by Lauren Dane
“Sure. Works at the library. Comes in every morning before work to get coffee. Well, except Monday because the library is closed on Mondays. She’s single. You know, if you were asking because you thought she was pretty.”
He gave the barista a smile. He did indeed think Natalie was pretty. Her hair was short now where it had been long years before. He normally loved a woman with long hair, but on her that pixie thing worked. She had a great neck.
A great everything. She’d kept up with him on every level. They partied hard, fucked hard, worked hard. He and the band his brothers had formed, Sweet Hollow Ranch, had had a series of gigs at dives all over Portland and Southwest Washington. They’d managed to get two crappy hotel rooms included as part of their pay.
The motel had been right behind a bowling alley and the shithole of a bar attached to it. Natalie had been a waitress there, slinging drinks and dodging overeager hands when he’d met her.
It had been a matter of hours after meeting—the chemistry so instant and thick between them—until they’d stumbled into her studio apartment and into her bed.
She’d been underage, as had he, but they’d spent the next two weeks together around her shifts at the bar and his gigs.
And then he’d gone on the road, and she’d gone off to college. He’d thought of her over the years. One of their songs, “Dive Bar,” had been about her and those two weeks.
Turns out she lived in the same town. Which meant it was fate. He continued to smile after he’d thanked the barista.
Why she’d pretended not to know him was the question. She had her reasons, and he aimed to know them, too. The woman behind the counter said Natalie was single, so it wasn’t a boyfriend.
Paddy hadn’t achieved the success he had because he gave up when things got hard.
He’d simply keep at it.
He leaned back in his chair and watched the street outside as he drank his coffee. A new challenge was always fun. Especially when it concerned a pretty blonde with long legs and a smile that invited a man to sin and not repent.
Copyright © 2014 by Lauren Dane
ISBN-13: 9781460381816
Back to You
Copyright © 2015 by Lauren Dane
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