Unbroken Read Free

abnormally feminine attire.
    â€œIf you can play in a tie.”
    He reached up and grabbed the knot at the base of his throat and loosened it. “I think I can handle it.”
    â€œBut can you handle me?” she asked, quirking her brow.
    â€œI guess we’ll see.”
    *   *   *
    The Saloon, so named because it had been around since that was the usual name for a place where drinking and carousing occurred, was packed. Not so much because it was a Sunday night, but because there was no other nightlife in Silver Creek. Nothing beyond a music festival that ran through the summer and attracted mainly the gray-hairs who only lived in town seasonally.
    Not that Cade needed much of a nightlife. Not considering he hadn’t done any real “going out” since his accident. Not considering that, even if he did, he couldn’t dance.
    He didn’t know why he’d asked Amber to dance at Lark’s wedding.
    Ah, shit. Lark was married. That made him feel . . . well, it made him feel. And that was just something he hadn’t been prepared for.
    But she was his baby sister, and dammit, no matter how unsentimental he wanted to be about it, he and Cole had practically raised her. Which really made Amber closer to the truth than he wanted to admit.
    He had empty-nest syndrome. A thirty-two-year-old single man with commitment issues . . . and empty-nest syndrome. As if he wasn’t enough of a dysfunctional gimp-bag already.
    He wandered up to the bar behind Amber and settled in next to her, his forearms resting on the wooden surface, which was scarred from years of use and misuse. Bottles broken in brawls and Lord knew what else.
    There was a story on the menus about a shoot-out between a sheriff and an outlaw that had resulted in the outlaw giving up the ghost on that very bar top.
    The Saloon was filled with history. And Cade had spent too many nights in it over the past four years, just soaking in the alcohol haze and absorbing the hormones of those more up to the challenge of getting laid than he was.
    He’d become pathetic. And he didn’t have it in him to change it.
    â€œTwo Buds, please,” Amber said, leaning over the counter and catching the bartender’s attention a lot quicker than Cade would have.
    â€œI wanted a hard cider,” he said. In truth, he would really like to have something that would knock him on his ass, but he tried to save the pitiful drunk trick for the privacy of his own home. In case he got maudlin.
    â€œToo bad,” she said.
    He was glad she was here. Because there was nothing she hadn’t been there for. Every hard thing he’d ever had to cope with. Finding out about his father’s affair, his mother’s death, his father’s death . . . his accident. Lark’s wedding.
    Amber Jameson had been there for every-damn-thing.
    â€œBeer me,” he said once she had the bottles in hand.
    â€œTry again. I don’t speak frat bro.”
    â€œAmber,” he said, giving her his very best plaintive look.
    â€œFine. I pity you. Drown your sorrows in the way society has dictated men ought. Much healthier than expressing genuine emotion.”
    â€œCan I interest you in a friendly game of pool wherein I use your sad, pathetic skills at stick-handling to make me feel more like a man?”
    She arched a brow. “Sure, honey, if you think hitting balls into a pocket will make you feel more like a man.”
    â€œI do,” he said, getting up from the bar and heading to the table.
    Amber picked up a cue and started chalking the end. “Your balls are mine, Mitchell,” she said, the light in her eyes utterly wicked.
    â€œWhose balls haven’t been yours?”
    That taunt didn’t come from Cade’s mouth, and it had him on edge instantly.
    Mike Steele. Standard Grade A douche who worked at the mill. They’d all gone to high school together, but he’d never