Okay, that smelled more like bullshit than pay dirt. Ginny’s story didn’t add up. No way had it taken Melody and Roger a decade to figure out they had incompatible sexual appetites.
What did possibly add up was why Ellie suddenly wanted a crash course in Wild Woman 101. Rumors spread like wildfire around Bluelick. Had she heard this one already, taken it as gospel, and decided to learn the skills she thought she needed to satisfy Roger?
The notion left a strange hollow feeling in his stomach and a bad taste in his mouth. Maybe he didn’t want to know.
Straightforward, he reminded himself, and took a drink. Uncomplicated. Why make things messy? Speaking of messy…he checked on Junior’s progress with Lou Ann. He’d hunkered down in the chair Melody had wisely vacated and appeared to be meekly accepting the verbal whoop-ass Lou Ann was doling out. A good sign, Tyler decided, because Junior had it coming and she wasn’t likely to pick things up with him unless she got it out of her system.
His gaze wandered around the packed pub and stopped short. Ellie sat at the other end of the bar, dark waves framing her flawless profile as she smiled up at Jeb and accepted the glass of white wine he placed in front of her. Despite the thirsty crowd, Jeb lingered, wearing the shit-eating grin he insisted made him look like Tom Cruise.
“Something caught your eye, Tyler?”
Ginny’s question pulled his attention back to the redhead, who was now watching him with keen interest. He knew better than to give her anything to speculate on. “Just mulling over what you said about Melody and Roger. It sounds a little far-fetched to me. Those two have been joined at the hip since high school. I can’t believe it took this long for them to discover he wants triple-X action in the bedroom and she’s not willing to go a notch above PG-13. Where’d you get your information?”
“Straight from Melody,” she shot back. “You know I don’t spread rumors.”
“’Course you don’t.” Unable to stop himself, he let his gaze drift back to Ellie…and Jeb.
“Telling people I saw you and Ellie Swann cruising out to the river on your bike last night, saying y’all looked real snug—that would be spreading a rumor.”
It took some effort, but he kept his poker face in place…he hoped. “Good thing you’re not like that, huh?”
“I know. I mean, just ’cause something looks like a hookup doesn’t mean there isn’t some other explanation.”
“Exactly,” he agreed and took a drink of his beer.
“For all I know, you’re her patient. I mean, I’ve got eyewitnesses saying a week ago Junior stumbled in here at last call, saw Lou Ann cozying up to you, and shot your nuts off.”
He nearly choked on his beer. “Jesus, Ginny, where do you hear this crap? Your so-called eyewitnesses are worthless drunks.”
She laughed. “Talk is cheap, Tyler. You’ll have to do better than a verbal denial if you want to dispute my facts.” She turned away, and threw him a challenging smile from over her shoulder. “Any time you want to prove Junior didn’t turn you from a stud to a gelding with one well-placed bullet, I’m available for a demonstration.”
Not tempting. Elbows propped on the bar, he crossed his ankles and smiled back. “It’d take a much bigger caliber than Junior’s overblown BB gun to put a ding in my family jewels.”
Ginny merely shrugged and kept walking. Tyler pinched the bridge of his nose to ease the slight headache settling there and wondered how many people sitting in Rawley’s tonight seriously thought he couldn’t lay pipe anymore. What the hell. He really didn’t care, he decided, as he straightened and steered toward the one person in Bluelick who knew his equipment functioned just fine.
Jeb laughed at something Ellie said and slid his hand over her forearm. Tyler decided enough was enough and quickened his pace. He refused to believe Jeb Rawley had inspired her recent interest in sex education. Jeb had never done anything in his lazy life except practice his smirk and wait to inherit his daddy’s bar. And if she wanted to perfect the art of the barstool seduction, well, fine, but she already had a practice partner.
He drew up behind Ellie and placed a proprietary hand on her shoulder. One glance at Jeb confirmed the bartender got the message, because he straightened and removed his paw from her arm. Ellie turned those dark maple-and-molasses eyes on him, and for a moment, he simply fell into them.
“Tyler, hi.”
