“Not in an airport.”
Zoe slid her Ralph Lauren sunglasses over her eyes and led Jo toward the garage that housed her car.
“I can’t believe you didn’t bail,” Zoe said once they were in the car with the air conditioner cranked on high.
Jo released a long-suffering sigh and rested her head back. “I considered it, but my vagina protested.”
Zoe busted out.
They arrived at the booth to pay the parking fee, but were unable to speak to the attendant because of their laughter.
Just when the laughter ebbed, Zoe glanced at Jo and started giggling again.
“How long has it been?” Zoe asked.
“I can’t even tell you. It’s embarrassing.”
“You can and will tell me. I need to know if you’re going to jump on the first penis that presents itself or if you’re going to make him work for it.”
“And here I thought we were going to look at houses.”
Zoe turned onto the frontage road that led to the freeway. “We’ll do that, too. I have a few houses to look at tomorrow. I scheduled time with the Realtor at one, and again at two on Sunday. So we can live large at night and sleep in the next day.”
“I like the way you think, Brown.”
Zoe liked how every once in a while Jo would use her last name as if it were a badge. Zoe had always considered it a curse.
“So really . . . how long since you hooked up with something that didn’t involve a battery?”
“Almost two years. Wait!” Jo glanced up as if the answer to Zoe’s question were written on the underside of the visor. “Nope, two years.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah, well . . . hooking up in River Bend is out of the question, and Eugene is too far away for anything with any regularity.”
“Not if you met the right person.”
Jo twisted in her seat and pointed two fingers to the right side of her chest. “You know what my badge has taught me?”
Zoe thought she knew what her friend was going to say but let her say it anyway. “What’s that?”
“That cops aren’t meant to have a love life.”
“That’s stupid. Lots of cops are married.”
“And even more of them are divorced.”
Zoe slowed for traffic and kept half an eye on Jo as she spoke. “You don’t have to get married, or divorced. You can simply date someone once in a while.”
“Problem with that is most of the guys I have met, limited though they were, all bailed the second I told them my profession.”
“Men like to take care of women. Most don’t know what to do with someone as independent as you.” Zoe knew that from personal experience.
“I think it has more to do with the kind of guys I’m attracted to.”
“You always liked the bad boys in high school,” Zoe reminded her.
“That hasn’t changed,” Jo said with a sigh. “Conflict of interest at this point in the game.”
“So the two years is more because you’ve avoided the whole scene . . . or no one has presented himself?” Zoe eased off the freeway and headed toward her apartment.
“Both. But thinking he will present himself by materializing on my doorstep is probably an unrealistic expectation.”
Zoe smiled. “Stellar evaluation.”
“I should be a detective.”
Zoe parked and turned off the car.
The heat hit them as they pushed open the doors. “I don’t think I could ever get used to this,” Jo told her.
“This isn’t even that bad. Summer is worse.”
“A whole lot hotter than home.”
Zoe didn’t want to think about River Bend being home. “Yeah, well . . . drama creates its own heat.”
Jo followed her inside, where the air conditioner was already running.
“Speaking of drama, have you spoken with your sister?” Jo asked.
Zoe tossed her keys in a bowl by the front door and placed her purse on the same table. “She isn’t pregnant. Thank God!”
“So I heard.”
“But she could have been, hence the pee stick in the bathroom.” Zoe walked through her place, inviting Jo to follow. She stopped in her second bedroom and waved a hand at the bed.
Jo took the hint and placed her bag on the chair beside it. “I was a little worried I’d have to cuff your mom to keep her from ripping off Mylo’s dick.”
“She’d have to stand in line. I’d be more worried about Zane.”
Zoe’s brother was the unpredictable one. Took after their father with his temper.
“Zane has kept his nose clean since last summer.” Jo sat on the bed and did that bounce thing people did when testing the mattress. “He has a legitimate job in Waterville, and Josie says he hasn’t been a regular for months.”
Josie owned R&B’s, the local bar in River Bend.
Zoe had heard the same news from her mom, but hearing it from Jo meant there was truth in the information. Her mom tended to sugarcoat ugly things. Well, not when it came to a possible second grandchild. But when it came to Zane, their mom had always looked the other way, blamed herself for a lack of a father in his life.
Zoe leaned against the bed. “I hope it continues.”
“You and me both. Nothing worse than policing my best friend’s brother.”
The image of her father shot to her head. “What about your best friend’s dad?”
Jo lifted an eyebrow.
“He’s up for parole in a couple of months.”
“He never makes it.”
The tension in Zoe’s shoulders tightened. “He’s not in jail for murder. He’ll eventually get out.”
“He has a hard time staying out of fights, Zoe. Which adds time to his existing sentence and doesn’t make the parole board happy. I don’t think he’s going anywhere soon.”
The two of them never spoke about her dad. To hear Jo speak with such conviction told Zoe that Jo knew more than just the basic facts of how the parole process worked. “You’ve been keeping up on his case, haven’t you?”
Jo simply shrugged. “You’d do the same if you were me.”
Zoe leaned down and hugged her friend. “I love you.”
