by Virna DePaul
Marina cleared her throat and lifted her eyes again. But she looked at Eric and Will, not at Dylan. “He should’ve gone for the brunette down at the end of the bar; she’s been stuck talking to Ray Fogerty for twenty minutes.” Marina tossed her thumb toward the end of the bar before disappearing back toward the kitchen.
Eric looked over to where Marina had gestured, and sure enough, there was Ray. Obnoxious ass hat Ray Fogerty talking some woman’s ear off.
She was turned away so Eric couldn’t see her face. She wore a thin gray tank top and jeans. Her honey blonde hair tumbled over one pretty little shoulder and down toward her elbow. She leaned the side of her head onto her hand and Eric could see the glitter of a ring on each of her fingers. As if she could suddenly sense the gaze of the other men, the woman’s shoulders tightened. She tossed the hair back from her face and looked over her shoulder. Her dark eyes immediately found Eric’s.
Ho.
Ly.
Shit.
The heat from her stare raced all the way through his body like an electric shock. Every single part of him just stood up and took notice. Including one part that was extremely hard to ignore. Eric shifted on his barstool in the hope it would loosen his suddenly tight pants a little. No dice.
The woman quickly turned back around and Eric could see a lovely little flush working its way over her neck and shoulders. He wanted to taste that flush. Chase it as it bloomed over her skin with his teeth and tongue.
When he heard Will let out a low whistle behind him, Eric bristled. No. Hell no.
“Mine,” Eric said, just seconds before Will did.
“What the fuck, Quick Draw?” Will grumbled.
“Beat it, Owens,” Eric said to his friend as he finished off the last of his beer. It had been
over a year since he’d moved to Montana. Over a year since he’d been engaged to Brianne.
Over a year since he’d felt a strong attraction to any woman. At least, nothing like he was feeling now.
His night had just gotten a lot more interesting.
* * *
Breathe, Lexi, breathe. YOGA BREATHS!!!! Although Lexi suspected that yoga breaths weren’t nearly as useful when you were internally screaming at yourself about them.
But she could still feel the ice blue stare of the man across the bar. The skin all over her body tightened in a completely delicious way because she knew he was still watching her. She could feel it. What a flipping hottie. The kind of hot that made the music fade away. Chestnut brown hair, carved face, confident stare. The kind of stare that says, oh you wore panties? Cute that you thought you’d need them.
“And remember that part where he’s leaning out the car with that machine gun, like ‘yaaaaaaaaaaaah’,” the cowboy sitting next to her said as he pretended to shoot a gun into the air. Lexi commanded herself to start paying attention to him again. What was his name? Roy? Rick? Ray? Whatever it was, he was perfectly nice, kinda cute. And she’d been having a semi nice time talking to him. Well, except for the fact that he’d been yammering on about the same action movie—one she’d repeatedly reminded him that she hadn’t seen—for the last fifteen minutes.
Lexi shifted in her seat and tried to ignore the shock of electricity that rolled through her body when she thought about Mystery Man’s blue eyes. She had a perfectly good man in front of her and she was being rude. Even if he was being kind of rude himself, jabbering on about something that she obviously didn’t care about.
“I’m more of an old-school movie type of girl, myself,” she told him, taking a sip of her whiskey neat.
“Oh, you mean like Diehard?” he asked, lighting up like a kid on Christmas.
Lexi, on the other hand, dimmed like a light bulb after somebody turned on a hairdryer. “No. No not really. I meant more like Casablanca. Breakfast at Tiffany’s. To Kill a Mockingbird. Planet of the Apes…” Lexi trailed off, her voice becoming more and more astonished as each movie she named garnered exactly zero evidence of recognition from him.
“Yeah,” he said, scratching a hand over his smooth chin. “I think my mom likes some of those movies.”
God Almighty. It took everything Lexi had not to roll her eyes at this schmuck. Come on. She was a reasonably hot girl, right? Sure, she dressed a little tomboy and she never wore makeup or did anything to her hair besides wash it, but she had all the right girl parts. She certainly had enough boobs and ass to at least warrant a blip of effort from this guy. She was at least hot enough to not get compared to his mom.