“Hey Ty,” Jeb echoed, far less enthusiastically. “Another beer?”
Tyler claimed the empty barstool beside Ellie, held up his mostly full bottle, and said, “I’m good,” keeping his eyes on her the entire time. Although it was a Saturday, she looked as if she’d come from her office, easily outclassing the jeans and T-shirt crowd at the pub. A sleeveless blouse the exact shade as her eyes left her arms and shoulders bare. A sleek, tan skirt stopped high enough to showcase her gorgeous legs. Ice-pick-thin heels suggested she didn’t plan to do a lot of running around.
“What brings you to Rawley’s, Doc? Looking to buy someone a drink, make small talk, and…?”
“No, I’ve seen how that turns out and I didn’t wear my Kevlar underwear.” Her lips curved, but the amusement didn’t reach her eyes, which looked shadowed and a little sad.
Before he could offer a snappy comeback, Melody walked up. “Imagine seeing the two of you here together.” The blonde nudged his shoulder playfully. He nudged back, but his playful feeling fizzled when Ellie immediately said, “Oh, we’re not together. We just ran into each other. Complete coincidence, right Tyler?”
Melody gave them a smile that made the Mona Lisa look like a grinning fool. “Interesting how that works sometimes, isn’t it? Y’all have a good night. I’ve got to…um…find Ginny.”
Ellie frowned as Melody sashayed away. “Sorry, I think she got the wrong idea after walking in on us the other day. I tried to set her straight, but I guess I didn’t quite get the message across.”
“What message?” He couldn’t care less what anybody thought about their relationship, but he wasn’t too flattered by Ellie rushing to correct Melody. What was “the wrong idea” anyway, damn it?
“I told her we’re not romantically involved, that our relationship is, well…” She lifted one slim shoulder and let it drop.
“Purely academic?” he suggested drily, realizing everything she said, while technically correct, bothered the hell out of him. And the fact that it bothered him bothered him even more.
“No! Of course not. I’d never tell her such a thing. But whatever I said, it fell short of convincing, because she obviously thinks you’re interested in me.”
He hadn’t quite worked out why that was such a horrible, unacceptable thing, when she laughed and nodded down the bar. “For someone in such a hurry to catch Ginny, Melody got easily sidetracked.”
Tyler looked over and saw Melody standing with Fire Chief Bradley, giggling prettily at something he said to her. The chief, one of Bluelick’s newest residents, had relocated a few months earlier after spending nearly a decade as a deputy chief in Cincinnati.
“She’s a free agent now.”
Ellie nodded, and the soft glow from the bar lights caught chestnut tones in her hair. “I don’t know him except to say hello, but he seems very different from Roger—more the strong, silent type.”
Did she like the strong, silent type? “Hmm.”
“I mean, I understand his appeal. According to Melody, he’s single, available, and gorgeous enough to have graced the pages of the Cincinnati firefighters’ fund-raiser calendar every year of his tenure in the department.” Holding fingers in front her, she added, “Three times as the cover.”
Jeez, listen to her rhapsodize over the guy. Maybe Chief Bradley was the inspiration for Ellie’s quest to enhance her sexual skills?
An unfamiliar sensation singed his gut like cheap whiskey. What the hell was wrong with him? One minute he’s convinced she’s after Roger, the next, Chief Bradley. Jealousy, a voice in his head whispered, but he immediately dismissed the notion. He didn�
�t do jealousy. He avoided volatile emotions of any kind. Having grown up with a front row seat to his father’s unstable temper, he didn’t plan on turning his own life into the same kind of freak show. So why was he suddenly ready to strangle the fire chief with his bare hands just because Ellie found the guy “appealing”? The humidity was making him edgy, that was all.
“Oh my, I guess Lou Ann and Junior made up.”
Happy for a distraction, Tyler followed her gaze to the alcove by the pool table and decided she had a gift for understatement. Lou Ann and Junior looked about halfway to make-up sex in their not-so-dark corner. Junior’s hands were all over the seat of Lou Ann’s painted-on jeans, and she’d plastered herself against his chest so tightly the double-Ds threatened to spill out of her tank top.
