He thought he’d probably like her very much out of jeans as well…

Grey set Troy’s beer in front of him. “Anything else?” Grey asked.

Troy shook his head. “Nope.”

“Alright.” Grey moved.

Troy took a sip of his beer. The glass was thick and chilled. The beer was perfectly cold, a hint of ice, but not too frosty. This was exactly what he needed after a depressing dinner with McCorkle and a flirtatious conversation with his favorite librarian.

He’d only just taken a second sip when suddenly Callan Carrigan was at his side, ordering a beer and taking a seat on the bar stool next to his.

“Look whose back in town,” Callan said, turning on the bar stool to face him even as she waved off the chilled glass to drink straight from the bottle. “Troy Sheenan, the venture capitalist himself.”

Troy gave Callan a long look as she downed nearly one third of the bottle.

He liked Callan. He’d seen a fair amount of her growing up as she and Dillon used to chum around, despite their parents’ disapproval. But the Carrigan girls weren’t topics of conversation at their house. In fact, the Carrigans were never to be mentioned in their house. The feud between the families had been strong. If Dillon or one of the other boys mentioned Callan or another of the girls, Mom would leave the table in tears, and Dad would start in on his lectures. Or worse.

Troy watched Callan take another long swig from the bottle. Her bottle was nearly empty.

Something was definitely bugging Callan tonight.

“What’s up, kid?” Troy asked, taking a sip from his glass, deliberately dropping the nickname he and Trey had given her way back when, a nickname that always fired her up.

Her eyebrows lifted. “Kid, huh? You do know I’m practically running the Circle C these days?”

“Trailing in your dad’s shadow, more like.” Troy was just teasing but Callan wasn’t in the mood.

“You want to piss me off, don’t you?”

He gave her another long look over the rim of his glass. She was slender with dark hair that she usually wore in a ponytail—except when she was at the bar on a Friday night looking for trouble. Her slight boyish build made her look far younger than her twenty-five years. But her tight jeans and tank top showed off her curves all the same. “So what’s going on? Why are you here? I would have thought you’d be home doing your nails and getting all dolled up for the big Valentine Ball.”

“I’m not going to the ball, and even if I was, I wouldn’t be getting my nails or hair done. And it wouldn’t take me two days to get ready. Wouldn’t even take me two hours. I’d just shower, put on my dress and boots and go.”

He shook his head, checked his smile. She was still a sassy, smart-mouth thing, but he liked her sense of humor. He’d always found her refreshing. “So why aren’t you going?” He nodded at the young cowboys standing around the pool table looking forlorn now that Callan had left. “Didn’t any one of them ask you?”

“I have more fun here. Besides, the ball’s expensive. Two hundred bucks a couple.”

“And you’re telling me no cowboy was willing to scrounge up two hundred bucks to take you?”

Her cheeks flushed pink. She glanced away, lips compressing. “I was asked.