Steal Her Heart (Kaid Ranch Shifters #1)(28)

The woman’s hazel eyes went wide, and she nodded. And without a word, she turned back around and made her way to the bar.

Maris frowned. “What did you do to her?”

“Seduced the fuck out of her,” Hunter muttered. “He does it to every red-blooded woman who likes the peen. He can’t even help himself. He just does it.” He waved to the waitress at the bar, who kept glancing over at them as she gave their drink order to the bartender, but she didn’t seem to notice Hunter. “See? I might as well be invisible.”

That was crazy, because Hunter was a hottie. Wes mostly looked dangerous with his striking, cat-shaped eyes and chiseled face. But whatever, she’d apparently just witnessed Wes’s irresistibleness. She liked tall, dark, and tattooed better, but to each her own.

“You were saying?” Wes murmured in a silky voice. “Why would you let a man take your equipment? I want to hear exactly how weak you are.”

“Keep talking like that, and I’ll knock your fuckin’ teeth out,” Bryson said smoothly. He was still leaning back in the chair, his hat back on now that Hunter was sitting next to him, arms crossed over his massive chest.

“I don’t think she’s weak,” Hunter said. “I bet she did it to make things easier.”

Huh. “Yep. That. He threatened to drag the divorce out and go after my money, and I was afraid of the lawyer fees and him actually winning. So I gave him what he wanted.”

Bryson was locked in some kind of staring contest with Wes. “You got more to say?”

“Just curious. Why haven’t you fixed that?” he asked Bryson, cocking his dark eyebrow.

Bryson gave a feral smile, leaned forward, cracked his knuckles on the table, and clenched his fists. His teeth looked sharper when he spoke. “He’s got all the equipment locked in a barn up on New Haven Road. I couldn’t find the keys, and I didn’t know which ones she had the titles on.”

Maris choked on her margarita. “Wait, what?” she sputtered. “You went to Dallas’s farm? Err…Sadey’s farm?”

Bryson shrugged unapologetically.

Maris cleared her throat. “And how, may I ask, did you get into a locked barn?”

“Broke the lock probably,” Hunter offered helpfully.

“Nah,” Bryson said. “I broke through the west wall and let his animals out while I was having a look around.” When he smiled, his eyes went that light whiskey brown.

And speaking of the burning libation, the waitress showed up right then with four very stout shots of the good stuff. She set them all in the center of the table, nearly spilling the last one on account of staring at Wes.

“S-sorry. Thank you. Okay bye. Holler if you need anything! But you don’t actually have to holler. I’ll be by to check on you. Okay…bye again.” The waitress bustled off.

“Every fuckin’ time,” Hunter mumbled, watching her go. “I could literally be a walking carrot, and she still wouldn’t notice me until I was away from my brother.”

“It’s because you’re the ugly one,” Wes deadpanned. He slid a fiery-eyed look at Bryson. “We have trailers.”

Maris had been lifting the shot up to her face for a sniff, but stopped at the sudden turn in his conversation.

Bryson nodded his head slowly, leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms. “Maris, what equipment did he take?” Bryson asked her.

“Uuuuh…” The margarita she’d just chugged was making her head feel all fuzzy and nice. Sweet boys, offering to steal stuff for her. “A tractor, a bobcat, post hole digger, a cattle trailer, and one of those side-by-sides.”

“So one flatbed trailer,” Bryson murmured, looking at Wes.

“Yep, we could load the bobcat and side-by-side in the cattle hauler.”

“This is fun to talk about,” she said. “I always fantasized about walking in there and taking my stuff back.”

“Well, throw ’em back,” Bryson said. “Our first date is about to get weird.”

“What?”

The boys tossed their whiskeys back in unison. Clink, clink, clink went the shot glasses on the table. They all put them upside down. Dirty boys were getting whiskey droplets on the table. All three of their chairs made awful sounds as they stood.

“What are you doing?” she squeaked out.

Hunter enlightened her, “It’s what are we doing.” He circled his finger at all four of them.

“Shoot it, Duck. We have shit to steal.”

Oh, dear goodness, this was happening. She lifted her shot glass and did a sweet toast. “To you fuckin’ criminals.” Bryson snorted, and then she clinked the bottom of the glass on the table for good luck and tossed back the burning liquid.

Wes and Hunter nodded at her like she’d done something worthy of respect and made their way toward the door while Bryson dug his wallet out of his back pocket.

“I told them I would pay for their first round,” she said, reaching for her purse.

“Look, I get you’re a strong, independent woman, but I kinda want this date to count, and the way I was raised was real traditional. Let me pay for this so I can feel good about it.”

She didn’t know why, but that gave her even more butterflies. Dallas had never paid for anything if he could help it. This right here was a grown-ass man who enjoyed taking care of her. And he didn’t seem controlling about it either, or like he was keeping tabs. He just had traditional values and liked to treat her well.