Ellie patted his hand. “Sorry.”
“What for, Doc?”
“I know you were, ah, interested in her. I guess you missed your window of opportunity.”
Tyler stared at his beer and shrugged. “I’m not interested in Lou Ann. The only reason we gave each other a second glance was because Junior managed to piss her off and I was too bored to question her motives when she started talking to me. I’m glad they’ve patched things up.”
“Well, for your butt’s sake, I hope you don’t get bored again anytime soon.”
“Honey, I haven’t been bored since you turned up.”
The comment earned him a smile, but it didn’t quite chase the wounded look from her eyes.
“How about you, Doc? It that why you’re here tonight? Boredom?”
“No, I wanted to get away from”—she sighed and moved her hands restlessly on the bar—“stuff for a while.”
He took a sip of his beer and inspected her face. Yeah, something troubled her. The corners of her extremely kissable mouth kept wilting.
He had a reputation for keeping things light, superficial even, and minding his own business, so he couldn’t really explain what made him tug her stool closer and prod. “Tough day at the office?”
“No. Easy day. One splinterectomy, but it was a complete success.”
“So why aren’t you celebrating your surgical triumph?”
She lifted a shoulder and let it drop in a gesture that managed to convey both frustration and resignation. “I stopped by to see Frank afterward. The visit kind of sucked the triumph right out of me.” She aimed a tight smile at him. “Enough said on that topic.”
Well, hell. Frank was a bitter, self-absorbed bastard and a sorry excuse for a father. And Tyler considered himself an expert on lousy dads. Living with Big Joe had equated to sharing space with a rabid Rottweiler. He’d made himself scarce until the second he turned eighteen, and then officially got the fuck out. When Joe had tipped over from a heart attack a few years later, Tyler had figured he was finally done with the man, but unfortunately, losing his father was like losing a limb. Sometimes he still woke up in a cold sweat, reeling from the phantom pain of beefy fists pummeling him.
Frank, however, still lived and breathed, and as certain men would do, aimed his foul mood at his offspring. Tyler sympathized with her situation, even as he told himself to stay out of it. She clearly wasn’t looking for sympathy and didn’t seem keen on sharing details. He respected her desire to keep her own counsel. Having just gotten an earful of Melody and Roger’s sex issues as well as the latest gossip concerning his own maligned manhood, he understood the advantages of discretion. Why her silence left him vaguely disappointed and wondering if she ever confided in anyone, he couldn’t say. God knows they had far better things to discuss than Frank.
The humidity had kicked Ellie’s waves up a notch—closer to the wild tangle he remembered. Absently, he tucked a stray tendril behind her ear and spotted the small mark on her forehead.
“What’s this?”
“What’s what?” She glanced at him uncertainly, but her cheeks went up in flames when he ran his finger over the tender spot near her hairline. “It’s nothing. You can thank Frank for that.”
A fist gripped his gut and his vision actually hazed for an instant. He carefully placed his half-empty beer on the bar and stood. “I believe I will,” he said softly.
“What?” Her brow creased as she worked out the meaning of his reply, then her eyes went wide, and she placed her hand on his forearm. “Tyler, wait.”
He shook his head, eased out of her hold and started for the door.
“Wait,” she repeated, more urgently this time. Her heels clicked on the wood floor as she hurried after him. When she grabbed his arm again, he took a deep breath to calm the tide of fury rising inside him before it crested and broke all over the wrong person.
She faced him and spoke quickly. “Frank didn’t lay a hand on me. I got this cleaning up his pigsty of a living room. One of his empties tried to make a break for it.”
He searched her face for a long moment, looking for signs of evasion, but she returned his stare unblinkingly. She was telling the truth—or mostly the truth. Some of the tension seeped out of him. Shifting his attention to her forehead, he skimmed his thumb over the small welt.
“You’re not his maid.”
She laughed, but the sound held no hint of humor. “Worse. I’m his daughter. I can’t even quit.”
“Sure you can. You ask me, he quit a long time ago.”
