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“I’m already looking forward to it. But...do I need to worry about getting beat?” he asked jokingly.
She sized him up. “I’ll be honest. I’m not as good at chess as I am at pool. So...if I had to bet, I’d probably bet on you.”
“Note to self,” he said. “I’m going to get beat at pool but might have a chance at chess.”
The waitress approached to take their order, and Jordan indicated he’d get the veggie burger. When Ellen looked up in surprise, he said, “Why not? It’s what you recommended, isn’t it?”
He was flexible. She liked that about him—flexibleandnice. She could use a little nice in her life. She was just thinking she was glad she’d agreed to have him come see her when she heard a voice that jerked her back into the world she’d been living in most recently:Hendrix. He was standing at the bar only a couple of feet away with Kurt, Brant’s brother, talking and laughing about a hard-won billiards match while ordering another beer.
Ellen was fairly confident he didn’t know she was sitting right behind him and hoped he’d get his drink and move away without noticing. She didn’t want to become as self-conscious and overly aware of him as he usually made her feel, not when she finally had the chance to concentrate on a man who might make a good love interest. It’d been forever since she’d had a man in her bed. She was sort of hoping this relationship would drift in that direction—not this trip but maybe a future one—and wanted to be able to get to know Jordan without any distractions.
But then Hendrix turned, and their eyes met.
Hendrix would’ve glanced away and walked right back to the billiards tables as though he hadn’t seen Ellen. But Kurt noticed her at the same time and pointed the top of his beer bottle in her direction. “Hey, Ellen. How are you?” he said, taking the only step required to reach her table.
Hendrix could see a measure of wariness enter her eyes. She always grew leery when he was around. But she managed a pleasant smile for Kurt’s sake. He had no doubt she would’ve smiled at Brant’s other brothers, too, if they hadn’t already left with a couple of women from the next town. She seemed to be making friends with almost everyone in Coyote Canyon—except him and the Fettermans.
On second thought, now that she was friends with Leo, she was making inroads even there.
“I’m good.” She kept her gaze attached to Kurt as though Hendrix wasn’t standing right beside him. “You?”
“Can’t complain.” Kurt took a pull from his beer. “Did you ever find a plumber to fix that leak under your sink?”
Hendrix had no idea when the two of them had discussed a leak, probably at an event hosted by Talulah and Brant. Kurt didn’t typically talk about Ellen, not to him. Almost everyone in town understood they were mortal enemies and they simply accepted the situation for what it was and carried on.
“Not yet,” she replied. “I replaced the connections but that didn’t help.”
“Must be a corroded pipe.”
“It’s possible. I haven’t had time to mess with it further. But it’s in the guest bath, so I just turned off the water to that sink for now.”
“Bet I could fix it,” he said. “I’m not a plumber, but I’ve had to do a lot of that kind of work at the ranch over the years. Want me to come over and take a look?”
Eager to escape, Hendrix leaned closer to Kurt and mumbled, “I’ll meet you at the pool tables,” but Kurt was just drunk enough to grab hold of his arm.
“Whoa! Hang on. We’ll go over in a sec.”
“No need to worry about the leak,” Ellen told him as if Hendrix hadn’t interrupted. “I’ll take care of it myself. You have enough to worry about. You don’t need to be saddled with my stuff, too.”
There was that fierce independence again. Hendrix was starting to see a lot of positive traits in her—and that bugged him more than anything else.Keep your mind on what she’s done to Fetterman Well Services, he reminded himself.
“I wouldn’t mind,” Kurt insisted. “I’ll stop by the next time I’m at Talulah and Brant’s.”
Hendrix felt his muscles tense. Why was Kurt being so solicitous of Ellen? Could it be that he found her attractive? Since Kurt never mentioned her, Hendrix hadn’t seenthatcoming. When she first arrived in town, Kurt had laughed at her tattoos and piercings and the way she dressed right along with Hendrix. But they’d stopped doing that quite a while ago. She had a way of making whatever she did look cool, so what had seemed too odd or unusual at first had slowly become appealing.
“If you happen to think of it,” she said.
Assuming that would be the end of the conversation, Hendrix almost stepped away. He hated standing awkwardly by as Ellen spoke to one of his best friends. But Kurt didn’t move. He looked at the man Ellen was with—someone Hendrix had never seen before.
Noticing the shift in Kurt’s attention, Ellen cleared her throat. “Sorry. Jordan, this is...this is my best friend’s husband’s younger brother Kurt and...” She hesitated as though she preferred not to introduce Hendrix, but it would’ve been too blatantly rude to ignore him. “And this is Hendrix Durrant, another driller in the area.”
“And your best friend is named Talulah,” Jordan said. “Isn’t that right? I think you’ve mentioned her before.”
The more they talked, the more Hendrix began to believe that Ellen and this dude didn’t know each other very well. So...what was the connection between them?
“One of them,” Ellen clarified.
She had others? Hendrix had never seen her hang out with anyone besides Talulah. Or, occasionally, he spotted her in town with Ben, getting parts, gassing up or grabbing lunch.
