Читать книгу Sweet Talk - Jackie Merritt - Страница 6

The Party, late May

She didn’t normally go to parties, and she wondered what she was doing in Joe’s Bar on a Saturday night with at least forty other people, the smell of booze and cigarette smoke assaulting her every breath and music she despised making her ears ring. She thought of her home, of her bed, of herself clad in soft pajamas and propped up with pillows against the headboard with the television on—sound turned down low—and a book on her lap. That was how she spent her evenings, not like this. It would be a cold day in hell before she let anyone—even her sister—talk her into attending another “birthday bash” at the local pub.

Val’s gaze moved past the crowd at the bar to the jukebox in the corner. No one was listening to the teeth-jarring rhythms of the unidentifiable noise the machine produced, she thought resentfully, so why did they keep punching the same damn buttons?

“Enough,” she muttered, and dug into her pocket for some coins. She might have to hang around this place a little longer, but she could at least do something about the awful music jangling her nerves. Armed with quarters, she left her table and wended her way through the crowd to the jukebox, where she studied the list of song titles for several minutes before finally spotting one she actually liked. She had just extended her hand to drop her quarters into the slot when someone jostled her from behind, causing her to drop the coins. She turned to give the person who had so rudely run into her a dirty look, but he or she had melted into the crowd.

Shaking her head in disgust, Val stooped down to look for the change. The floor was dark, she realized, much darker than the rest of the place. Hoping it wasn’t too dirty, she got on her knees and began feeling around for the coins.

In mere moments she realized that a long, jeans-clad leg was very close to her head. She took in the costly cowboy boot below the hem of the jeans and let her eyes travel up the length of the leg, and then farther still, to an attractive white-on-white western shirt that was nicely filled out by an extremely good-looking man.

She knew who he was—Reed Kingsley—only because everyone in Rumor, Montana, recognized the town’s fire chief, even if they weren’t aware of his impressive family ties. There was nothing ordinary about Reed, especially his Romeo reputation. Val had heard that this guy went from woman to woman as most men changed shirts, which totally destroyed any interest she might have had in him—if she had been in the market for a man, which she wasn’t, with very good reason. She no longer played silly games, thanks to that one awful day when her entire world had been torn apart. Reed was handsome and rich and involved in almost everything that went on in Rumor, but Val didn’t care who the devil he was; he had usurped her place at the jukebox!

“Excuse me,” she said coolly, and when he didn’t immediately respond, added a highly sarcastic, “Hello?”

He looked around, saw her and grinned. “What’re you doing on the floor?”

To hell with the quarters, Val thought, and got to her feet. “I dropped my coins. I was going to play H-32, but you took my turn, anyway, so to heck with the whole thing.” She began walking away and was startled to feel his hand on her arm. She gave him a look that made him yank it back so fast it seemed to blur.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Yes, you are,” she retorted, and left him standing there with his mouth open. At her table again, she tossed out lies to the others seated there. She wasn’t entirely sure of how she got out of Joe’s so fast, but she was inside lying through her teeth one second and outside breathing fresh air the next.

Immensely relieved, she got in her vehicle and drove home.

Reed had rarely met a party he didn’t like. Some were better than others, of course, depending on the people in attendance. But he enjoyed drinking a beer or two with friends, and there were very few people in Rumor that he didn’t think of as a friend. Tonight’s crowd at Joe’s was a good bunch, he decided. Good friends, old friends, people he’d grown up with, for the most part.

But there were a few folks there he didn’t know very well. One woman, in particular, Dr. Valerie Fairchild, Rumor’s veterinarian, had been piquing his interest for some time now. They’d been introduced during a meeting of Rumor’s business owners a while back, but she still acted as though she didn’t know him when they ran into each other in a store or on the street. He was surprised to see her at Joe’s tonight, and he watched for an opportunity to speak to her. Her trip to the jukebox seemed heaven sent. He ambled over slowly and got there just about the time she sank to her knees to pick up a dropped coin.

He pretended he didn’t see her and began looking at the selections. When she said, “Excuse me,” and then an extremely sarcastic, “Hello,” he knew he’d irritated her in some way.

He put on his best grin and asked, “What are you doing on the floor?” He thought he had succeeded in sounding amicably amused but not patronizing, and looked for a smile on her strikingly beautiful face. He was sorely disappointed, for her parting remarks weren’t friendly or even kind.

He rushed to apologize, and without thinking before acting, he put his hand on her arm. It was a huge mistake, for the look she laid on him made him feel as if he’d shriveled from his normal six feet to child-size.

“Sorry,” he said quickly, hoping an immediate apology would alleviate her distress, which he didn’t understand but felt responsible for.

Her reply, “Yes, you are,” shocked him. He stood there like a ninny for a long moment, wondering what, exactly, she had meant with those three words.

But he knew. Deep down where it hurt, he knew. She had told him coldheartedly that she thought him to be a sorry specimen of humanity.

No one treated him that way, especially women. Doc Fairchild was a freezing-cold woman, one any man with a dram of good sense would give a wide berth, so why was he already trying—once again—to figure out a way to break through her icy exterior and reach her heart?