A Taste of Pink (Shades Book 4)

by Stephanie Hoffman McManus

  With an easy smile, Riley climbed up onto the bar and swung her legs over, hopping down on the other side and tumbling right into the big man’s arms. “My ass ain’t scrawny.”

  He squeezed her so tight I doubted she was able to breathe again until he released her, setting her back with his hands on her shoulders as his eyes raked over her. Not in a lecherous, dirty old man way, but with warmth and affection.

  “It’s good to see you too, Big Mack. Can I even still call you that? You’ve lost weight.”

  Mack waved off her comment and grumbled. “Shelly’s got me on this diet. Worried about my cholesterol and some nonsense. I’m down almost thirty pounds. Would be more, but what she don’t know won’t hurt her.” He winked at Riley while I tried to imagine another thirty pounds on this guy. He really was a bear.

  “No, but it will hurt you old man if I tell her. You better be taking care of yourself. How else you going to be able to keep up with those grandbabies of yours.”

  If possible, the man’s smile grew. “You seen ‘em yet?”

  Riley shook her head. “I haven’t seen Katy yet. Just got back yesterday. This is the first time I’ve been into town.”

  “You should give her a call. I know she’d love that. And those babies, you gotta see ‘em. Ain’t never been a cuter pair of kids.”

  “Katy and Ty, they’re doing good, being new parents and all?”

  “They’re doing real good. You really need to go see her.”

  For the first time since we walked in, Riley’s smile was forced, and she changed the subject. “How about that drink?”

  “Sure thing.” He turned to grab a bottle and Riley hopped back onto the bar and settled herself onto the stool beside the one I’d claimed.

  “This your fella?” Mack asked, sliding the bottle to Riley and jerking his chin at me.

  “This is James, and he’s just a friend.”

  The big man shook my hand, gripping it tightly, his narrowed gaze closely scrutinizing me. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  I eyed Riley throwing back her beer like it was just the first of many. It was looking like I needed to sober up so one of us would be fit to drive. “I’m good, thank you.”

  Mack’s attention was called away to the other end of the bar, but he assured Riley he’d be back. She spun around on her stool, putting her back to the bar. I copied her and followed her gaze as it travelled around the room. “The whole world can change in the blink of an eye, but not this place,” she muttered like that thought comforted her.

  “Mack family?” I asked.

  “Might as well be,” she took another pull from her bottle. “Mack and my dad have been best friends since grade school. His daughter was my best friend. Our moms were close too, once upon a time. Until we moved.”

  “Katy?” I guessed.

  She nodded without meeting my gaze.

  “But you’re not close anymore.” It wasn’t a question.

  Her shoulders heaved with a heavy sigh, her gaze remained fixed out over the bar. “We lost touch. Life got . . . things just changed.”

  “Things changed, or you changed?”

  She slammed her bottle down on the bar and shoved up from her stool. “I think I feel like a game.”

  I remained where I was and watched her saunter over to the adjacent pool tables.

  “Oh Lord, here we go.”

  I swiveled around to find Mack leaning on the bar watching Riley go. I cocked an inquisitive brow at him.

  “This is how it starts.” He waved his rag at her as he straightened. “I swear that girl is responsible for more brawls in this place than the worst drunks. I should have known. I could see the look in her eye when you two came in.”

  “What look might that be?”

  “That girl is itching to cause trouble tonight, and when Ava Farnsworth goes looking for trouble, she always finds it. Partly me and her Daddy’s fault for starting the girls at the pool tables so young, but how could we have known that one would become a shark?”

  “She’s good?”

  Mack barked out a laugh. “I ain’t seen that girl lose a game since she was fourteen. Eventually, most folks ‘round here learned better than to let her hustle them, but it’s been a handful of years since she was in here. I imagine she’ll find some poor sucker tonight who isn’t gonna like getting beat by a girl, much less that one.”

  “So, I should follow her?”

  “Probably better.”

  Taking his advice, I went after her, but hung back bit to observe as she approached a table of four twenty-something guys with a couple girls sticking close enough that I presumed they were girlfriends.

