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Chapter One

Quinn Pedraza stared at the stack of bills and swore colorfully to hiravation The After Hours Saloon had beco but a pain in the ass to hih it was crowded every night, the place wasn't generating the cash he'd hoped

What did you expect out of a place you won in a poker gaive hih that was

The office, its tiny space filled with the desk, a filing cabinet and two chairs, was a sy The floor and furniture were scarred and scuffed, paint was peeling on the walls and it seemed every day he accu fro out here What difference did itelse still clung to him? The saloon wasn't much better

The inside of the building needed work and the bar setup needed a good overhaul, but with the end of su up at the ranch he didn't have any tihtfall there wasn't another spot for people to hang out That included ood people and bums If he shut down, they'd probably lynch him

On the plus side, bad as things were going, he was lucky there was no co the ranch all day then spending hours here at night was draining him, and not just financially He'd spent tooout of trailers and tents, crowded into places with mobs of people Privacy was i onto this place where he was thrust in the ht?

His Corandfather, hisa place that sold alcohol Which was ironic, because Quinn had kept the place thanks to the advice of another Comanche--Sam Red Elk

The Indian who looked as if he was a baked part of the Texas landscape had been in and out of Quinn's life since his teens, the kind of steady mentor his volatile father never had been He had an odd way of showing up at unexpected ti Quinn counsel that, while soht path

The night Quinn had won the saloon, Saame He hadn't wanted to play Instead he propped hi on a stick Didn't say a word until Quinn won the saloon Then Sa Quinn's He nodded and rose, leaving the gaht up to hi it, but the Indian shook his head

"You'll want to keep this, Quinn It will bring soood into your life"

Quinn knew Sa his own people He hih in Sah when it ca to wonder if the man had been in a snake-bite delirium Not that he'd ever say that where Saht be able to turn hih if he had to deal with this

Leaning back in his chair, his booted feet up on the scarred old desk, Quinn closed his eyes and rubbed his te to ease the headache that wouldn't quit Beyond the closed door he could hear the usual noises of a rowdy croar wore on He needed to check on Artie Make sure he was taking care of business out there

He'd thought hiring a irls to help hi in all these hours at the saloon at night But he'd quickly found out he couldn't afford a good bar er cities hadArtie Sampson had truly been a last resort The man had been fired from every job he'd ever had, but Quinn was desperate and told hi the man a second chance Apparently, soirls see most of the time to be any help at all

A loud crash jerked hi up his sleeves, he yanked open the office door and sto the boards loud enough they should have been heard over the noise The scene he walked into made him want to shoot someone Or himself

The blast of the old-fashioned jukebox overrode the hooting cheers of the beer-guzzling crowd, egging on the twoeach other in the middle of the roo it and shattering the wealth of uncollected e A chair splintered under the ht as they rolled over it

Fucking shit Drawing a breath, Quinn prepared to wade in and yank the two drunks apart by the front of their shirts But then she beat him to it

He was sure no one like her had ever walked into After Hours, or any other local bar or saloon he'd experienced She couldn't have been h heels of the fancy dress boots she wore beneath a pair of snug jeans gave her at least another four inches Hair like spun gold fell in waves to her shoulders, shiht spray of sparkles across a New Orleans bar logo hugged breasts that would be a nice handful, and Quinn had large hands A silver pendant that looked like a tiny dagger through a heart pointed right down at the teether

When he pushed hiet to her face, he found features like blown glass, perfect and delicate At first glance, he thought she wasn't irls he'd hired for loages to pour drinks But a second look said this was a fully mature, sexy woman Ethereal yet earthy Her eyes matched the blue of her shirt, the smoky color of an early dawn sky

When she stepped between the two men without hesitation, he bit back an oath He was ten paces away, too far to keep her froether pieces of Merita

Instead, one sliular, the other on the ar stupid to set off Howie They both had clenched fists and alcohol-induced stupid written all over their faces, but then she leveled that blue gaze on the a drink And that pisses me off"

She didn't raise her voice, but she didn't need to do so The impact of her expression turned the for a truck to hit Those blue eyes held soiven he could have picked her up under one arerous

Mes was a close second, and heabout her quieted the crowd and held bothinto uncertain curls

In contrast, that sense of dangertoward her His cock had hardened, pressing against the denied into the tight wetness of her body

There was no way she could sense his reaction A handful of occupied tables were between him and her, plus a bunch of people on their feet to corral the fight He was just one in the crowd Yet when his cock stiffened, her gaze flicked away froht to him

He had a voracious sexual appetite and liked a dozen different kinds of kink All the women he'd chosen in the past fifteen years--and the rodeo circuit had provided a lot of those--had seeenerous lover and, without ego, he knew he had the kind of alpha ht ways Their willing coh for him

Yet so woman next to hi And damn it all, that didn't make any sense It wasn't as if they just lay there and waited for hiive them orders Most of those relationships had had some substance to them, such that a couple became more than just casual sex Annie had been the last of those, soo

Since then, he'd had the occasional casual fuck, but it was halfhearted He'd told hi, but he knew that was a lie Every relationship had lacked soer on

Soer on him

In her eyes, he saw a deep, reciprocal interest Deep as in dark and mysterious, a cavern that held unknown hazards But alistered it, her attention went back to the tould-be combatants "You can take this outside," she said "Beat the shit out of each other in the parking lot I don't care It's not happening in here But whether you do that or you stay inside and behave, you'll go give the bartender an extra twenty for the glasses you broke That's only fair, right?"

She wasn't patronizing or sarcastic, which , her no-nonsense tone reminded Quinn of the way his own mother used to handle problems between him and his brothers She had a quiet firs--she loved them, and she would beat the hide off them without rees that they towered over her, they respected her the same way She also stood between the father, the only one he seemed to listen to

This wo on the drugstore cowboy's ar ?"