Читать книгу Under the Autumn Sky - Liz Talley - Страница 10

CHAPTER TWO

LOU PEERED OVER the shoulder of Sid Lattier, which was easy to do since he barely came to her nose thanks to the four-inch heels she balanced in. She needed to be rescued and didn’t see the one person who could move these men out of her way. Mary Belle had disappeared into the thick of the crowd after seeing her man ogling Lou’s breasts.

Mary was pissed. Oh, she wasn’t mad at Lou, but Bear might as well stretch out his palms because his ass was about to be handed to him. Mary Belle didn’t shoot marbles.

“Excuse me, guys,” Lou said, stepping past a man she vaguely recalled spraying her house for bugs once. Or was he the guy who cleaned their ancient chimney? She wasn’t sure, but she didn’t plan to find out. “Hey, Brit, find a table?”

“You can sit with us,” Lloyd Day said, jabbing a thick finger at a tiny table where two guys with huge beer bellies ate peanuts out of a bowl. “Plenty of room.”

“No, thank you, Mr. Day. I’m here with my girlfriends.”

Brenda waved her toward a table in the back where Brit had dropped her purse. Lou tried to shuffle through the men, but they didn’t want to move. She truly felt like she was in some crazy movie. She knew these guys. She’d worked with half of them and they’d never treated her this way before. Her grandmother’s words came back to her. A little powder, a little paint, will make you what you ain’t.

“You look mighty good tonight, Lou,” Bear drawled, his pretty hazel eyes moving over her body.

“Thanks, Bear. That means a lot coming from Mary Belle’s boyfriend.” Lou frowned at him as he tried to give her a seductive smile. Lord, help him. It wasn’t going to work. Was he dumb as a brick? Wait, she shouldn’t answer that. She’d gone to high school with him and knew the answer.

“Boyfriend? I don’t know if I’d go as far to—”

“Here he is!” Mary Belle interrupted, dragging a man behind her. As if Lou needed another one. “He was waiting at the bar just like I told him to.”

Eight pairs of eyes turned toward the man standing behind Mary Belle.

He was easily six foot two or three with light brown hair cut military short. His eyes were a bemused soft green and his jaw was nice and lean. He moved with a loose-limbed elegance, like her brother. Like an athlete. His white oxford shirt was open at the throat and rolled up at the sleeves, giving him a sort of Abercrombie-ish look. Breezy and totally gorgeous.

“Who was where?” Bear asked, stiffening like an old dog guarding a bone.

“My cousin Abram. He’s Louise’s date tonight, so all you fellas can just back it on up now. She’s taken for the evening.”

“Date?” Lou chirped, looking around for Brenda as if the older woman could save her. She couldn’t have been party to setting Lou up on a blind date, could she? That would be, well, plain mean.

“What cousin is this?” Bear demanded, crossing his arms across his broad chest and once-overing the guy Mary Belle clutched.

“From Baton Rouge. On her daddy’s side,” the stranger said, nodding at Mary Belle. “She sometimes forgets about us over there.”

Mary Belle punched his arm. “Oh, you know we love you guys. See? Here’s Louise. Didn’t I tell you she’s the prettiest thing this side of the Mississippi?” She gestured to Lou as if she were a prized heifer.

Lou felt her hackles rise. What in the hell was Mary Belle thinking? “I don’t need—”

“Of course, you do.” The man answered for her, sliding his hand to her elbow and pulling her to his side. He leaned down, dropping his voice into her ear. She felt a bit shivery when the warmth of his breath caressed her neck. “I’ve driven all this way to meet you, Cinderella. Mary Belle said you’d be perfect for me and we should never argue with Mary Belle. At least let me buy you a drink.”

His touch was firm. And hot on her skin. She watched as he lifted a hand, Moses-style, and parted the men standing between them and the bar on the far side of the room. They stacked up to either side of them like obedient soldiers. If they had saluted, Lou wouldn’t have been surprised.

Like an idiot, she let him escort her around the perimeter of the dance floor toward the bar.

He pulled out a stool and gestured. She folded her arms and stood. “I’m not prepared for a date. I don’t know what Mary told you but this is not—”

“—a date,” he finished, a twinkle in his eyes. “I know. Though I must say when I saw you come in I thought the idea had merit, but I can see now you’re a stubborn sort of girl.”

Lou narrowed her eyes. “Stubborn?”

He smiled and sank onto another stool. “I’m guessing, but I’m pretty good at reading people. And it’s not an insult. Stubborn people are some of my favorite people.”

She uncrossed her arms. “Who are you? Mary Belle doesn’t have people in Baton Rouge.”

“That you know of.”

She tilted her head. “That I know of, but she talks about everyone in her family. Great-Aunt Velma who’s still canning tomatoes at age ninety-three. Her niece Kaley who won a twirling competition in Lafayette last week. And she’s never mentioned a hot cousin in Baton Rouge.”

“Thanks,” he said.

“For what?”

“The ‘hot’ compliment.”

