Читать книгу One Night in Weaver... - Allison Leigh - Страница 9

Chapter Two

“You threw a great bachelorette party, Hayley.” J. D. Forrest gave Hayley a hug before throwing her slender arm around Jane, who was standing beside her. “Are you sure you want to marry my little brother? He’s kind of a pain in the patoot.”

Jane’s eyes glinted with humor. “Pretty sure. He has a few good points.”

J.D. grinned. “Yeah, but I’m his sister, and I definitely do not want to know what they are.” She finished wrapping a lightweight scarf around her neck and leaned forward to kiss Jane’s cheek. “Seriously, you’ve made him one happy camper, which makes those of us who love the guy happy, too.” Moving with her typical quickness, she started for the door of Colbys, where the party had been held. “And we’re all hoping you can do something about his wardrobe. He wears the ugliest shirts any of us have ever seen!” Still smiling, she pushed through the door into the evening.

The moment her future sister-in-law was gone, Jane plopped down onto the nearest chair and covered a yawn with her hand. “Getting married is exhausting.”

Hayley started gathering up the glasses scattered around on the tables. “It’s not the getting married part that’s exhausting. It’s the wedding itself and all of the busyness leading up to it.” She shook her head when Jane started to push to her feet. “No, no, no, my friend. The only reason I agreed to have your bachelorette party here was because you promised to pretend you didn’t own the place and agreed to let your employees be guests, not workers. You’re not helping me clean up.”

Jane collapsed back into her chair. “I could overrule you, you know. I am the bride as well as the owner of this establishment.”

“You could.” Hayley stacked the glasses on a tray and carefully carried them behind the bar, rattling them only a little as she went. “But why? This is one time in your life when you can let your friends do things for you. So let us.”

“There is no us,” Jane pointed out. “There’s only you, since you refused all the people who offered to hang around and help clean up.”

Hayley set down the tray and flipped off the country music that had been playing over the sound system all night. The sudden quiet was welcome. “Sam would have stayed to help if she hadn’t gotten called in for duty.” Hayley had seen Jane operate the dishwasher behind the bar often enough that she figured she could manage it herself. She began loading glasses onto one of the racks. “Casey’s going to be here to pick you up in a few minutes anyway.”

“But if you need help, you can check—”

“—with Jerry,” Hayley finished, glancing across to the open doorway that led to the restaurant side of the bar and grill, where Jane’s cook was still at it. Even though it was past closing time for the grill, the lights were still on over there and with the music turned off in the bar, she could hear the rattle of dishes and murmur of voices from his late-night customers.

“Okay, so maybe I am a bit of a control freak,” Jane admitted. At the sound of the door opening, she turned and looked over her shoulder.

“Did I actually hear the words ‘control freak’ come out of your lips?” Casey asked as he entered.

Hayley didn’t bother trying to hide her smile as she bent over to slide the rack into the dishwasher.

“You heard nothing of the sort,” Jane countered blithely. “The brightness of your neon orange shirt has affected your hearing. Speaking of... Your sister wants me to do something about your shirts.”

“Admit it.” Casey leaned over his fiancée and kissed her before pulling her to her feet. “The only thing you want to do about my shirts is get me out of them.”

“Save it for the honeymoon,” Hayley told them. “My innocent ears can’t take any more.”

“Please.” Jane rolled her eyes and ducked under Casey’s arm to come around the bar. “Are you sure you don’t want—?”

“Get out of here.” Hayley gave her a hug and a push. “The party is over, so go home. I’ll make sure everything’s locked up.”

“I know. I just—” Jane closed her mouth when Hayley pointedly looked at Casey for help. “Fine. Fine!” Her friend tossed up her hands and went back around the bar. She took the costume tiara that Sam had mockingly insisted she wear during the party and fit it back on her head before joining Casey.

“Think it suits me?”

“Well, you’re already the queen of my heart,” he drawled, nearly frog-stepping her to the door.

“Oh, brother.” Jane sent Hayley a look as they left, but Hayley knew just how deeply in love the two were and once the door finally closed behind them, she couldn’t help but sigh a little.