  “Can I get in on a game?”

  Every set of eyes flicked to her. At first the girls’ narrowed their gazes warily the way females tend to do when another pretty female encroaches on their territory, but then all at once I watched recognition set in.

  “Holy shit,” one of the guys exclaimed, “you’re Riley James.”

  She flashed him a grin. “If I say yes, you gonna let me play?”

  “Hell yes,” another bobbed his head excitedly ready to hand her his stick—the one in his hand and the one in his pants—right there.

  “You guys need to finish this game up?”

  “Nope. We were killing them anyway.” The first guy stepped forward sticking his hand out. “I’m JD, this is Bubba, and those two, wiping drool off their mouths are Justin and Charlie.”

  She took his hand and dazzled him with a flirty grin. I caught one of the other girls scowling, but she quickly tried to hide it. I settled onto a nearby stool to see how this was all going to play out. I knew Riley saw me because she’d flashed me a wink after charming that poor JD sucker.

  “Oh, and that’s Tiffany, Jessica, and Letty.” Letty was the scowler, but, at the introduction, she followed the other two over, who immediately started gushing over Riley. After a couple minutes of it, Riley cut them off. “We going to play or not boys?”

  “Uh, you want to do teams?” JD asked.

  “Sure, but I want him.” Riley pointed at Justin. He seemed to be the quiet one of the bunch and he’d blushed hard enough for me to see it from here when Riley shook his hand and smiled at him. Even now his eyes went a little wide and he swallowed thickly. I also noticed that Jessica didn’t look too thrilled about it.

  “Your loss,” JD shrugged and chuckled good naturedly. “Bubba, you’re with me. Charlie, you can sit with the girls and watch our beers.” Charlie rolled his eyes and gave JD a shove, before sliding into the seat next to Tiffany.

  “Who wants to break?” JD asked.

  “Hold on, should we make this interesting?” Riley grinned.

  “Well, usually the losers cover everyone else’s tab for the night,” Bubba suggested, and then JD spoke up, “How about we add on a little bonus? If we win, you have to give us each a kiss and let us take a selfie.”

  Riley laughed. “Alright boys, but what if we win?”

  “Uh,” they looked at each other and then back to Riley. “What do you want?”

  “We win, you also have to pay for Justin here to take Jessica out on a date.” Guess she had caught the look from Jessica too. “And I don’t mean here, you gotta pay for him to take her to Libby or Missoula.” Both Jessica and Justin looked a bit shocked, but then the two exchanged shy smiles for a second before looking away with cheeks tinged pink. I shook my head in amusement but sat back in my chair to enjoy the show.

  JD and Bubba agreed to the terms and then Riley let JD break. He managed to sink one, and then Justin took his turn and failed to get one in the pocket. He gave Riley an apologetic look, but she just smiled and waited for her turn. I found myself anxious for it as well. It had nothing to do with watching her bend over the table, but I was curious to see if the girl really had the kind of skills Mack let on. Bubba shot and sunk two balls before it was finally Riley’s turn to step up to the table.

  She sank a pretty easy shot that Bubba had left set
up, and then she managed another. Neither were tricky shots, but when she called out the next shot, JD and Bubba simultaneously told her, “No way.” Justin even looked skeptical of the shot. Riley, however, maintained a confident and determined look as she lined it up.

  This is it, I thought, grinning to myself. This is where she’s going to show them up.

  She took the shot, but the cue ball hit at completely the wrong angle, sending it off away from the corner pocket. She rose, a disappointed frown on her face and I found myself disappointed as well. She shrugged it off and the game continued. Every few minutes though, attention was pulled away from the game, and over to another table, where two rowdy, rough looking guys were hurling filthy insults at each other while they played, no mind to anyone else around them, and badgering the waitresses every time they walked by.

  Once, Mack hollered at them to tone it down or he’d toss them out, but then Mack got so busy behind the bar he couldn’t follow up on it. Which was unfortunate for the poor waitresses who had to endure the continued harassment. I was one more crude comment, or ass grab away from going over there myself. Assholes like that pissed me off, so it was a struggle to tune them out and watch the game.