She felt Jo’s hand rest on her back, and then it offered a little shove. “I’m horny, but you don’t have the right parts.”
Zoe hugged her harder before letting thoughts of her father drift away.
“You’ve got that James Dean thing going . . .”
The woman beside Luke at the bar had short dark hair, an easy smile, and slurred words. He’d offered to buy her a drink before realizing how many she’d already had going in.
“What do you know about James Dean?”
She reached forward, pushed hair from Luke’s forehead, and nearly fell off the bar stool.
Beside him, Wyatt laughed into his beer.
“It’s the hair.”
Luke caught her before she ended up in his lap.
A prospect he might not have minded if she were sober.
Her glazed eyes passed over him and on to Wyatt. “Your friend is kinda cute, too.”
Wyatt wiggled his fingers in the air in a wave. “Hey, darlin’.”
“Oh . . . that’s cute.”
Seemed like everything was cute to this one.
“It’s Trish, right?”
Trish slapped a hand on Luke’s shoulder and leaned close enough for him to smell the alcohol in her pores. “You remembered.”
“Ah-huh . . . right. Did you come with friends tonight?”
Trish twisted a little too fast and wobbled while pointing to the far side of the bar, where two similarly dressed women were playing pool with several men.
Instead of suggesting that Trish meet up with her friends, Luke used the excuse of a need for the bathroom, leaving Wyatt to fend for himself.
He approached one of Trish’s friends, who held a pool cue in one hand, a beer in the other. “You came with Trish?” he asked, pointing behin
d his back toward the bar.
The woman offered a toothy smile. “Is she getting into trouble?”
“She’s pretty hammered. Think maybe she should have someone watching out for her before she ends up in a truck bed with a stranger.”
Toothy Smile rolled her eyes. “Hey, Jen. We need to rescue Trish.”
The woman she called Jen swung her gaze toward the bar and moaned. “Not again.”
The two of them handed off their cues and wove through the crowd. Once they had Trish’s attention, Luke watched Wyatt pick himself up off the bar stool and make his way across the room.
“You wouldn’t believe what she offered to do to both of us.” Wyatt was grinning.
“I can imagine.” Luke tilted the rest of his beer back and set the empty bottle on a nearby table.
“What are you drinking?”
Zoe forced a smile over her shoulder. The man asking her the question had been beside the guy who was now getting his ass beat on a dartboard by Jo. Military short hair, thick shoulders, thick neck . . . and from what she could see by the grin on his face, thick ego.
“Perrier with lime.”
His smile wavered.
“I’m driving.” Not that she needed to explain, but she did anyway.
“Jack and Coke,” he told the bartender as they passed by.
Zoe looked at her nearly empty drink and didn’t comment.
“You live around here?”
She shook her head. “Wisconsin,” she lied.
The smile that attempted to manifest for half a second quickly became a flat line between his lips.
“So you’re here on vacation?” As he asked the question, the leggy blonde walking by caught his eye.
Zoe took great pleasure in delivering her next lie. “Missionary work, actually. Where do you go to church?”
The bartender set down his drink. He tossed a bill on the bar, downed his beverage in one swallow, and stood. “Great talking with you . . . uhm . . .”
They hadn’t exchanged names.
She let him out with a smile. “Great talking with you, too.”
He walked away, and a deep chuckle beside her diverted her attention.
“This is the third bar we’ve been to.”
“This didn’t used to be so hard,” Luke said.
Wyatt waved a beer in the air as he spoke. “I’m practically married and you’re not available.”
“I am very available,” Luke protested with heat in his voice.
“The tipsy woman at the pool hall?”
“Drunk, not tipsy.”
“The blonde at Shiners?”
“Blonde,” he said, as if the color of her hair explained everything.
Wyatt narrowed his eyes.
“She wore a ring on her right hand. Newly divorced or stepping out. I don’t want that.”
“What’s wrong with newly divorced?”
Luke wasn’t sure, so he went back to his original dislike. “Blondes never did anything for me.”
Wyatt glanced around. “What about her?” He pointed his beer at a brunette passing by.
Somewhat attractive . . . kinda short. Luke shrugged.
“Not available. Your head isn’t in the game.”
Luke turned back to the bar and signaled the bartender. “My head is very much in the game. It needs to be in someone’s game.”
Wyatt laughed. “Your head is in Texas.”
Luke had the bartender’s attention and skipped his first thought of another beer. “Jack straight up.”
Wyatt lifted his eyebrows.
Even with the noise in the bar, the silence that followed between him and Wyatt sounded like an iceberg in the Pacific.
Luke waved his hand a second time once he downed his first shot of whiskey.
The bartender shifted his eyes between both men and walked away once Luke lifted his glass. Images of Zoe danced behind the mirror in the bar.
“My head is not in Texas,” Luke said.
Wyatt ordered another beer.
The jukebox shifted gears from country to classic rock.
“I know I’m breaking the man code here . . . but I call bullshit on that.”
The liquor in Luke’s head did a tiny tap dance and reminded him he wasn’t a teenager any longer.
“I’m not thinking about her.”
Wyatt set his beer on the bar and squared his shoulders to the back mirror. Looked like the two of them would be speaking through the thing.