Lou hadn’t realized she’d even loaned an adjective to him. Damn the mojitos. They’d made her fuzzy. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

He smirked in a pleasant way. “No take-backs.”

Lou shrugged, uncrossed her arms and used her foot to pull the empty stool to her. She sat down. “Seriously, who are you?”

He glanced at the bartender and lifted a finger. The man immediately appeared in front of him. “I need a drink for the lady.” He turned to her with a lifted eyebrow.

She shouldn’t have anything else. The clock over the bar read 10:15 p.m. She had maybe thirty more minutes before she could talk Brit into taking her back to Bonnet Creek and the patched-up ranch-style house on Turtle Bay Road. “Um, a rum and Coke.”

The bartender nodded and grabbed a highball and a bottle of Captain Morgan.

“My name truly is Abram and I actually live in Baton Rouge. However, I met Mary Belle about ten minutes ago. She slipped me a twenty to be your date.”

“She paid you?”

He laughed and something plinked in her tummy. He had a good laugh. Deep, rich and filling like a good piece of chocolate cake. “No. She twisted my arm a little, but I could see very plainly you needed rescuing.”

“I don’t need rescuing.” She nodded at the bartender and lifted the glass he’d set in front of her to her lips. He’d been generous with the spicy rum and it burned a hot trail down her throat. “I’ve been seeing after myself for quite a while. I certainly don’t need a man doing it for me.”

“Oh, you’re one of those women.” His eyes laughed at her and she saw he liked to tease.

“What women? Just because I don’t need a man—”

“I didn’t realize you were a feminist, but I’ll buy your drink anyway.”

She laughed. “I’m not a feminist. Much. And you’re a tease.”

At this he smiled again. She felt his smile. Like really felt his smile. “I’m not a tease. I like to deliver the goods, lady.”

She sobered. “I’m not taking deliveries.”

But even as she uttered the words, an idea formed in her mind. What if. What if.

He lifted his eyebrows. “Okay, no deliveries, but will you dance?”

She looked out at the dance floor, at the couples joining hands, wrapping arms around waists, swaying to the slower rhythm of a misty-eyed country song and a long-buried urge slammed her. “Sure.”

Lou downed the last of her drink, telling herself she needed liquid courage. She hadn’t been held in a man’s arms on the dance floor since her senior prom, and Ben Braud hadn’t qualified as a man at seventeen. She set the empty glass down and took Abram’s hand.

Ten steps later, he gathered her in his arms, leading her with a smooth glide around the worn boards. For a moment, Lou forgot to breathe. It was that wonderful.

“I don’t remember the last time I danced,” Abram murmured, meeting her gaze with a shadowed one of his own.

“I do,” she said. “April 16, 2003.”

He stiffened. “Seriously? You haven’t danced in almost ten years?”

“Well, I’ve danced around my kitchen. Does that count?”

He shook his head. “I’m feeling the pressure. We’ve got to make this count.”

He spun her away from him then reeled her back in, tugging her closer to his body, before sliding left then right. Her hair fanned out behind her as they whirled around the floor. She felt his hardness against the soft parts of her body, and all her good intentions for getting home early enough to watch the Iron Chef episode she’d DVR’d earlier in the week flew right out the front door of Rendezvous.

Then and there whirling around the dance floor in the arms of a mysterious stranger, Louise Kay Boyd thought about getting a little bit of what she’d not gotten the chance to do after her daddy crashed his plane into the Ouachita National Forest, leaving her and her siblings without parents. Her days of irresponsible, selfish, wanton behavior had disappeared before she’d had the chance to use even one of them. Gone was her freshman year at Ole Miss—cramming for tests, trying pot, drinking too much and going all the way with a Kappa Sig she’d met at a kegger. Gone were the days of little responsibility and lots of spare time. They’d vanished in a whirl of funeral preparation, a looming mortgage payment, and the tear-streaked faces of her six- and seven-year-old brother and sister.

So would it be wrong to grab a little bit back?

The drinks and this sexy stranger had unwittingly unleashed pinings no one could possibly know anything about.

She didn’t know him.

He didn’t know her.

So what would it hurt to pretend to be someone other than who she was?

She was already halfway there, looking like some honky-tonk angel. No, he’d called her Cinderella. A honky-tonk Cinderella. What would it hurt to pretend herself into a fantasy for a few hours? Maybe this was her time to cut loose. Maybe this was her time to lose the monkey riding on her back.

The song ended and the band launched into a rendition of an old Kenny Chesney song mixed with something that sounded like reggae. Abram stopped and looked down at her. “You wanna go again?”

She shook her head. “Let’s get another drink.”

He nodded and curved an arm around her waist, making her feel gooey inside. Like melting caramel. She sank a little bit into him And he tightened his hand on her hip, an almost caress. Her mind said Don’t. Do. This.

But her bratty, whiny, life’s-not-fair voice said, Get jiggy with it, sister. You’ve missed out on too much. You need this.