This conversation was going down hill fast. Lexi hadn’t cried her eyes out after having to sell her horse—even if Maple’s new home looked like an equine’s dream come true—only to drag her ass out to a bar to have the latest Bourne movie reenacted by a guy who’d ordered a plate of fries and hadn’t offered her any. She’d come to the bar to… well, she wasn’t really sure of the answer to that.
Drown her sorrows? Maybe. She was going to miss Maple so much. A beautiful black and white paint, Maple had a mane like silk and eyes that would break your heart. Eyes the memory of which did break Lexi’s heart as she stared into her drink and tuned out the Matt Damon enthusiast sitting next to her.
Money sucked. No. Strike that. Money fucking sucked. If money didn’t exist, then she wouldn’t have had to sell the sweetest creature on earth that morning just to make ends meet. Lexi swallowed down the rest of her whiskey before she realized that if money didn’t exist, she wouldn’t have been able to buy Maple in the first place. Aaand now she was just confusing herself.
“Are you even listening to me?” Ron/Roy/Ricky asked her in an irritated voice, bringing Lexi out of her Maple-related cloud of depression.
“What? Oh. I’m sorry…” Lexi paused, hoping that she’d be able to produce his name with the added pinch of a little pressure, but floundered, came up with nothing, and just plowed on. “I just have a lot on my mind.”
“Really?” he asked, slamming down some more of his drink. “Because you don’t look like a woman who has a ton to turn over in that pretty little head of yours.”
In that moment, Lexi’s mind went blank. With rage.
“Was that supposed to be a compliment, Roy?”
“It’s Ray,” he snapped. “And of course it was a compliment. I called you pretty.”
“Sounded more like you called me dumb.”
“If that’s the way you want to take it,” he shrugged facing halfway away from her. He burst out, a little louder than he’d been the rest of the evening. “God! Why are women always so sensitive?”
“Maybe because you call them dumb.” Lexi stood.
Suddenly, his hand was banded around the sensitive skin of her upper arm, too tight. “Wait a minute, you’re just up and leaving after I tanked my entire night talking to you? I bought you that drink!” He gestured angrily toward her empty glass.
Lexi pinched one of his fingers between hers and twisted aggressively. He quickly unhanded her, but now he was standing too.
“You mean that five-dollar glass of crappy whiskey? Newsflash Ron, women don’t owe you shit even if you shell out for them. And even if in some twisted world I did owe you? Well, consider my debt paid after the fortieth consecutive minute of you slobbering all over Matt Damon’s—”
“Ray? Ray Fogerty? Is that you?” A masculine hand came down and landed squarely on Ray’s shoulder. Ray’s knees immediately buckled under the force of the greeting and he was effectively seated back on his bar stool. “Man, I haven’t seen you since I came back to town.”
Lexi’s eyes followed the hand still clamped to Ray’s shoulder to the muscular forearm, to the very attractive elbow, and up to the broad shoulder of the man with the ice blue eyes. He loomed over her from behind and in fact, she could feel the heat of his chest against her back. She shivered and fought the urge to sink back into his warmth. He was a stranger and, as was apparent from her interaction with Ray, the last chance she’d taken on a stranger hadn’t gone so hot.
“Yeah, how’
s it going, Eric?” Ray grumbled into his beer, effectively subdued by the man standing behind Lexi.
“It’s going well. Really well. Couldn’t help but notice things had gotten a little tense over here,” the man, Eric, was saying.
Lexi craned her head back so that she could look Eric in the face. “Tension is apparently my middle name these days,” she said to him and a grin lit up his face.
“You got a first name to go with that?” he asked.
“Lexi.”
“Ray, I’m going to go ahead and take Lexi here off your hands, free up your evening for you.”
Ray didn’t even look back. The tips of his ears turned pink but he swallowed down the rest of his beer and pulled out some bills to pay his tab.
In a moment, Ray was gone and Eric sat in his seat. He handed his empty glass over to the pretty little bartender and it was almost like Ray had never even been there.