Not with envy. She wasn’t envious of her friend’s happiness.

But she couldn’t help being even more acutely aware of her own solitary life in the face of all of that happiness.

Blowing out a breath, she peeled off her high-heeled boots and wiggled her stocking-clad toes as she went around to each of the tables, picking up paper plates and crumpled napkins and dumping them in a trash bag.

“Looks like you got left holding the bag.”

She startled, jerking around at the sound of the deep voice, and somehow managed to spill the trash she’d just collected. She spotted Seth standing in the doorway to the grill. “What are you doing here?”

He held up his plate and fork as if it should have been obvious. “Jerry’s got good pecan pie. And I was hungry after working a double.”

She hadn’t seen him since she’d tried to chase after him at the wedding shower the week before, and she felt as foolish now as she always seemed to feel around him. “Well, the restaurant might have stayed open to serve you, but the bar’s closed.”

“I gathered that from the girly-looking Closed for Private Function sign taped on the wall.” He took a few steps closer anyway. “Didn’t know that Colbys was fancy enough for private functions.”

She crouched to scoop the plates and napkins back into the bag again. “I threw Jane’s bachelorette party here.” She grimaced when her fingers sank into an unfinished piece of cake but scooped as much as she could into the bag. She wasn’t about to tell him that she was the one who’d fashioned the pretty signs. “There’s more room for a party here than at my place.” Particularly with her grandmother still in residence. And Jane had insisted that if she had to have another party in her honor, she wanted it held someplace where she was extremely comfortable.

Hayley rose and wiped her sticky fingers on another paper napkin that she added to the bag. “What did you mean last week—” she pushed the words out before she lost her nerve “—about being a gentleman?”

He forked another bite of pie into his mouth, not seeming surprised by her abruptness. “I said I wasn’t.”

She finally looked right at him and felt the usual lurch inside her when she did. He was wearing blue jeans and a snug black T-shirt with SECURITY printed in white block letters across the front. “What you said before you left the Clays’ party last week. I had the sense you were implying something. I just don’t know what.”

His vivid blue eyes narrowed slightly. “Afraid you’ll have to clue me in, Dr. Templeton.”

She frowned at him. “Don’t call me that.”

“It’s what you are.” As if he were perfectly at home doing so, he went behind the bar and grabbed a towel and a bottle of spray cleaner. Then he came back around to where she’d dropped the trash and smoothly knelt to wipe up the bits of cake that had landed on the floor.

Feeling stymied, she stared down at the back of his head as he worked. His hair was starting to curl around his nape and the T-shirt tightened across his muscular shoulders every time he moved his arm.

“It’s ridiculous to call me that after we’ve slept together,” she said, wishing she didn’t feel as uptight about that fact as she did. She was a therapist, for heaven’s sake. She was supposed to understand human nature.

“Ah. I get it now.”

She wished she did.

He gave the now-clean floor a last buff with the towel and stood. “We didn’t. Sleep together. Have sex. Whatever you’re thinking that’s got your panties in a twist.” He left the bottle and towel on the table, tugged the trash bag out of her hand and headed for the uncleared tables. “Not that I didn’t have that in mind when we left here that night.”

Her face was hot. She knew she ought to tell him to stop cleaning up. She’d hosted the party and cleaning up afterward was her responsibility. “I woke up in your bed!”

“Yep.” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “That’s where I put you after you passed out. I spent a very uncomfortable night on a couch that’s too damn short.”

She pulled out a chair and sat. There was no real reason for her knees to feel weak, but they did. “But I thought we—”

“Nope.” He gave her a longer look. “Believe me, sweetheart. I’d remember if we had. Call me conceited, but I’d like to think you would, too.”

A shiver slid down her spine. “But when I woke up that morning, I wasn’t dressed.”

He came back to her and placed the half-full bag on the center of the table in front of her. “Unless you managed to strip yourself off while you were dead to the world, you still had on your undies when I put you to bed. I’m sure you weren’t naked when you decided to bolt at 4 a.m. either.”

Considering how hot her cheeks felt, she probably resembled a summer tomato. And she had been wearing her bra and panties when she’d crawled out of his bed. “I didn’t bolt.”

