“Nope. I need a break anyway.”
Once they’d settled in lawn chairs with the cooler between them, and a cold beer in each hand, Jack sighed. “So where’s the fire?”
“What’d you mean?”
“Why was it so damn urgent I haul balls up here?”
Carter didn’t say anything for several minutes.
“If it’s anything less than you telling me you’re dying, I’m going to beat your sorry ass into the dirt, McKay.”
Carter kept staring off into space, lost in the vast prairie and his guilty thoughts.
“Shit. I was kidding. You aren’t dying, are you?”
“No.”
“Then what?” Recognition dawned on Jack’s face. “It’s about a woman, isn’t it?”
“Yep.”
“You knock her up?”
Carter tossed his beer can off to the side of his chair and cracked a fresh one.
“Nope.” He downed half the contents. “I’m crazy about her. So crazy about her in fact, that I want you to do something for me.”
“What? Be your best man?”
“No. I want you to f**k her.”
Beer spewed out of Jack’s mouth. “Jesus Christ, Carter!”
“What?”
“You can’t just blurt out something like that…dammit.”
He waited.
“I don’t even know what the hell to say.”
“Simple. Say yes. It ain’t like we’ve never had a threesome, Jack.”
Jack stared at him. “True. But it’s been a few years and we were usually drunk. And neither of us gave a crap about the women who were bold enough to take us both on.
That last time, hell, we didn’t even bother to learn her name.”
Man. Had he really been that callous?
Yes. Maybe Carter was more like his wild brothers than he cared to admit.
“What’s really going on here, McKay?”
“Honestly?”
Jack nodded.
“You laugh and I’ll kick your ass, former linebacker or not.” Carter fiddled with the tab on the beer can. “This woman? I had impressions about her, almost like cognitive daydreams, before I ever met her. Drove me crazy, I kept tryin’ to work her likeness into clay, and wood, or on paper. Nothin’ worked. Then I actually, physically met her. Yeah. I was a little freaked out about it. And she’s better in real life than in those dreams.”
“What’s her name?”
“Macie.”
“How long have you known her?”
“Seems like forever.”
Jack frowned. “She a cowgirl?”
“What makes you ask that?”
“You’ve always had a thing for sweet little country girls.” Jack scowled again.
“Personally, I don’t understand the attraction. And I can guarantee you’ll never see me with a cowgirl. Never.”
Carter kept drinking.
“So. Is she from around here?”
“Sort of. Not really.”
“Okay, that’s vague. What’s she like?”
“She’s…damn. She’s everything. But she’s also damn young.”
“Like Jerry Lee Lewis young? Great balls of fire, you jonesin’ for a thirteen-year-old girl, McKay?”
“No, you f**kin’ pervert. She’s twenty-two.”
Jack looked at him. And laughed. Hard.
“What?”
“You’re all of twenty-six. How does that make her young?”
“I don’t know. It just does.” Carter drained his beer and reached for another. Now, why in the hell hadn’t he thought of that before now? Because most days he felt so much older than his chronological age?
“So let me get this straight: You called me, in a panic, dragged me to Wyoming, because you need me to f**k your new, young girlfriend?”
“It ain’t that crude.”
“Details, man.”
“Fine. Macie has this fantasy of bein’ with more than one guy. She’s told me she’s had dreams about it. And I wanted to make her fantasy, her dream come true, since she made mine… Shit. I sound stupid. Like a f**kin’ sap. Never mind.”
Jack waited a beat. “Because she is your dream come true, isn’t she?”
Carter didn’t answer. He just drank steadily. Finally, he said, “Yeah. I’m thinkin’ she probably is.”
“Dude. You are so totally f**ked.”
“Yes I am.” He passed out another round of beer. “So will you do it?”
Jack shrugged.
“She’s beautiful.”
No response.
“Sexy. Killer body.”
Jack shrugged again.
“She’s very adventurous in bed.”
He lifted a brow without comment.
“Anyway, I have an extra pair of boots and a hat around here somewhere. I can’t see you fittin’ into my chaps, but maybe that won’t matter to her.”
“She wants me to dress up like a redneck? With shitkickers and a big belt buckle and a stupid hat and a syrupy ‘Hey howdy, pretty little lady, can I ride you hard’ drawl? Oh hell no.”
Carter smiled. Spitefully. “Pretend you’re a sophisticated city-boy all you want, Donohue. But we both know you’re just a South Dakota plowboy with a fancy degree.”
“Insulting me isn’t helping your cause, Carter.”
Carter pretended not to notice when Jack changed the subject. He’d let it go. For now.
As darkness fell, they caught up and talked about Jack’s job with the architectural firm in Chicago and Carter’s upcoming art show. More and more beer cans piled up by his chair. Why was he getting drunk?
Liquid courage, man. You didn’t want to ask Jack for this favor because the thought of any man—even your best buddy Jack—ever touching Macie, makes you mad as a bucking bull. But you love her so goddamn much you’ll do whatever Amazin’ Macie wants to make her happy.
Love?
Her?
Whoa.
Did he love Macie?
He’d have to close his eyes and think about that one.
“Hey, McKay. Wake up. A car just pulled in the drive.”
Dammit, if he could just grasp these important thoughts that kept spinning inside in his brain…before they spun away.
Carter had company.
Macie tamped down her disappointment. She hesitated as she climbed out of her vehicle, studying the two forms in the lawn chairs in front of a dwindling campfire.
“Carter?”
“Hey, shweet darlin’, howsh’s it hangin’?”