“Presto change-o,” Lexi said, then made the sound-effect of a foot slipping on a banana peel. She was feeling a little loose tonight. From the whiskey and from all the changes in her life.
“I’m sorry?” Eric asked her as he wordlessly ordered both of them another round.
“Oh, nothing,” Lexi replied, waving it away. “You just switched with Ray so fast it was a ‘presto change-o’! And that reminded me of this old cartoon called ‘Presto Change-o’. Where there’s all sorts of sound effects like that.” She made the banana peel sound again.
“Sure, I remember that,” Eric said, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled down at her. He made a sad trombone sound that made Lexi laugh in delight. “What kind of animal was that character again, from the cartoon?”
“A cat, I think?”
“Could have been a bear.”
“No, he had a long tail. Remember the girl did too. She could swing it in a circle, like she was spinning a lasso and drawling ‘c’mere big boy’.”
This time Eric was the one laughing. “Gotta say, so far tension really does not seem like your middle name.”
Lexi visibly deflated.
“Yikes,” Eric grimaced. “Welp, my new life goal is to never make you make that face again.”
“Well, I was feeling pretty good until you reminded me,” she said as she playfully poked his side. She tried to keep her eyes from falling out of her head when she met rock where there should have been belly. “I’ve got this big move ahead of me and this morning I had to sell something I loved to make it happen. I’m just… down. And stressed.”
“What did you have to sell?” he asked, and then widened his eyes comically. “Was it your body? Or better yet, your virginity? Did you auction it off to the highest bidder?” He laid a hand on her arm. “Am I just hours too late?”
Lexi found herself laughing again as she playfully swatted his hand away. She wasn’t usually this silly, and certainly not with a man she’d just met. Must be something in the air. “More like half a decade too late. I ‘auctioned’ that prize off to Steve Jessup for the high price of two tickets to a Radiohead concert on our three-week anniversary.” Eric’s grin made Lexi’s stomach dip. “What about you?”
“When did I ‘auction off my flower’?” Eric asked. He scrunched his face up in memory. “Hmmmm. Well, it was to Shawny Lowenschuss. And she won that one off me with the high, high bid of looking damn fine in her cheerleader uniform.”
“Cheerleader, ugh.” Lexi face palmed and then ran her fingers around the rim of her glass. “You would.”
“I did,” he agreed, waggling his eyebrows at her.
And just like that, she was laughing again. Something she hadn’t had cause to do in way too long. The stress of the last few months had been starting to be unbearable. Because she sent every other paycheck to her dad, she just couldn’t seem to get her feet under her. Her dreams had never seemed further away.
“Thank you, Marina,” Eric said to the bartender as she set their drinks down. And then, to the surprise of both women, Eric leaned forward, grabbed Marina by the chin and planted a quick kiss on her very shocked lips. Lexi’s laughter died in her throat. What the hell? All that flirting and then he just up and kisses the bartender?
Marina stepped back, gave him a little, confused smile and sort of floated toward the kitchen.
“Uuuuuuuhhhhhh.” It was all Lexi managed to get out.
“I’m not into her,” Eric said quickly. “I’ve known her my whole life. But tonight I learned something new about her. And I just wanted to stir it up. Get things going.”
“What?” Lexi asked, completely confused.
Eric waggled his fingers down the bar toward a very handsome man with dark hair and dark eyes who was currently flipping Eric the bird. The man stood abruptly and disappeared through the kitchen doors where Marina had just gone. Eric lifted his glass in their direction in a silent salute. “Dylan sometimes needs a little kick in the ass to get up and do something.”
“Or he needs a little kiss on the lips, rather,” Lexi said, raising one eyebrow.
“Jealous?” Eric asked her, a cocky grin on his lips.
But Lexi didn’t get a chance to answer before Dylan came storming back out of the kitchen, threw some bills on the counter and rounded the bar toward them.
“Real cute, Eric,” Dylan snapped. “You’re the one who pulls that crap and somehow she still thinks it’s my fault.”