“What I don’t understand is why you’re not with her.”
“She left.” Luke didn’t need to say who she was . . . didn’t need to pretend with Wyatt that Zoe didn’t exist. “I’m over it.” He drained his drink.
“You may have been over it. But after the reunion, you stopped being over it.”
Their ten-year class reunion brought Zoe back to town. She’d stuck around long enough to sizzle his world with memories and desire, only to leave when all the festivities ended. Then, when Melanie’s daughter was in the hospital, she’d come back. The two of them had a couple of conversations that made him think maybe . . . just maybe.
Then she left again.
And she didn’t return.
“She’s in Texas. I’m in Oregon.”
“And?”
“It wouldn’t . . . it isn’t . . .” It wouldn’t work. She lived in Texas. And more importantly, she’d walked away. Yeah, they’d both been young. Too young to be talking about forever, but he hadn’t ever truly gotten over her. He’d wanted to . . . God knew he wanted to, but every damn time he saw her it was as if time sucked him into some kind of vortex he was unable to avoid, and he was right back in the summer of his senior year in high school, planning his future with the girl of his dreams.
Only his teenage dreams were just that. Adolescent, hormone driven desires for the sexiest girl in school. As much as he wanted to convince her to stay and make their life work, she left, and he realized how powerless he was. He mourned her leaving for a season and then drove her memory away with every girl he could. It wasn’t long before that didn’t work and the trips out of town became less and less frequent.
He watched the recorded episodes of Warring Chef, the show where Zoe had won the second-place spot, the show that had given her a zillion opportunities. As his eyes caught her tucking her long hair behind her ear on the screen, he’d remember capturing her hair and pulling it back to kiss her neck.
When the culinary show played out in a sensual series of images in his head . . . he turned off his recordings and drove to Eugene for the night.
“Can I tell you something?” Wyatt pulled him out of his thoughts.
“Free world.”
“I think you owe it to yourself to give that a second chance.”
Luke twisted in his bar stool. “What about ‘she’s in Texas’ did you not understand?”
Wyatt closed his eyes and shook his head.
“Perrier with lime? I would never have thought that would work if I hadn’t seen it.”
He was tall, thinly built, wearing a business suit. The slight twang to his voice said he lived in Texas, but his lack of boots and a hat told her he wasn’t a native.
Zoe lifted her vodka tonic and took a drink. “It could be sparkling water.”
“Could would be the key word.”
She liked his smile. “Zoe,” she said, extending her hand.
“Raymond.” He shook her hand and waved his left in the air. “Married.”
“Not married.” Zoe waved back.
“I’m guessing you’re not a missionary either.”
“Nowhere close.”
“I would imagine a woman as beautiful as you has to come up with new lines to derail men all the time.”
“Quick wit isn’t needed when they’re drunk . . . but yeah.” She looked beyond him and noticed another couple talking. “Where’s your wife?”
“At home.” His smile left his eyes. “And no, I’m not hitting on you.”
She didn�
��t feel like he was. Still, she had to ask . . .
“You’re in a bar on a Friday night while your wife is at home . . . what, with the kids? Highly suspicious, Raymond.”
He didn’t elaborate. “You’re in a bar, drinking . . .” He picked up her drink, sniffed it, and set it back down. “. . . vodka, and lying about it to avoid getting picked up. Highly suspicious, Zoe.”
Zoe picked up on Jo’s laugh from across the room.
Her BFF was getting her groove on with a man twice her size with biceps that belonged on a boxer. Ink peeked out from the sleeves of his T-shirt and desire stared down at Jo from under his well-worn cowboy hat. Go, Jo!
“So you’re babysitting your friend?”
Zoe almost choked on her drink. Laughing, she said, “Jo does not need a babysitter.”
“I don’t know. That one is a player.” Raymond nodded toward the man picking Jo up.
“So is she.” Zoe turned around and placed her attention on her drinking buddy. “You must come here a lot if you know the clientele.”
He didn’t comment. Instead, he ordered a round of drinks for the both of them.
Chapter Four
Sunlight shot pain deep inside Luke’s brain. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and cotton sat like a deep knot in the back of his throat.
He waved the fly away from his closed eyes and attempted to roll over.
“Wake up.”
Wyatt’s voice, along with a tapping on his forehead, made him crack one eye open.
The fly was an envelope that Wyatt waved in the air.
“What the hell?” It was early . . . too early for this.
Wyatt tossed the envelope on Luke’s chest and stood. “You have two hours.”
“Two hours? For what?”
“Your flight boards in two hours.”
The sheet dropped to his waist when he sat up in bed. “Flight? What flight?”
“The one to Zoe.”
Luke rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He needed an aspirin or a shot of whiskey . . . he wasn’t sure which.
“Start from the beginning.”
“I bought you a plane ticket . . . it’s nonrefundable, so don’t even think of throwing it away.”
“I don’t remember saying I wanted to go to Texas.”
Wyatt stood and tossed Luke’s overnight bag on the bed. “C’mon.”
Staying For Good (A Most Likely To Novel Book 2) Page 4