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“Since when do you care?”
She didn’t know why. She hadn’t really ever cared before. But there was something about the way this had all... She just didn’t like it.
“Doc, if you want to go home and change, I’ll go with you.”
“I don’t,” she said, furious now. Furious that he had made her feel anything about this at all. Furious that he had made her feel like she should care. She was just furious.
“All right, then, let’s go. I need to get you a hamburger or something, because you’re being a little bit feral.”
“I am not.”
“Okay. I’m sorry. We’ll just go get a hamburger.”
They got into the truck, and she noticed that he smelled different than he had when they had driven over. Like he put on cologne or something.
She sniffed a couple of times.
“Are you smelling me?”
Fire bloomed in her cheeks.“No.”
Smokey’s wasn’t all that crowded yet, and when they went in, there were plenty of available tables. “Shall I go order for us?”
“I can order.”
He went away to the bar. Sheena was making drinks tonight. She’d just started bartending at Smokey’s a few months back, and she was undeniably hot. Somewhere around his age, with dark hair, a smoking figure and a full sleeve of tattoos on her left arm. He’d heard she didn’t like locals, and she didn’t really scream marriage material but while she got his order together he couldn’t help but try to picture it.
“Hey!” She shouted across the bar at a couple of guys who looked like they were starting to tussle. They didn’t respond, and she picked up an empty beer bottle and hurled it unerringly between the men. It hit the wall between them and shattered. Everyone stopped and looked at her. “Behave,” she said, before turning to Lachlan. “What’ll you have, McCloud?”
Well, she’d be interesting anyway. But he wasn’t sure he was in the market for interesting. He was looking for a stabilizing influence and he had a feeling...she was not.
He went back to Charity with a beer for himself, and a Coke for her.
She leaned in and took a sip from the straw. And started to canvass the room. There were a lot of women here already.
“Any of them?” she asked.
“Maybe.”
His eyes locked on the waitress. Dulce was her name. For some reason she felt an instinctive and intense dislike for that. And for her.
“No,” she said.
“No what?”
“I don’t think she’s right.”
“Do you know her?”
“No. But I just... She has a career. Don’t you kind of want somebody who could dedicate themselves to your comfort?” He hadn’t said that, but Lachlan was a rancher, and the way he talked about finding a wife—like it was a position that needed filling as a job—it made her wonder if he wanted something his ancestors would have chosen. He worked the land; she worked the house. That kind of thing.
But he frowned.
“I don’t want a housekeeper. I want a wife.”
That didn’t make sense to her. What did he need a wife for if not completing the things he didn’t want to do? She wanted to get married to Byron for companionship. But she knew him. He was a good friend. She knew he’d be...good at companionship.
Lachlan just wanted a wife. Any wife.