Unable to resist, Lexi reached up, grabbed Dylan by the chin, and planted a smacking kiss right on his lips. He blinked at her, nonplussed, as she plopped back down on her bar stool.
Eric’s mouth fell right open.
“We’re even now,” Lexi told Eric as a grin spread over Dylan’s face.
“I think we are too,” Dylan said to Eric. “Nice to meet you, I’m Dylan Quinn.”
“Lexi Fischer.” They shook hands. “You having girl problems, Dylan Quinn?”
He shrugged, hands jammed into his pockets. “None that I need my friends to solve.”
“Fair enough,” Lexi said as she raised her drink to him. But she noticed his eyes darkened considerably when Marina came back out of the kitchen, carrying a tray of burgers and fries.
“I’m going to head home,” Dylan said nodding at both of them and turning to jet out of the restaurant.
Lexi bet he had no idea that Marina’s eyes followed him the whole way.
Lexi turned back to Eric to tell him her observation when she realized he was still staring at her, mouth open.
“You just kissed my friend,” he said.
“Trust me. It wasn’t a hardship. He’s very good looking,” Lexi said, pretending to try and get a last glimpse of him through the crowd.
Eric planted a single finger on the bottom of her chin and tilted her head back around so that she was facing him. She just barely suppressed the shiver it sent down her spine to have him command her so easily. She was partial to a man with a certain amount of gravitas. A little bit of doing what I say is its own reward. “You still stressed, Lexi?”
“A little,” she answered. The truth was, being around him was relaxing her. But that didn’t change the steaming pile of crap her life had become.
Eric leaned in a little closer. Lexi found herself automatically mirroring the motion. The whole “music/other people/world fade away” thing happened again. And Lexi found herself in a lovely little whirling tunnel with the most handsome man she’d ever seen in real life.
“I can think of one really great way to eliminate your stress,” he said in a low, gravelly voice.
Lexi laughed, tossing her hair over her shoulder and leaning in further. “Oh, I just bet you could.”
“Might get sweaty though,” he said, pulling a glossy chunk of her hair through his fingers. “Might be a little rough for a girl as delicate as you.”
Suddenly, the joke was over and Lexi’s heart started to pound as her mind spun out wild images of what he was whispering to her. The two of them, tangled and sweaty in the back of her car in the parking lot. Or in the bathroom of the ba
r. Or, fuck it, right here, right now. Lexi took a swig of her drink. It had obviously been a little bit too long for her. She had to calm down.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been described as delicate before,” she said, and even though she was flirting, it was the truth. She was strong, direct. And often described as intimidating.
He leaned back a little, but his knees came around either side of hers, caging her in. “So, you think you could handle some pounding?”
Wow. Was it just her or had the heat suddenly gone up in here? “Excuse me?”
He grinned yet again. “You ever taken down a wall with nothing but a mallet and all the rage you never get to let out of the cage?”
“Excuse me?” she repeated.
“I just bought a ranch, about a mile from here. There’s an old barn that I’ve been demolishing and let me tell you, it sure beats therapy.”
Lexi leaned back, a surprised little smile blooming over her face. “You’re serious.”
“As a rattlesnake bite.” He threw some bills on the counter. “You coming?”
She cocked her head to one side, studying him. He sure was handsome. His body was lean and cut and he had the face of a Greek god. Aristocratic. Except for that big old grin that cracked it right in two. And those eyes. Bluer than the sky on a clear day. “Let me hit the ladies real quick.”
Eric nodded and smiled, indicating he would wait. She slid off the barstool and wove through the bar toward the bathrooms. Halfway there, she crossed paths with the bartender.
Lexi tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey.”
Marina turned around and instantly paled. “I’m not dating him. He’s all yours. I have no idea on earth why he kissed me. I—”
“Hey, hey!” Lexi held up her hands when she realized that the woman thought she was about to go psycho on her or something. “Water under the bridge, girly. Takes a lot more than that to get me fighting in a bar. Actually,” Lexi cocked her head to one side, pretending to think really hard. “I don’t think anything could get me fighting in a bar.”