A low, single-story building stood in the middle of a wide, open field, and maybe forty or fifty cars and trucks were parked there in addition to the party bus. A large, circular wooden sign had been mounted to the roof with a spotlight beaming on a red drawing of a cowboy hat sitting atop a pile of rope. She couldn’t quite make out the wording there and had already forgotten what the bus driver had said.

“What is this place?” she asked as they hurried to catch up with the others.

“Howdy. It’s a gay cowboy bar,” Maddie said.

“Really?”

“Really.”

She was delighted, excited to see the inside. She could already hear country music blasting now and again as the doors at the front of the building opened and closed. While she’d seen the occasional person wearing a cowboy hat around town—men and women—she hadn’t expected something this niche for a gay bar in a small town. She and Maddie joined the others, all of whom were waiting in a bunch as Jos went inside. She’d made some kind of reservation, so they needed to go in as a group.

“There are a couple of these here in the state,” Maddie explained. “Charlie’s, in Denver, is much bigger, of course, but we’re close enough to Wyoming to get some of the Cheyenne and Laramie queers down here, so it’s actually pretty popular, at least on the weekends.”

“Incredible,” she said. Maddie laughed at her excitement and kissed her, and only now did she realize that Maddie was, in fact, a little dressed up herself. She wore another silk shirt, this one a red-and-white swirling paisley. She’d paired it with a dark and smart brown leather jacket, and very tight, very dark jeans. And, she saw, fastening her gaze on them—brown cowboy boots that matched the coat.

Maddie, seeing her spot them, held one foot up for her and then the other. “Nice, right?”

She didn’t reply in words. Instead, she grabbed the lapels of Maddie’s coat and kissed her, her enthusiasm making the kiss a bit messy and hasty.

Maddie leaned back, laughing. “Gee. I guess you like them. I guess I should have brought my hat.”

Again, she couldn’t reply right away with words, showing, instead, what she thought of the idea with another kiss—a little gentler this time, but with some more heat in it.

Maddie’s eyes darkened into that hungry shadow again, and her lips were curled into an impish grin.

“You should stay at my place tonight,” Maddie suggested. “I can show you the hat.”

She nodded, lips pinched tight, afraid, suddenly, that she might do something incredibly inappropriate here in the middle of all of Jai and Stuart’s friends and family.

“I’d like that,” she managed to say.

Chapter Twenty-Three