Wild Girl (Wild Men Texas #3) - Melissa Belle Page 0,20

that way.”

“Not at all. But I found out lots of new things about Logan this morning when I talked to his mother. Like how he was born on the ranch at the same moment their oldest bull passed away. So, over to you, Macey. How old were you when you first served a drink at this bar?”

“I guess around fourteen.”

“I was never allowed,” Riley pipes in.

“I tried once when I was twelve,” says Ben.

My mouth drops open. “Twelve? That’s horrible!”

Ben grins. “Mama took the drink away.”

I turn to Skip. “All of this is off the record, by the way. Don’t even think about it.”

He nods. “Of course. Nothing about your family.”

Nobody thinks twice about Skip’s comment. Except for one person.

Logan leans forward and gives Skip a hard look. “What does that mean, nothing about her family? What are you talking about?”

Skip shrinks back from Logan’s intense gaze. “Um…”

“Figure of speech.” I wave my hand casually in the air. “Don’t be so paranoid, Logan.”

But Logan’s not finished. “What are you doing here, anyway? Are you spying on Macey?”

I tap Skip on the shoulder. “Don’t you have somewhere to be? You and Jon?”

Skip mumbles some excuse about low blood sugar, and he hustles Jon and himself out the door.

Once they’re gone, Gigi turns to me again. “Macey, Logan told me you don’t hunt. How come you’re so good with a gun, but you don’t hunt?”

I look at Logan, willing him to answer on my behalf.

He keeps the eye contact with me as he says, “Macey enjoys shooting, not hunting, that’s all.”

“How come?” Gigi asks.

“You should ask Macey herself,” Logan says.

I take a deep breath. Well, it’s really none of her business, and I know I can lie and tell her anything I want, but I haven’t told the story in so long it’s almost like I need to get it off my chest.

“I was nine years old,” I begin.

“Oh, this is the saddest story.” Riley puts her elbows on the bar and leans closer.

I give her a look but keep going. “Daddy’d run off again, and Mama asked me to go get us some dinner. ‘Take the shotgun,’ she said. ‘And remember to keep it locked till you’re ready to shoot.’ I went out and found a rabbit.” I pause and inhale. “I’ll always remember its eyes as it froze, cornered, and just stared up at me. Its eyes looked just like mine. The same color with the same fear in them. Honestly, it still haunts me. And I knew then I could never hunt. I didn’t have it in me. So I let the rabbit go and walked into town to beg the clerk at the corner store for an advance on groceries.” I give Gigi a half-smile. “I’m a hypocrite, of course, because I eat meat like the rest of my family. So I don’t judge anybody for hunting as long as they eat what they kill and don’t just do it for sport. Because if it’s just a sport, you should shoot beer cans like I do.”

Gigi gazes at me with those big wide eyes. “Macey, that is a terrible story. I’m never going to eat rabbit again!”

She excuses herself to go meet her sisters, and then Ben has to deal with an order out in the back.

Riley’s phone beeps, and she looks down at it and laughs.

“What is it?” I ask her.

She glances at Blake, who’s looking down at his own phone.

“Nothing.”

Blake looks up. “You know what I find funny?” he says. “No one’s ever tried to let this supposed ghost out of her cage. Instead, they give tours and point at poor Jane trapped in a cell, but nobody ever opens the door. Why not?”

I gesture behind me to Vivian’s diary. “You’re asking me to decipher Vivian’s mind? Her diary states that no one can break the spell by opening the door. People could open and close the thing all day long, and it won’t matter if the spell’s still intact. And they still believe only one couple is a match to the legend and that couple is out there somewhere.”

“Let’s open the cell and see if it frees her,” Blake dares me. “If it doesn’t work, you’ll be in the same place you are now. But if it does? The mayor will give your daddy a shot to run the bar again, right?”

“I like this idea,” Riley says with a smile.

“No,” I say. “As in, no, I won’t open the jail cell.”

“You scared?” Riley challenges me.

“No!”

Logan