Draw (Gentry Boys #1)(77)

As I watched him slobbering all over my mother I thought about how true to form his nickname was. He did look like a gnome. Only less attractive.

“Miss Saylor,” said a voice as a hand gripped my elbow.

“Uncle Frank,” I answered, somewhat displeased. My mother’s half-brother was the epitome of sleaze. When my grandmother was lying on her deathbed five years earlier he stole some blank checks from her nightstand and cleaned out her account. After a few minutes of unpleasant small talk I managed to get away from Uncle Frank.

It was getting towards evening and a few people from town were starting to head inside. A group of men sitting at the bar caught my interest as I noticed my mother gesturing to them unhappily.

They were rough lookers. They wore leather jackets and took up a lot of space, not even troubling to dare anyone with their eyes to ask them to move. The petulant bride pouted over their presence but Gary just quietly prodded her to a table in the back.

It wasn’t just habit which led me to check my phone. I was desperately hoping to hear from him. I wished I hadn’t shoved him away at the hospital before taking off. Hesitantly I tapped out a text message.

“Miss your face.”

I wasn’t usually a drinker but I needed something although I didn’t want my head to be too fuzzy for the drive home. I headed to the bar and ordered a beer.

The man to my left tossed a twenty on the counter and swiveled to give me a wink. He was huge, black-haired and adorned with tattoos and leather.

“It’s on me,” he said, pushing the beer over. I thought I knew him, or at least had seen him around. Emblem wasn’t a huge town. There was something troubling about the way he grinned at me.

“Thanks,” I grumbled and then heard my mother calling me over.

A few of the wedding guests were making use of the tiny dance floor. Uncle Frank had his hands around the ass of a woman who looked exactly like my elementary school principal.

Amy grabbed my arm and pulled me into a nearby chair. The Gnome stared at me from behind his mottled facial hair as his arm draped itself over my mother’s shoulders. Amy patted my knee.

“Didn’t get a chance to talk to my baby.”

I shrugged, not really in the mood for token mothering. “You never do.”

Her lips pursed. “You really messing around with Cord Gentry?”

“Not that it’s appropriate post-wedding conversation, but yes, I am.”

The Gnome cocked his head. “Which one is he again?”

“One of Benton’s boys,” my mother spat. “You know, those scabby triplets who were forever causing trouble.”

“Oh yeah. Think my property value increased the day those little shits exited town.” He gave me a nasty smile. “Now if only the rest of the Gentry trash would pack up their trailers and follow.”

I glared at him while my mother giggled and then looked at me thoughtfully.

“What was the other guy’s name? Your boyfriend in California? Rich, hot, total keeper from what you’d told me.”

“Yeah, well I might have left a few things out,” I said flatly.

She ignored the comment. Her voice, assisted by the buzz of alcohol, had grown quite loud. “So what the hell did you do to screw that up, Saylor? I mean you come crawling back to Arizona and bed down with a shitty Gentry. Doesn’t sound like the earth shattering future you had planned for yourself.”

My mother had quite an audience by this point. Even the men from the bar were watching.

“No,” I agreed, “it sure as hell doesn’t.”

All of a sudden she got serious. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

“Jesus, Ma.”

“No, Saylor. Shit, the last thing I can deal with is some snot-nosed little Gentry who wants to call me ‘Grandma’.”

I looked at that woman and felt no love. She was my mother so there would always be some connection, whether I wished it or not. But her view of the world had become so ass backwards that I knew even if I told her everything about what a shit Devin was she would still prefer him to Cord. She wouldn’t give Cord a chance, not ever.

As my mother and her new husband cackled drunkenly and uttered filthy things about Cord’s family, there were a lot of things I could have said. I could have started with what I had learned of Amy McCann and Chrome Gentry. But instead I just stood and regarded them icily.

“You two f*cking deserve each other,” I said.

I exited out the back and climbed over the wrought iron fence surrounding the patio. I could feel quite a few eyes on me as I ducked into my car. It would have been a great parting shot. Except I couldn’t leave because my car wouldn’t start.

After issuing a series of rabid curses and vainly turning the key, I heard a knock on the window. It was the man who’d bought me the beer at the bar. I was able to get a better look at him as he hunkered down next to the driver’s side window. He was broad and muscled with dual tattoo sleeves on his thick arms. He raised an eyebrow at me.

“Trouble?”

“A little,” I admitted, then shook my head with a hiss. “Jesus, what a plot point. How many times does some poor chick get stranded by a bad engine?”

“Fuck if I know,” the man responded smoothly and then called over his shoulder to several men milling around by the entrance to Rooster’s Roast amid a collection of motorcycles.