“Maybe you’re right, and God only knows what kind of loser that makes me, but joyless as it was, he did his duty by me. I always had a roof over my head, food to eat, and a bed to sleep in. I guess I feel compelled to do the same for him now.”
Tyler moved his lips over her temple and across her cheekbone. “He’s the loser, not you. And you don’t owe him a damn thing. His duty went far beyond three squares and a cot.”
“You don’t understand…” Fingers curled into his belt loops and a hot face pressed into his neck. He felt a sudden, nearly uncontrollable desire to bundle her up in his arms and carry her away—far away.
“Try me.”
“God, no.” She took a shaky breath, and then pulled back and offered him a stiff smile—no dimples. “It’s over and done with. I can’t think of a bigger waste of breath.” She looked around the bar as if to see if they’d attracted any unwanted attention—they hadn’t—and then fixed a determinedly brighter smile on her face. “Like I said, I’m here to get away.”
Screw precautions. Her reasons for wanting to expand her sexual repertoire didn’t matter to him as much as finding a way to erase the shadows from her face. Moving closer, he toyed with the trio of small gold leaves dangling from her earlobe. “I know a foolproof getaway plan, if you’re interested.”
Her eyes zoomed to his. “Could we complete lesson one?”
Shit, he should have known the prospect of getting back on schedule would tempt her. “If you want.” For starters.
“My place?”
“No, my place. The best getaways involve a new destination,” he argued when she hesitated. But the truth was, he wanted her in his bed, for reasons he preferred not to think on too deeply. “C’mon.” He took her hand and led her out of the pub.
“My car…”
“I’ll drive you back in the morning.”
She cringed. “No. I’ll follow you. People don’t want to see the town doctor’s car parked all night at a bar. Bluelick’s grapevine thrives on tidbits like whose car was parked at Rawley’s after closing on a Saturday night.”
Shit. She had a point. And as he acknowledged it, very entertaining notions about spending the drive discovering exactly what she had on under her tight little skirt dissolved. “Okay, follow me to my place.”
Chapter Nine
Ellie kept her eyes on Tyler’s black pickup while her mind frantically reviewed the finer points of chapter 3. Finally, an opportunity to put her studies into practice, and she wanted to get everything exactly right. Excitement and nerves tangoed in her stomach, and not just because this represented a first step toward achieving her long-term goal of winning Roger’s heart. It also had
to do with Tyler. She was attracted to him—physically, of course—but in other ways, too. He made her laugh. He challenged her. Coming up short in his eyes would be mortifying. Bottom line? She cared what he thought.
The realization surprised her, but then again, he was full of surprises. Nobody, ever, in her entire life, had displayed a single protective instinct toward her. Back at Rawley’s when he’d stalked toward the door like a dark knight about to slay her dragon, he’d shocked the hell out of her—and stirred something deep inside her heart. Whatever it was, she harbored a small fear she’d never quite push it back into place.
You will, her logical mind insisted. She’d always taken care of herself, pursued her goals on her own, and slain her own dragons. How? By making plans and sticking to them. Which brought her right back to chapter 3. Once again she called up the details she’d committed to memory and quizzed herself.
But when she followed Tyler’s truck down a narrow, oak-canopied driveway and pulled up in front of his house, the lesson plan in her head faded. She didn’t register stopping her car or stepping out. The graceful slopes and angles of the beautifully restored wood-and-brick Victorian in front of her commanded her full attention, from the custom-turned rails in the big, wraparound porch to each painstakingly fitted shingle on the dominant front gable.
She sensed rather than saw Tyler approach, because she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the house. “Incredible. Like a storybook—”
He brought his mouth down on hers. While he kissed her until her head spun, he maneuvered her up the front steps. Lips still busy on hers, he worked the old lock on the front door and then shoved her into the hall.
She broke away for air, but couldn’t resist angling her head to see more of the interior. All she could make out in the dim light were creamy plaster walls and lots of dark wood trim. “Your house is amazing.”
He nuzzled her ear. “I almost forget the blood, sweat, and tears this place cost me when you look at it like that.”
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