Braydon(42)

But the time for thinking about work had come to an end at five o’clock. At least for a little while. It was Friday night and he had agreed to meet his brothers at Moonshiners. There was a minimal chance that he would make it through the night without getting rip-roaring drunk and making an ass of himself. After his encounter at the diner with Jessie, he was willing to take that risk. Whatever it took to try to get her off his mind.

Not that he expected it to work. Nothing else had so far.

“Aww, hell!” Zane exclaimed from the bar when Braydon walked in. “Trouble just got here, boys. Looks like we oughta just call it a night.”

Glancing around, Braydon realized that Zane wasn’t talking to anyone in particular. Not exactly something new. Zane tended to spout off at the mouth whenever the urge struck him. Like now. Although the bar was more crowded than usual, Braydon realized no one was really paying him any attention.

Thank God.

As for Zane’s reference to trouble . . . Right. Not that he was all that proud of the good-guy reputation he’d earned through the years, but Braydon knew trouble didn’t play into it whatsoever. If anyone was trouble, it was Zane.

“Not gonna work, Bubba,” he told Zane. “You still hold that title.”

“Damn,” Zane huffed, grinning. “You by yourself?”

“Looks like it,” Braydon told him. “Where’s V?”

Zane nodded his head toward the back. “They’re all gearin’ up for Dalton and Cooper to arrive.”

“Calhoun?” What the hell were they coming to Coyote Ridge for?

“Yep. Rumor is they’re gonna share the good news about the upcoming tour they’re doin’ together. It’s all over the news. Sounds like their teamin’ up with Cheyenne Montgomery. That or Dalton’s datin’ her. V was ramblin’ on and on about it. I didn’t pay much attention.”

Calhoun and Cheyenne? Well, that explained Brendon’s temper for the last few days. If it was in fact true. Not that he would know, because he didn’t listen to the radio much and his brother hadn’t said so much as two words to him for the last few days.

“And they’re comin’ here?” Braydon wasn’t sure why he was so taken aback by the news. It wasn’t like Tessa and Cooper hadn’t stopped by from time to time. And they’d all been graced with Dalton Calhoun’s presence a time or ten as well. But this sudden appearance seemed a little off the cuff. Completely unexpected.

Braydon glanced in the back to see Zoey, V, Kylie, and Jessie all sitting together at one table. They were grinning from ear to ear and laughing. As much as he tried to tell himself to look away, he couldn’t seem to. He just drank in the sight of Jessie in profile as she sat on one of the tall stools. Tonight she was wearing a short jean skirt, a formfitting T-shirt, and cowboy boots. It was an outfit he’d always loved seeing on her. And off her.

Not helping, Walker.

“Did you hear that Ethan and Beau pushed their party back to next weekend?”

“Yeah,” Braydon told Zane, forcing his gaze away from the prettiest woman in the room. “Ethan texted me earlier.” From what his brother told him, they wanted everyone to be there and Travis had a sudden meeting he had to go to up in Dallas on Saturday, so they were holding off.

A sharp, piercing whistle sounded, drawing Braydon’s attention toward the front door just in time to see Sawyer stepping into the doorway. “Who’s ready to get this party started?”

The surprisingly busy bar erupted in applause and a few grunts. Sawyer was known to want to be the life of the party, so his grand entrance wasn’t exactly a new thing.

Braydon waited for his brother to head their way, but instead, Sawyer took a step back and held the door open. In walked Tessa and Cooper Krenshaw, along with Dalton Calhoun, Katie Clarren—one of the waitresses from Tessa’s bar—and . . . Sonuvabitch. Cheyenne Montgomery strolled in with a huge smile on her pretty face. Had he not been so distracted by a rowdy group closing in on him, he would’ve searched the room to see the look on Brendon’s face.

“Now we can get this party started!” Sawyer exclaimed, and the noise level rose once again.

Turning so that his back was to the bar, Braydon watched the chaos as it ensued. He figured if Mack, Moonshiners’ owner slash bartender, didn’t do something soon, the small bar was going to bust at the seams. Especially once—not if—word got out that they had three of America’s most beloved country music stars in their midst.

“What’s all the fuss about?”

Braydon turned to see Mack leaning over his shoulder.

“No clue.”

“Don’t you let ’em burn this place down.”

“I’ll do my best.” Braydon laughed, but Mack didn’t hang around. The bar was probably close to capacity now, and everyone was trawling for drinks. From the looks of it, Mack wasn’t going to be able to keep up with the demand on his own. One of these days, Braydon expected the guy to hire a little help. Obviously that wasn’t going to happen tonight.

“Hold your horses!” Mack bellowed as he faced a row of cowboys. “One at a time.”

No, Moonshiners wasn’t equipped for this type of gathering. Hell, at most, they could probably cram one hundred people in, and that would be shoulder to shoulder. But there were still people coming through the door.