  Riley and Justin managed to pull the win, just barely clearing the stripes and the eight ball from the table before JD and Bubba got all their solids in. Riley was good, a bit better than JD, and quite a bit better than Bubba and Justin, but I’d expected something a little more impressive the way Mack had talked her up. Maybe she was just rusty. Either that, or there weren’t any truly decent pool players in this small town. Possibly both.

  The guys tried to goad her into best two out of three, but she declined. After posing for a picture with the whole group, she sauntered on over to my table. “Here I was, worried I was going to have to prove myself as your bodyguard and break up a brawl from the way Mack talked,” I told her.

  She laughed. “If you’ll remember, I fired you, but the night is still young. Besides, I only fuck with the jackasses, and JD is a tool, but a harmless one. They weren’t the targets tonight.” Riley’s gaze shifted, and I followed it over to the two assholes at the far table.

  “Wait, so all that . . .” I nodded at JD and his crew.

  Riley grinned. “Was just bait to reel in the real prize. Did you see them watching our game?”

  “No, I only saw them trying to grab-ass the waitresses.”

  A scowl pinched Riley’s brow. “Yeah, they were doing that too, but they were also watching our game.”

  I shook my head. “Mack was right, you are going to cause trouble tonight, aren’t you?”

  She simply shrugged and then purposefully sauntered off toward the waitress who just so happened to be clearing the empty bottles around the assholes.

  I casually followed, once again choosing a nearby table where I could observe and intervene if necessary.

  “Hey sweetheart, you want to play with some real men?” Asshole numero uno wasted no time in calling out to Riley.

  “Excuse me?” Riley turned to them, feigning obliviousness.

  “I said, you want play with some real men?” The two guys snickered.

  “Oh, uh, you want to play a game of pool?”

  They snickered some more, and the same asshole said, “Sure sweetheart, we can start with a game of pool.”

  Riley’s gaze flared with irritation, but as quickly as it appeared, she tamped it down and hid it with an innocent smile. “Okay, should I grab a partner?” Without waiting for them to answer she spun toward me and waved me over.

  What the hell was she doing? I didn’t want to be a part of this. I shook my head at her.

  “Come on, it’ll be fine.” She turned back toward the two assholes who still didn’t have names. “He’s not much of a pool player. You guys will take it easy on us, right? You look like you play a lot of pool.”

  I didn’t see that I had much of a choice but go over there. The assholes looked as happy about me joining the game as I felt. Which wasn’t happy at all, but Riley smiled like she was clueless and sidled up to the pool table. “Who wants to rack ‘em?” she asked.

  Asshole number two muttered to his buddy under his breath, but loud enough for us to hear, “I’d like to rack something alright.”

  Riley pretended not to hear, but that same flash of fire in her eyes told me she had.

  “I got it, sweetheart,” Asshole number one told her and started placing the balls in the rack. Half way through, he stopped and straightened up.

  “Is there a problem?” Riley asked.

  “That’s you on the wall, isn’t it, darling?” He jerked his head toward a series of posters tacked up on the wall that I had somehow missed. They were from all of Riley’s movies.

  Riley pretended to be embarrassed—the girl was a damn good actress, even more so than I’d given her credit for, as I was discovering. “You caught me, after the game I can sign something if you’d like.”

  He turned to his buddy with a lecherous grin and muttered, “I’d rather give you something,” as if we couldn’t both hear him. He faced Riley again, like a wolf closing in on a baby deer. “I was just thinking, you’re so famous and all, you could probably afford to play for stakes.”

  They probably didn’t notice the way I did how Riley’s eyes lit up. “What’d you have in mind? Twenty bucks?”

  “Twenty,” the asshole scoffed, “I was thinking more like a hundred. Each. But if that’s too much, we could make a different deal.”

  She ignored his suggestive offer. “A hundred each it is.” She dug the money out of her pocket and then eyed me expectantly.

