Wild Girl (Wild Men Texas #3) - Melissa Belle Page 0,28

twenty, and then we’re done.

Then I can go to Macey and tell her how I feel. That I’ll take her any way she’ll have me. I always would. And I always will.

“Remember why you’re doing this.” Luke’s reminder comes through the line loud and clear. “For Macey.”

“Right.”

For Macey.

And I have to keep it together until then. Remember why I’m doing this in the first place. For her. And that’s always worth it. Even if I lose her in the end, she deserves to be free.

Because nobody deserves to be happy and to have someone looking out for them more than Macey Henwood does.

I’m not trying to rescue her. I’m just trying to make sure she doesn’t have the chance to rescue herself taken away.

Chapter Seventeen

Macey

“What was your sister doing?” Daddy says to me. “Everyone knows you can’t open Jane’s cell. What if the legend is wrong and she gets out before the soul mates are found?”

I spin on him. “Are you really that selfish that you’re willing to hold someone here against her will because you’re scared to run this bar on your own? If you can’t manage it without a ghost, maybe you’re not doing a very good job.”

“I don’t think I can run it without her,” Daddy admits. “Her legend is everything to The Cowherd.”

I stare at him. “You don’t think you can run The Cowherd without Jane? Or without me?”

“Macey Henwood, you watch that tongue,” he warns me. “What’s gotten into you?”

I don’t answer him. I just take the key out of his hand, put it away, and leave the room.

I grab my laptop from behind the bar and keep walking until I hit the outside air. No one’s out by the picnic table. People rarely come out here. This table gathers more cobwebs than most attics.

I turn my back on the saloon and face the cow pasture.

I can still feel Logan’s hot hands around my waist and hear his raspy breath so close to me. I wanted him so badly it hurt.

It still hurts.

Because he’s taken. And I let him go. I asked him for a divorce, for goodness sake.

Shit.

When did my life get this out of control?

I open up Ghost Love on my laptop. Maybe I can lose myself in the love story I’m writing that will definitely have a happy ending. Really, I’m grateful for something to do. Writing this novel has helped get me through the summer of hell.

Except—I’m having a bit of a meltdown at the moment. So I can’t really concentrate on my book. Maybe I can finish it next summer when I’ll have more time. Ginny will be a mother, and Logan will be—

Gone.

The back door slams, and Ben takes a seat across from me at the table.

“Sorry you were stuck in the cell,” he says with a chuckle. “Riley and Blake are assholes.”

I close my laptop and laugh. “They were so thrilled with themselves.”

“I’m sure they were. I just got back and Daddy told me what happened. Oh, Ginny called me. Said she couldn’t reach you.”

Shit. I forgot about my phone.

“She and her mama are going to the bakery. They want you to meet them there.”

I nod. “Got it.”

Ben starts fidgeting, first with his hands, and then he takes a stick off the ground and starts breaking it into pieces.

“What’s up?” I say finally.

He looks at me. “I’ve made a decision about my future. I want to run my own business someday.”

I tell him how proud I am of him, silently realizing this is the second time this summer that one of my siblings hasn’t needed me the way they used to. They’re all grown up.

“I don’t think it was a coincidence that I had to come work at The Cowherd to figure that out,” he says. “You’ve been a good mentor, Mace. I appreciate all your support”

I rub his head affectionately. “Daddy’s the owner of this bar. He’s who you want to learn from, not the chick running the place for him.”

“You know you do everything here,” Ben says. “I don’t know how you did it so young is all. Feels like you had to grow up way too soon.”

“Yeah, well.” The smoky-sweet smell of the surrounding mesquite trees wafts through my nose, and I breathe in the familiar scent. “I think you have a real talent for this. You’ve already helped increase our profit margins. And you didn’t have to use a dead woman to do it.”

Ben laughs. “Daddy never did stop thinking Jane Austen would save