He deftly twisted the ends of the bag into a knot. “That’s what it looked like to me.”

“I didn’t even know you were there.”

His lips twisted. “Yeah, I got that loud and clear when you nearly face-planted on my living room rug in the middle of me kissing you.”

“I meant when I left.”

“Bolted.”

She ignored that. “You weren’t in bed with me. You weren’t anywhere in your apartment at all.” She lifted her shoulder as if it was of no consequence. As if his absence that morning hadn’t heavily factored into her many reasons for regretting her behavior that night. “I figured you’d left.”

“I was sitting on the patio.”

She studied him for a moment. “My recall of that night is admittedly limited. But I certainly haven’t forgotten that it was the beginning of January. There was at least a foot of snow on the ground. The average high that time of year is below 30 degrees. And you want me to believe you were out on your patio. At four in the morning.”

“It happens to be the truth. But if you don’t want to believe me, you can always talk to my neighbor, Mrs. Carson. Old woman’s always looking out her windows watching what’s going on.” He shrugged. “I was awake. I wanted a cigarette. I was outside. Sitting in a chair, freezing my ass off, smoking said cigarette, when what to my wondering eyes did appear but one doctor skidding her sweet way across the icy parking lot below me like the hounds of hell were on her heels.”

He tilted his head slightly. “Convenient to have a friend in the sheriff’s department. After I saw you make a call on your cell phone, it took less than three minutes for that cruiser to arrive.” His lips kicked up in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You stood under the streetlight, stomping your feet to keep warm, but you kept stealing looks back at the apartment building and shaking your head. Face it, Dr. Templeton. You bolted. And ever since then, you’ve avoided me. I haven’t even seen you running in the park lately.”

She flinched. His description of that night—that morning—was too detailed. Too accurate. “I told you already. I was embarrassed.” She lifted her hand quickly when he began to smile again. “Not because you’re a security guard at Cee-Vid.”

His expression didn’t change. “Say whatever it is that helps you sleep at night.”

Irritation was building inside her. “I’d make a pretty poor therapist if I judged people by their career choices.”

“I didn’t take you home that night because I wanted to have my head examined. And that’s not why you went with me, either.” He planted his hands on the top of the table and leaned closer. His blue eyes were laser-sharp and uncomfortably shrewd. “You were drunk. We both wanted to get laid. Whether it worked out or not is beside the point. I would still be the guy you want to pretend you never went home with.”

“I think you’re the one with issues about a person’s career.” Sitting while he stood was unnerving, so she rose, lifting the trash bag by the knot and carrying it over to the door. She would drop it in the bin out back when she locked up and left. “Have you considered talking to someone about that?”

When she turned back to face him, he was sitting on the table, his arms folded across his wide chest. He looked amused. “You offering up your professional services?”

“Not mine,” she assured with a lightness she was far from feeling. She crossed back to the table and grabbed the towel and bottle. “It would be unethical.”

“Given our...personal connection.”

“Yes.”

“Pretty unsatisfying, if you ask me.” He pushed off the table.

She squeezed the towel in her fist. He suddenly seemed to tower over her. And every time she pulled in a breath, it carried his enticing scent. “Why is that?”

“I don’t get to avail myself of the services of the town shrink.”

She had to forcibly restrain a shiver when he reached out and slowly tucked some loose strands of hair behind her ear. His hand fell away just as slowly, fingertips grazing her earlobe along the way.

“And I am stuck thinking about the way you felt in my arms, still wishing we’d have had a chance to finish what we started.” His gaze dropped to her lips.

She swallowed. Hard. “Seth—” But she stopped, unsure of what she wanted to say. Or do. All she knew was that a huge part of her wanted him to just take the matter into his own hands so that she wouldn’t have to.

And how much of a coward did that make her?

His expression suggested that he knew exactly what she was thinking. “See you around, Doc.” He turned to go.

Annoyed with herself and her own paralyzing inhibition, she took a step after him. “Wait.”

He stopped and looked back.

She reached out, only to forget she was still holding the squirt bottle, and knocked him with it, accidentally spraying the front of his shirt.