  “Now you want my money?” I rasped at her.

  “Just hand it over, you’ll get it right back when I beat these dickheads,” she whispered.

  Reluctantly, I forked over every bit of cash I had in my wallet. The assholes dug out their money as well and it all went on the table with their drinks. Must be payday.

  “You go ahead and break, sweetheart.”

  Riley grabbed a stick and stepped up to take the first shot, failing to sink a single ball. Asshole number one took his turn while I whispered in Riley’s ear. “Not off to a great start getting my money back.”

  She smacked my arm and hissed, “Calm down. I couldn’t very well sink them all on the first shot without them knowing they’d been hustled. For this to work, it needs to look like they had a chance.” She jerked her gaze back to the table at the sound of a ball finding a pocket.

  “Could you have though?” I dragged it back to me. “Could you have sunk them all on the first shot?”

  Instead of answering me, she grinned and stepped away to watch the asshole take his second shot, which he also made. Along with his third. I was up next, and I managed not to embarrass myself and sink one ball. It’d been a while since I’d played, and I’d never been one to play much except for drunken fun, so Riley better not have been relying on my skills at all.

  Asshole two took his turn and sunk another two balls for them. At this rate, I was going to be saying goodbye to my money, which meant Riley had better pay me back.

  The three of us stood back to watch Riley, me so I wouldn’t be in her way, the other two so they could leer at her ass. Okay, I checked it out too. I was only human after all, but I managed to tear my gaze away unlike the other two. I gripped the stick in my hands a little tighter to keep from cracking it over both their heads.

  None of us saw her first shot go in, but we heard it, and then all of our eyes were on the table where Riley was lining up her second shot. She bounced the cue ball off one side and sent it careening toward a ball I never would have gone for, but the cue ball slammed into it and sent it right into a center pocket.

  Which left her in position to easily knock the five ball into the corner pocket. After that she surveyed the table. There were no easy shots. She moved around the table, and then took aim, but I had no idea what she was going for, because there was a stripe directly in her way.

  And then
she jumped the damn cue ball right over it and sent another solid into a corner pocket. After that, one by one, she sank them all. By the time she got to the eight ball. Assholes one and two were cussing angrily.

  “No fucking way.”

  “This is bullshit.”

  So much for not making it obvious that she’d hustled their asses.

  She sank the eight ball and set her stick down triumphantly before moving to scoop up the money. Asshole number one caught her wrist as she did. “What do you think you’re doing? This was a set-up. You played us.”

  She met his hard stare with her own. “You wanted to play, remember. And the money was your idea. You lost. Deal with it.”

  I saw his grip tighten on her wrist. Her jaw muscles tightened, and she hissed, “Let go of me.”

  “I don’t think so. You want to take that money, then I’m going to make you earn it.”

  Now, it was my turn. I set my stick aside and stepped up to the asshole. “Let go of her arm and walk away, or your buddy is going to have to carry you out of here.”

  “That so?” He flung her arm aside and got nose to nose with me. “Maybe I’ll just kick your ass and then I can settle up with the bitch.”

  Before he blinked I had his arm twisted behind his back and him bent over the pool table. I leaned in a growled in his ear. “You can walk away right now, or I can break your arm.” I applied a bit more pressure so that he knew I meant it.

  The dude whimpered and jerked, but that only wrenched his arm harder. I saw his buddy coming at me out of the corner of my eye. I slammed my boot into his knee and he went down with a howl of pain. I jerked Asshole number one around and then shoved him to the ground next to his buddy. Before they could get back on their feet, Mack had come out from behind the bar.

  “I suggest you fellas get the hell outta my bar before I let this young man finish kicking your asses.”

  Asshole number two dragged his buddy, still spitting curses, toward the exit, and once they were out the door, Riley slapped Mack on the shoulder with a wide grin. “See, nothing to worry about Big Mack.”

  He shook his head and mumbled something under his breath.

  Riley, still grinning, counted out three hundred of the winnings and slapped it into Mack’s hands. “See that the waitresses get this.”