Page 16 of Christmas at Hart's Ridge

“You think you can just waltz into a bar like Goat’s Tavern, kiss some random guy with all that intensity, and call it off after you’ve gotten him all worked up? You think he’s going to be fine with that? He’s just going to let you leave?”

“I didn’t kiss some random guy in a bar,” Bethany said. “I kissedyou.”

Something shifted inside me. Like an internal earthquake. I felt…rearrangedfrom it. Because maybe she was saying that she wouldn’t have kissed another man the way she kissed me. That it was differentbecauseit was me. How was I supposed to keep my hands off her—she wasEthan’sfor, fuck’s sake—when she said things like that?

“What if it wasn’t me?” I pushed. “What if he didn’t stop?”

“Not all men are monsters, Luke. Not even men who drink at Goat’s Tavern. Which you should know, as the owner of said tavern, because you are not a monster.” She poked me in the chest. “Put me down.”

I didn’t obey right away. I held her there, in my arms, proving my point. My gaze stayed locked on hers until I was sure she understood. When she pushed at me again, I eased her carefully to the ground.

The moment her feet made contact, she moved away from me, steadying herself with a hand against the wall. Then she turned to face me with a searching expression.

“Is that why you kissed me?” she asked. “Were you…were you trying to teach me a lesson?”

I hated myself for the lie I was about to tell, but I gave her no indication. “I don’t know, Bethany. Do you feel like you learned something from it?”

She glared. “This might surprise you, Luke, but as a woman who has been forced to live in a world that is fifty percent men, I am well aware that men pose a risk to my health and well-being. So, yes, I know that I might flirt with a man in a bar who would like nothing more than to do me harm. But I also know that the person most likely to harm a woman is not a stranger at all. It’s someone she knows. Someone close to her. It’s her boyfriend or husband.”

I couldn’t argue with straight facts. My best friend, Eli Carter, who happened to be the one and only Hart’s Ridge police officer, had told me this a hundred times. If a woman had a broken bone or, God forbid, wound up dead, Eli always wanted to know where the husband was when it happened.

“I’m just as at risk from a man when I’m walking by myself as I am kissing him. I take precautions, even though I shouldn’t have to. It would be great if parents focused more on making sure their sons understand that no means no, instead of telling their daughters that it’s their responsibility not to tempt boys into raping her. I hate that I have to worry about this crap.”

I felt like absolute shit, because I was one of the people telling her to worry. “Bethany—”

“Anyway, you’re a dumbass.”

I blinked. “What?”

“You. Are. A. Dumb. Ass,” she repeated, annunciating slowly to get it through my thick skull. “Because if you were trying to teach me that some men won’t stop, well, congratulations. You’re only the thousandth person to bring that to my attention. Also you’re a dumbass because I didn’t kiss someone who wouldn’t stop. I kissedyou. And you stopped. So that doesn’t really prove the point you were trying to make, does it?”

Maybe I would be able to think of a witty retort at three a.m., when I would no doubt be wide awake and reliving this moment like my own private horror film. Probably not, though. Because she was right.

“I’m going home,” she said.

I didn’t stop her. She was halfway down the hall when she paused, her head lowered, but she didn’t turn to look at me.

“I wasn’t scared to kiss you, Luke. But now…now you made me regret it.”

Then she shoved through the exit and disappeared. Leaving me alone with shame that nearly choked me. And, yes, more than a little regret.

But, unlike her, my regret wasn’t for the kiss. Just everything after.

Chapter 6

Luke

Istormeddownthehallway. Shoved open the swinging, Western-style doors leading into the dining area with a force not strictly necessary. The door hit me on the ass on its return, which seemed a fitting punishment for my earlier behavior. I surveyed the room, looking for somewhere to land my rage.

I found it in my brother.

Because damn it all, this was Ethan’s fault. He should have kept Bethany from kissing other men. He should have stopped her from kissingme.

I stalked across the room to my brother. “You,” I growled.

Ethan looked up from the table he was bussing. His eyes widened. “Whatever you think I did, I can explain.”

I ignored this. “Do you know what Bethany is up to tonight?”

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