferretsdidn’t contribute much toward the Ride No More’s bottom line, and money was Huck Hanson’s love language.
Adam slouched forward in his chair, bent elbows resting on the table, an unlit cigar clenched in his teeth.He stared at his cards, then at Beau, then back at his cards, with a hint of disgust in his eyes.Everyone, with the possible exception of Ali, knew Beau was cheating.And since Beau was cheating, Adam got the worst cards.Beau liked to do things that twitched Adam’s nerves.
Adam tossed his hand on the table and tucked the unused cigar into his breast pocket.“I’m out.”
He joined Jayce at the bar.
“How’s the new bear fence coming along?”Jayce asked, mostly for something to say that had nothing to do with women.
“The town’s too damn big,” Adam growled.“I’ve got the garbage fenced off, but I’m going to have to use temporary fencing and move it around to keep them out of the town.If a tagged bear wanders in, the new plan is to tranquillize and relocate it.”
Tranquillizing a bear wouldn’t be easy.It could do significant damage before the tranquillizer kicked in.Not to mention, relocating an animal of that weight and stature was more complicated than relocating a human.
Benny, who was too old for bachelor parties, late nights, and skipping afternoon naps, had dozed off at the far end of the bar.He lifted his head from his folded arms.His eyesight was poor, but there wasn’t much wrong with his hearing.“Told you the fence was a bad idea.”
“Can you think of a better way to keep that scientist out?”Adam asked, irritated.“There’s only so often he can suffer from heatstroke and not get suspicious.”
“We could infect him with mountain fever next time,” Benny said.“All we’d need are some ticks.”
Grady Lovett slid into the stool between Jayce and Benny.He’d also tossed in his cards.“Who are we infecting with mountain fever?”
“That scientist Adam relocated.He thinks using Rohypnol on him again will make him suspicious.”Benny waggled his empty cider glass at Grady, who topped it up from the stoppered jug on the bar.
Grady returned the jug to its original position.“Mountain fever might kill him.”
Everyone pondered that possibility.
“I’m going to have to move the damned fence around and relocate any damned bears,” Adam, who had the same problem with thedamnedsas Huck, said glumly.“There’s no other solution.”
“I’ll help with the fence,” Jayce offered.
Relocating bears or anything else wasn’t his problem.Andy Danvers, one of the permanent locals, helped Adam with that.
“We might be making trouble where nothing exists.We haven’t had any bears around in a couple of years,” Grady reminded everyone.
Burning their food waste worked well, except in dry summers.Setting the Pioneer Mountains on fire wasn’t the way to keep the town off the state radar.
