LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER TWO

      BY THE TIME Luke Hollister pulled his truck into the driveway of Get Out of Dodge, it was lunchtime, and he had been paying closer attention to his texts than he would like to admit.

      Just in case Olivia needed a ride.

      He shook his head as he took a left in the long driveway and pulled around to the back of the property to the heavy equipment barn.

      It was an involuntary reaction that he had to her. One he’d had for the past seven years or so. She always caught his attention when she was in the room. Like a shiny lure dangling in front of a fish.

      He made her mad. She didn’t like him, and that fascinated him. Everybody liked him. He could charm the panties off any woman and stay friends with her afterward. It was his gift.

      But not Olivia Logan.

      He got out of his truck and rounded to the back, opening the tailgate, a loud, rusted sound filling the air as it lowered. A smile curved his lips, imagining Olivia’s prissy little self sitting in the cab of his truck earlier today.

      She’d looked like she was terrified she was going to get his uncouthness on her, and she’d seemed particularly horrified by the thought.

      And for some damned reason that thought made his gut tight, made his blood run a little bit hotter and a little bit faster.

      Hell no. That woman was off-limits for a host of reasons. Starting with he didn’t get involved with women who wanted more than a night of fun and ending somewhere around her being Bennett Dodge’s ex-girlfriend.

      Bennett was like a brother to him and there was no way in hell he was stepping in the middle of that.

      He let out a long, slow breath, visible in the frigid cold air, and started to unload the bed of the truck. Wyatt had insisted they had to start making a little bit more of a show out of the place, so he’d been sent to pick up curtains, bed sets and rugs.

      It was Wyatt’s show, after all.

      The Dodge family might feel like his own in some ways, but he wasn’t part of them, not really. Still, if a man could become blood brother to a place, he had certainly become family with Get Out of Dodge. Enough of his own blood had soaked into the dirt, and he had absorbed a hell of a lot of its dust into his lungs.

      Not that he and Wyatt were at odds when it came to what to do with the ranch. But sometimes Luke felt nostalgic for how it had been ten years ago. When he’d first arrived with no knowledge of how to work a ranch, no money in his pocket and no one on earth who cared if he was dead or alive. Back then, Quinn Dodge had run the place. The patriarch of the Dodge family was a gruff, no-frills kind of man, and Luke had appreciated his method of doing things.

      Wyatt Dodge wasn’t a frilly guy himself. The oldest of the Dodge children was just pragmatic. He had recognized that with the influx of tourism coming into the neighboring coastal town of Copper Ridge, they could certainly capture some of that for Gold Valley. Luke agreed. But he also resented the fact that the back of his truck was filled with doilies.

      “You got the stuff,” Wyatt said, walking into the shed and wiping his forehead with his forearm.

      “I did,” Luke said. “And, I think we should make Jamie get all of the rooms decorated. Tell her it’s women’s work.”

      “Right. I’m not in the mood to die at the hands of my little sister, thanks. She would probably hit me in the face with a shovel and ask me if that’s women’s work, too.” Wyatt leaned back, stretching and then grunting, putting his hand down on his lower back. “You know what else is a stupid idea?” he asked.

      “What?”

      “Riding bulls into your midthirties. My back was ready to quit way before I was.”

      There was a lot of money to be had in the rodeo as long as a man was good at what he did, and as long as he was smart with the money he made. Wyatt Dodge was smart. “Good thing you gave it all up to become an interior designer at your dude ranch,” he said.

      Wyatt snorted. “You hungry?”

      “Starving.”

      “If you want to head on over to the mess hall there’s some leftover chili in there.”

      The food situation was another issue they were actively working to sort out. Wyatt had been searching for a cook that could provide an authentic dude-ranch-type experience, but could do it in an elevated kind of way. At least, those were the words that he had used. That was another thing that Luke was fine with as it was.

      Luke didn’t particularly like change.

      He didn’t think the place needed to change. He’d spent his childhood entertaining himself. Riding his bike outside alone for hours, and when the weather was bad, inside watching old Westerns on the classic movie channel.

      He’d always wanted to be a cowboy. A man who lived for the land. Who lived for honor and riding off into sunsets.

      Then he’d moved to Gold Valley and found that dream at Get Out of Dodge. Now he felt like it was slipping away, along with his place in it.

      Silently, he followed Wyatt into the kitchen, got down a bowl and filled it up with a good measure of chili, then piled a bunch of cheese and sour cream on top. Then, the two of them walked back out into the empty dining room and took seats at one of the long tables.

      The benches weren’t the most comfortable seats, it had to be said, but it was familiar. Home, as far back as he liked to remember.

      The doors opened again, and in came Bennett, followed by Grant, Wyatt’s younger brothers who had decided to go all in on the ranch when Wyatt had started this reinvigoration process.

      “I’m starving,” Grant said. “Chili?”

      “What does it look like?” Wyatt asked.

      “Like you got up on the wrong side of the bed,” he returned.

      “Don’t ask stupid questions of a man who has been up since before dawn.”

      Bennett snorted. “You’re always like this. Don’t go blaming a lack of sleep. Anyway, this is your venture, jackass. The rest of us are just along for the ride.”

      “No one made you come. You got on the ride.” Wyatt spread his arms wide. “Get off at any time.”

      “Right,” Grant said, “because there were a field full of options available to me.”

      All of the Dodge brothers had spent their lives working the ranch in some capacity or another while supplementing their incomes with other work over the years. Grant had gotten married at eighteen and had taken a job working at the power company, where he had worked his way up over the years, needing a place that provided benefits because his wife had been sick.

      He had carried on working there even after Lindsay had died. But when Quinn Dodge had remarried and retired abruptly a year ago, and Wyatt had decided that it was his time to try and give the ranch new life, Grant and Jamie had both decided to go all in with him.

      Bennett, on the other hand, had a thriving veterinary practice working on ranch animals. But still, because he was his own boss, working with his friend Kaylee Capshaw, he did get to determine his own hours, and that meant he was able to invest time and a decent amount of money into the ranch.

      Also, the fact that they had their own vet was damned helpful.

      As for Luke, for him it had always been Get out of Dodge. But the more it changed, the more the Dodge children took control, the more he realized it had never really been his.

      “Hey,” Wyatt said to Grant, “you had

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