Page 42 of Reluctant Bride

I don’t say anything to him first. I put myself in the gap between his hand and my wife, close enough that he has to look up to find my face, and I let him take his time looking.

“We were handling it,” Sage says, not moving back, arms folded now to match Tessa’s. “Tessa and I had this.”

“I know you did.” I don’t look away from Marcus. “I’m handling something else.”

“Sullivan.” Marcus laughs, too loud, swaying half a step. “Just being friendly, man. No harm.”

“You put that hat anywhere near her again,” I say, quiet enough that only the three of us catch it, “and I will break both your arms in front of the entire fair board, and every one of them will agree you had it coming.”

The color drops out of his face fast enough that the beer in his hand tips and slops over his knuckles. He mumbles something that might be an apology or might just be air leaving his lungs and stumbles off toward the bathrooms like the floor’s decided to tilt under him personally.

Sage watches him go, then turns on me, eyebrow up, still unmoved.

“Both arms,” she says. “That felt excessive.”

“He put his hands on you.”

“He put a hat near my hair. I already said no. I didn’t need backup.”

“I know you didn’t need it.” I hold her eyes, and there’s nothing apologetic in it, no version of me that’s sorry I put myself in front of him. “I wanted to be standing here anyway.”

Her expression shifts, not quite forgiveness, closer to a woman deciding not to fight a battle she’s already half enjoying.

“That’s lethal politeness with the volume turned all the way up,” she says. “You should still trademark it.”

“I’ll add it to the road sign.”

“You already put your name on a road. Don’t get greedy.”

Eli materializes at my shoulder with two beers and a grin he’s had loaded since I walked in. “That’s one grown man who’s suddenly remembered urgent business at the bathroom sink. You’re a menace to this town’s hydration levels.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You never do anything. Somehow half the county still ends up needing a moment alone.”

He steers me toward the pool table before I can argue it, and I let him, mostly because Sage is already deep in a conversation with Tessa and a woman I recognize from the fundraiser, dark hair in a braid, sheriff’s-department polo and jeans and a Rimrock High baseball cap she’s wearing backward. Cora Aldridge. Sheriff Aldridge’s daughter, hockey co-chair with Eli, and the only person in this bar who’s beaten me at darts and a bet about calving season three years running.

“Don’t let the cap fool you,” Eli says, following my eyes to the bar. “She’ll take your money at pool faster than I will.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“It’s a warning.”

It isn’t a warning I take seriously until a half hour later, when Eli beats me two racks running, first time in a decade he’s managed it, and Cora peels off from Sage and Tessa to see what the noise is about. She takes one look at the table, cracks her knuckles like she’s about to perform surgery, and picks up a cue without asking whose game she’s joining.

“Cora.” I nod at her. She nods back, already chalking up like she’s been waiting all night for a reason to embarrass me.

She runs the table on both of us without missing once.

“Where’d that come from?” I ask, watching my cue ball scratch for the third time.

“Four years growing up with a father who thinks pool is an integral part of law enforcement training.” She chalks her cue without looking at me, which is an insult all by itself. “You want to talk about your defense contract next, Sullivan, or should we just settle up now?”

“He’s already down thirty from Eli,” Finn says, appearing out of nowhere with a basket of fries he clearly stole off somebody else’s table. “Don’t kick a man while he’s bleeding.”

“I have never once seen you show mercy in your life, Finn.”

“That’s different. I have a system.”