The restaurant was dimly lit, so I couldn’t get a good look at their faces.
“Know who they are?” Barney asked.
“I’m not sure.”
He lowered his hand and made a circular motion with his index finger.
“What’s going on?” I asked Christy when the staff with us at the bar moved in closer.
“It’s what we do when one of us is getting unwanted attention,” she whispered.
“I don’t want to cause any problems.”
She rolled her eyes. “It happens all the time. Those cowboy types don’t like taking no for an answer. Don’t get me wrong, my daddy’s a cowboy, but not the same as the likes of them. You can kinda tell, ya know? The good ones from the assholes.”
I nodded, wishing I hadn’t agreed to have a drink. Whoever these guys were, they knew my name, and that made me feel sick to my stomach. For the second time, I thought about calling Edge, but when I saw them get up and leave, I decided I’d just tell him about them later.
By the time I finished the one drink I’d been nursing, half of the people who had been at the bar when I got there had already left. The rest waved me off when I thanked them and said goodnight.
It was a foreign feeling for me to be part of a group. I’d never been before. In high school, I was a loner, and at the ranch kitchen, Tee-Tee spent so much time with just me, I felt like an outsider with the rest of the staff. It was probably my imagination that they resented me. On the other hand, they never invited me to go to the Long Branch with them either.
When I got to the front door, Steel walked me out. “Edge will be here in a minute,” he said as we waited a few feet away.
“I can walk home on my own,” I told him when ten minutes went by without Edge showing up.
“You know I can’t let you do that, Rebel.”
“No one will know. You can tell Edge you walked me home.”
“I value my life too much for that.”
A few minutes later, Edge still hadn’t shown up, but Christy walked outside. “You’re still here?”
“Just waiting for my ride.”
She looked between Steel and me. “Okay, well, goodnight.” I watched her cross the street and go into one of the building’s doors.
“She lives on the second floor,” Steel explained, pointing when a light went on in one of the windows.
“Do you usually walk her over?”
He looked away, but I could see his cheeks flush. “Sometimes.”
“You like her, don’t you?”
The smile on his face shone through his eyes. “I do, but don’t you go tellin’ her that.”
I crossed my heart. “Your secret is safe with me.”
Edge’s car pulled up a minute later, and he jumped out. “Sorry it took me so long to get here.”
I didn’t ask why, and he didn’t offer.
Back at the house, we took a shower together and I crawled into bed. I knew I needed to tell him about the guys who came into the bar, but I was too exhausted to get into it. I would the next morning.
It wasn’t until I stepped inside the kitchen the next morning and the sous-chef, Ben, handed me a cup of coffee that I realized I’d forgotten again to tell Edge about the men.
“Gonna be a long one today, Miss Lucy,” he said, wiping his brow as I took the first sip of the best coffee I’d ever had. “You keep yourself hydrated now, ya hear?”