Abram slid a hand under her elbow as she dropped onto the scarred wooden stool. Definitely a caress. Definitely revving something in her blood she’d locked away ever since her last boyfriend had unhooked her bra and slid one hand down her panties the night before he told her he was seeing someone else. She decided to give whiny, not-fair inner voice some headway.

She smiled at him and felt his reaction. He didn’t flare his nostrils or anything like some of the heroes did in those novels she kept stacked by the bed, but he got the message in her smile.

Abram beckoned the bartender again. And again the man flew to do his bidding. A rum and Coke sat before her not two minutes later joined by an ice water for Abram. “He’s bustin’ his hump for you.”

“I’m tipping him more than twenty percent. I learned long ago to treat bartenders well.” He watched her as she raised the glass to her lips. She returned his measure. He really was too good-looking. Sweet temptation swirled around her and she wondered about what it would be like to taste him. Was he good at kissing? She stared at his lips as he lifted the glass of water and drank. Was drinking supposed to be sexy?

“Hey, how’s the date going?” Mary Belle poked at her back.

“Huh?”

“The date with my cousin here,” Mary Belle said, a devilish twinkle in her eye. Lou swung around. Brenda and Brit stood behind her.

“He’s not your cousin,” Lou said, sipping the cool drink, keeping one eye on her pretend date. “And our date is going fine.”

“Yeah, we saw you dancin’,” Mary Belle said, taking the drink from Lou’s hand and taking a sip. “Brenda thinks she has food poisoning or something, so she needs to go home.”

Lou looked at Brenda who bit her lip. She did look a little pale and sweaty. “Oh, no. Sure. Let’s go.”

Mary Belle pressed her back onto the stool. “No, you stay. I’ll come back for you in an hour or so.”

“You can’t. You’ve been drinking. A lot. So I’m going with Brit.”

“I’m good, I tell ya,” Mary Belle slurred.

“Uh, no. I don’t have a death wish.” Lou slid from the stool.

“I’ll be glad to give her a ride home. I’m fine to drive,” Abram said, winking at her friends. “I am, after all, her date.”

“Perfect!” Mary Belle said, glowing in a liquor-haze.

“That’s not necessary,” Lou said, giving Brenda a concerned look. “You think it was the fajita meat, Brenda? We all had that.”

Brenda made a face. “I don’t know, but I can’t stay. I’m so sorry, baby, ruining your birthday like this. I was going to teach you that new line dance.”

“We’ll live,” Brit said, giving Brenda a smile before looking hard at Abram. “How do we know we can trust you with our friend? You could be a serial killer for all we know.”

“I’m not a serial killer.”

“Like a serial killer would admit to being one.” Brit crossed her arms and studied him. “You’re good-looking, but one of those guys was good-looking, too. Which one? Um, Gacy?”

“Ted Bundy,” Abram said, taking another sip of water. He looked so cool, like nothing would faze him. Like he dealt with all kinds of crazy all day long. Maybe he was a psychiatrist. Or a postal worker.

“See? He knows his serial killers,” Brit said.

“I’m going with y’all,” Lou said, sliding from the stool. Time to end this charade. The dance was fun. The flirting even better. But reality always intruded, no matter what Lou wished. She’d left fairy tales behind long ago. “No worries.”

Mary Belle frowned. “You’re having fun, though. Just because Bear is a shit and Brenda’s faking, shouldn’t affect you. Stay with Abram. He looks like a stand-up guy. Dance. Drink. And don’t think about anything else.”

“I’m not faking,” Brenda huffed, but Lou wasn’t paying attention to any of her friends. Abram’s finger stroked her inner wrist. It caused loopy loops in her stomach.

“Stay with me, Cinderella. I’ll make sure you get home from the ball.” He gave her a Prince Charming grin, kind of lopsided like the one a small boy gives when he’s got a frog behind his back. The one where a girl knows she should run, but can’t possibly pick up her feet. That exact grin.

“Okay, as long as you don’t turn into a pumpkin at midnight.”

And that settled it.

For a few more hours, Lou was going to play the part of maid-turned-princess. And she wasn’t going to have regrets.

She looked back at her friends. “Thanks, friends, for making my birthday so much fun.”

She gave hugs all around and the ladies she worked with at the construction company took their leave. She spun toward her prince for the night. “So, what shall we do first?”

Abram didn’t say anything. Just looked at her for a few moments, his eyes bright but guarded. Then his eyes slid down to the red stilettos she’d hooked on the bottom of the stool. “Those don’t look like glass slippers.”

She pulled one free and wiggled it. “No, and they’re not too comfortable. I think I’d rather go barefoot.”

“A barefoot Cinderella?”

She laughed. “Suits me better.”

“Well, in that case, follow me.”

Lou watched him rise from the stool, all six foot whatever of chiseled, handsome male, and grabbed her half-finished drink. She needed courage because tonight she was Louise, Cinderella, whoever, as long as she was a girl who threw caution to the wind and grabbed fantasy tight to her.

And because she’d made up her mind. Tonight on her twenty-seventh birthday, she would lose her virginity to the handsome stranger with the green eyes and magic touch.