“Oh, are you still talking?” I ask with a grin. “I tuned you out a while ago.”
Nixie giggles beside him.
“What are you laughing at?” he asks her.
“She’s not interested, Uncle J.” I smile at the cute girl who’s shaking her head. She’s cute but dead wrong.
“How do you know?” Jaxon asks her. “Maybe she’s playing hard to get.”
“Stella is impossible to get,” Roxanne says as she dumps strawberry ice cream into the blender. “She doesn’t want to date anyone, even though she thinks you’re really cute.”
His sexy eyes fall back onto me as he grins.
God, that grin…
“Oh, she does?” he says as he wipes a hand over his bearded chin. “I think she’s cute too. Very cute.”
Nixie is still shaking her head as she eats her fries. “You’re hopeless.”
“What?” he says to her. “I think I’m doing pretty good.”
Roxanne shoots her hand up like she’s in the first row at primary school. “Me too!”
“She’s not from the 1920s, Jaxon,” Nixie says with a frown. “This is 2020. Women don’t want ogre men who will grab and harass them. They want partners who challenge their intellect and grow alongside them.”
“It would be a challenge not to grow long and hard around this beauty,” Jaxon says as his eyes travel up my tingling body.
Nixie rolls her eyes.
“You can’t be serious,” I say to him. “Was that actually supposed to work?”
It totally worked.
“Maybe,” he says. “Is it working?”
“Kind of working on me over here,” Roxanne says. She turns the blender on with no cap on the jar and strawberry milkshake flies all over her.
Roxanne just told him she’s interested and even though she’s covered in strawberry milkshake, she’s still a knockout. But he doesn’t even look at her. He has no eyes for Roxanne. They’re glued onto me.
“Of course, it’s not working,” Nixie says, looking more and more frustrated as this goes on. “Ask her about her feelings. Her dreams. Her fears and goals.”
He leans a little closer on the bar and gives me a smile that makes my knees knock. “What do you dream of?”
You, from now on.
“Jaxon!” Troy shouts from the table. “We need your input on this.”
He licks his lips as he stands back up and I already feel a sense of loss, just knowing he’s about to leave.
“This isn’t finished,” he says with a sexy grin before he turns and leaves.
I wonder if he can hear my heart pounding. I wonder if the whole bar can.
“That’s my Uncle J,” Nixie says as she dips a fry into her ketchup. “He’s a caveman but he’s got a good heart.”
“He’s got a lot of other good things too,” Roxanne says as she shamelessly stares Jaxon down.
Nixie gives her a fierce look and Roxanne quickly disappears into the back.
“He’s single, you know?” Nixie says to me when it’s just the two of us.
“Oh,” I say as my heart does a little flutter. “But, I didn’t ask.”
“You didn’t have to,” she says as she takes the last slurping sip of her strawberry milkshake. “It was written all over your face.”
Chapter Four
Jaxon
“The Outlaws are holed up in Bakersfield, which is two towns over,” Troy says as we sit around the table, continuing the meeting. “They’re sure to have more security now after the hit.”
“They better have an army with them,” Killian says as he rolls his neck from side to side.
Chain is rubbing his beard as he listens. “So, what’s the plan?”
“We go in there,” Troy says, “with guns blazing. We take our shit back and we take our pride back.”
“Yeah!” the boys start cheering as they slam fists on the table and get all worked up.
I try not to laugh as I look at my brother’s stone-cold face. I know this guy too well.
“Bad plan,” Beckham grunts.
The cheering stops as everyone turns to him with shocked faces.
“You have a better idea?” Gage snarls at him.
Troy puts his hand on Gage’s flexed forearm like an owner trying to calm down his growling pit-bull. “Let him talk.”
“If we storm the place,” Beckham says in a flat voice, “it gets messy.”
“This shit is already messy,” Saint says as he looks around at the busted up bar.
“So, what do you suggest?” Troy asks.
Beckham’s expression remains flat. “Me and my brother go in. Alone. And we take care of it.”
The guys start laughing, but Beckham is anything but joking right now. He’s deadly serious.
“You guys are going to handle the entire crew?” Gage says, staring at him in disbelief.
“Yes.”
I can’t help but laugh at all of the incredulous looks around the table while my brother just sits there like a cyborg. I swear, if Arnold Schwarzenegger ever wants to quit The Terminator franchise, my brother Beckham would make an excellent replacement. He wouldn’t even have to act. He could just be himself.
Troy turns to me and sighs. “Is he serious?”
I shrug as I grin at him. “Isn’t that why you brought us over here? To take care of it?”
“I brought you to help,” Troy says. “But let’s be clear. This is a Heartlands Seneca problem and we’re going to be the solution.”
“Whatever you say,” I answer with another shrug.
They continue the meeting, but my focus shifts to the gorgeous girl who just walked into the bar. Stella has been running through my mind all morning since I saw her sitting on the porch outside.
This girl is stunning.
She shoots me a shy glance as she walks behind the bar and I suck in a breath as I keep my eyes glued to her.
It’s hot today in the Nevada sun and she’s starting to get a little sweat going that’s just making her even more irresistible.
Her long black hair is pulled back into a ponytail and the dark contrast of it makes her green eyes shine like jade jewels. They’re hypnotizing. I can’t look away.
I follow her with my eyes as she walks over to the jukebox by the far wall. She bends over to start cleaning up the broken glass and shattered records, and
