Can't Resist a Cowboy by Elizabeth Otto Page A

still impaled with a fork and remarkably smaller in size. His gut rumbled and clenched, reminding him where the pieces of Mother had gone. The table looked slightly crooked, like a leg had buckled and pitched the top sideways. Levi blinked, cocked his head.
    “Sit up. You can’t…drink like that.” Something nudged him hard in the biceps. Levi’s head snapped up, and he realized he’d been resting his head on the table. The slide of a quarter and the cool feel of metal against his fingertips. Levi looked from Cole to Tucker and Jaxon. They were swirling, making it impossible to focus. He ran a hand over his eyes, confused for a moment.
    The table used to be full of more men, crowded so tightly around that you couldn’t discern one face from the other. White T-shirts, tan desert camo pants, dog tags shining in the overhead light. Clinking, laughing, talking—the drone would get so loud that you couldn’t make out a single word. Cards flipping, cans crushing in animated hands, fists pounding on the plastic tabletop so hard the whole thing shook.
    Lights would flicker, and the faces would become encased in shadows. Silence would fall if the lights stayed off too long, the soldiers listening for the sirens…for the call. But then a white fluorescent glow would burst through the room, and the voices and cards picked up where they left off. Once, the lights didn’t go back on, and the ground shook like a sinkhole was going to rip open and swallow them down. The next thing he knew, he was following Carlos out into the night…driving…thinking about Carrie and if he’d ever see her again.
    Levi looked around, his palms on the table to keep his ass steady in the chair. Jaxon made a face at him, grounding him in the present. Even then, he’d been thinking about Carrie. Shit.
    “Damn boy, you look sick. Is The Mother making little pepper babies in your belly?” Jaxon snorted. Tucker slapped the table as they laughed. “Man, it’s good to have you home, Levi. I missed picking on you.”
    Levi’s fingers dug into his sweaty palms, making tight fists, the movement helping him focus on not falling backward.
    “Remember that time you made Levi eat the—”
    “We aren’t here to act like women.” Levi looked up. His head was swimming, spinning, making it hard for him to hold it up. “Keep your sappy estrogen-talk to yourself.”
    Tucker tried to scratch his forehead and knocked his hat off. “You dumbass. If we…if we were going to girl-talk, we’d be talking about Carrie.” He produced a full bottle from under the table and cracked the top, refilled everyone’s glass. Levi put his forearms on the table to hold himself up.
    “What about her?”
    Tucker took his shot and followed it with a loud shout before he slammed the glass down. “You’re hard for her, man. We all know why you really grabbed Agate Falls.”
    He flipped Tucker the finger. “Shut up, Tuck.”
    His middle brother didn’t know when to quit, never had, especially when the booze ran freely. “She still loves you.” The words came out in a sloppy singsong that sounded a lot like a taunt. What the hell was this, high school? Levi gave a disgusted shake of his head. She didn’t love him, far from it. I loved you once.
    “No, she doesn’t.”
    Cole gave him an exaggerated pat on the knee. “Don’t worry, man. We love you.”
    “Speak for yourself.” Tucker hiccuped around a grin.
    “Shut up, Tuck.” The slurred amusement in Cole’s voice pulled Levi from the empty pit his brain seemed to be in. He snickered and rubbed his blurry eyes with one hand. Mostly quiet this entire time, Jaxon leaned across the table, startling Levi a little with the sound of his voice. “When’re you gonna tell her that you want her to stay?”
    When did these three idiots become relationship experts? They hadn’t even been in the same place long enough for any of them to get a good read on what was going on with him and Carrie. Unless…he was really that