Dismayed, all she could do was stare as the droplets immediately began leaching the fabric of its black color. “Oh, sugarnuts! I’m so sorry.”

“Sugarnuts?” He let out a bark of laughter. “What the hell kind of curse is that?”

“The kind I didn’t get sent to my room for when I was a girl. I’ll pay for a new shirt.”

He plucked the squirt bottle out of her hand. “I’m glad it wasn’t a loaded gun.”

She made a face and followed him to the bar as he replaced the bottle where he’d gotten it. “I don’t own a gun.”

He pointedly looked at his spattered shirt. “Good thing. Being shot in the gut has never been a goal of mine, even when I was in the army.”

She blinked a little. Her father had been in the military once upon a time and Seth, with his unshaven jaw and his tumbled hair, didn’t exactly smack of the discipline that still ruled her father even all these years later. “I didn’t know you were in the army.”

“Not something we ever got around to talking about.” He rounded the bar again and picked up the plate with his unfinished pie. “Always an adventure with you, Doc. Try not to hurt yourself before you get home.”

“What about your shirt?”

“Think I’ll live.” He was heading for the breezeway leading back to the restaurant. “I have a closet full of ’em.”

“If I can’t replace your shirt, maybe I can buy you dinner.” The words came out in a rush, surprising them both if the silence that followed was any indication.

He glanced back at her, one eyebrow lifted. “What was that?”

She swallowed, stiffening her spine a little. “You heard me.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, which only served to emphasize how dark and thick his eyelashes were. “A bleach-stained T-shirt isn’t worth dinner.”

“I know,” she managed, albeit a shade breathlessly. “But a, um, a gentleman might be worth it.”

He let out another short snort of laughter. “Just because I like my women conscious doesn’t make me a gentleman.” He spread his hand. “But I’m not gonna turn down a meal that doesn’t involve my own microwave.”

“Great.” She rubbed her damp palms down the sides of her jeans. “Uh...great. Any place you’d like to go?”

A faint smile was playing around his lips. “You don’t ask guys out very often, do you.” It wasn’t a question but an observation.

“Never,” she admitted. “Clearly, it’s just another thing at which I excel, like ruining a man’s work shirt.”

His long fingers splayed against the bleach spots across his abdomen. “Why don’t we start with lunch? Tomorrow. In the new park out past your office. Willow Park, I think it’s called.”

She wasn’t sure whether to feel elated or deflated. “I haven’t been there. I usually go to the community park right here downtown even though it’s farther from my office.” The park was just across the road from Colbys, in fact. It’s where she ran every weekend with Sam. It’s where he ran, though admittedly, she’d done her level best the past few months to avoid him, just as he’d accused her of doing.

He shrugged. “Just a suggestion. Thought you might relax more if you weren’t worried about encountering a lot of people you know.”

Now she definitely felt deflated. And indignant. “Because you’re a security guard?” Her voice was tart. “You’d be less worried about that if you knew how many student loans I am still paying off. And as it happens, I’m not free tomorrow during lunch. But I am for dinner. I’ll pick you up. Seven o’clock if that works for you.”

His voice, however, was smooth. And amused. “Seven’s fine.”

Still buoyed by indignation, she nodded sharply. “Good.”

But after he disappeared back through the doorway to the restaurant side of Colbys Bar & Grill, she couldn’t shake the vague sense that, while she’d finally found the nerve to ask out a man she was admittedly interested in, he’d been the one who’d gotten exactly what he wanted.

She shook her head sharply. Because it was already late and only getting later the longer she dawdled there, she quickly went about upending the chairs on top of the wiped-down tables. Then she swept up the bits of confetti on the floor, unloaded the dishwasher and steeled herself to go through the doorway to the restaurant to let Jerry know she was ready to leave.

Fortunately, only the cook was left. He was sitting at the counter nursing a cup of coffee.

Even better, there was no sign of Seth.

Which left her a solid twenty hours to get used to the idea that everything she’d believed for the past three months where he was concerned had been wrong.

And to get accustomed to the idea that she had done something she’d never done before in her life.

Asked a man out on a date.