Even if she were stupid enough to fall for a man like Luc, with all of the emotional and professional ramifications, he would never fall for a woman like Jane. And it wasn’t because she thought herself unattractive or uninteresting. She didn’t. No, she was a realist. Ken hooked up with Barbie. Brad married Jennifer and Mick dated supermodels. That was life. Real life, and she’d never been one to purposefully set herself up for heartache. She never wanted to be the one left behind when the relationship was over. She always got out first. It hurt less that way. Maybe Caroline was right about her. She thought about it a moment and shook her head. Caroline watched too much Dr. Phil.
Jane reached for the brush once more and pulled her hair back. She smeared Chap Stick on her lips, grabbed her purse, and met Darby in the lobby. Upon seeing him, she almost ran the other way. Jane knew that she herself was not a fashion goddess, and she didn’t try. Darby, on the other hand, wasn’t a fashion god, but he did try. Only the results were unfortunate.
This evening he wore black leather pants and a silk shirt with red flames and purple skulls on it. Leather pants on any man but Lenny Kravitz was a huge mistake, but she doubted even Lenny could pull off the shirt. Looking at him, Jane understood why the Chinooks might question Darby’s sexual orientation.
They took a taxi from the hotel to Big Buddy’s, a little bar more on the outskirts of the downtown area. The sun was just setting on a cloudless night, and the wind carried a hint of rain and dust. A crisp breeze brushed Jane’s cheeks as she and Darby exited the taxi. A faded sign above the door read, “Voted Best Ribs.” She almost tripped on the uneven sidewalk and wondered why the Chinooks had chosen such a dive.
Inside the building, several television sets hung suspended in the corners, while behind the bar a red and blue Budweiser sign glowed. A string of lights left over from Christmas was still taped to the mirror. It smelled of smoke and booze, barbeque sauce and roasted meat. If Jane hadn’t already eaten, her stomach would have growled.
Jane knew that by being seen with Darby, she ran the risk of adding fuel to the rumor that they were lovers, but she also figured that there was nothing she could do about it. And she wondered which was worse, being seen as the lover of a man who dressed like a pimp, or as the mistress of Virgil Duffy, a man old enough to be her grandfather.
Pinball machines pinged and flashed and she recognized two Chinooks playing air hockey in the corner. About five Seattle players sat at the bar, watching the Rangers battle it out with the Devils. Another half dozen sat at a table with a pitcher of beer, empty tubs of coleslaw, and Fred Flintstone-sized piles of stripped rib bones.
“Hey, guys,” Darby called out. At the sound of his voice, they turned their attention toward Darby and Jane. The hockey players looked like cavemen after feasting on a woolly mammoth, all full and content and sluggish, but they didn’t look too happy to see Darby, and even less happy to see her.
“Jane and I felt like a beer,” he continued as if he didn’t notice. He pulled out a chair for her, and she sat next to Bruce Fish and across from the rookie with the blond Mohawk. Darby sat to her left at the head of the table. The red flames and purple skulls on his shirt were subdued somewhat by the dim lighting.
A waitress with a tight Big Buddy’s T-shirt set two cocktail napkins on the table and took Darby’s order. As soon as he uttered the word Corona, he was instantly carded. A scowl drew his red brows together as he flashed his identification.
“That’s fake,” someone down the table said. “He’s only twelve.”
“I’m older than you, Peluso,” Darby grumbled and shoved his driver’s license back into his wallet.
The waitress turned her attention to Jane.
“Bet she orders a margarita,” Fishy said out of the corner of his mouth.
“Or one of those wine spritzers,” someone else added.
“Something fruity.”
Jane looked up into the shadowy face of the waitress. “Do you have Bombay Sapphire gin?”
“Sure do.”
“Fabulous. I’d like a dirty martini with three olives, please.” She glanced at the stunned faces around her and smiled. “A girl’s gotta get her daily allowance of green veggies.”
Bruce Fish laughed. “Maybe you should order a Bloody Mary for the celery.”
Jane grimaced and shook her head. “I don’t like tomato juice.” She looked across the table at Daniel Holstrom. The lights from the bar cast a reddish pink glow in his white-blond Mohawk. She wondered if the young rookie was twenty-one yet. She had her doubts.
Two more waitresses in Big Buddy’s T-shirts appeared and cleared and cleaned the table. Jane half expected flirting and a proposition or two- jocks were notorious for rude behavior toward women-but nothing happened besides a few polite thank yous. Conversation took place over and around Jane and involved nothing more important or more pressing than the latest movie they’d seen and the weather. She wondered if they were trying to bore her to death. She suspected that might be the case, and she could honestly say the most interesting thing going on was the flash of lights on Daniel’s scalp.
Bruce must have noticed her attention to the Swede’s head because he asked, “What do you think of The Stromster’s hair?”
She thought she detected a blush on Daniel’s cheeks to match the pink tint of his hair. “I like a man who is so secure in his own masculinity that he can dare to be different.”
“He didn’t have much of a choice,” Darby explained as his beer and Jane’s martini arrived. “He’s new to the team this year, and anyone new has to go through initiation.”
The Stromster nodded as if this made perfect sense.
“My first year,” Darby continued, “they emptied their dirty laundry in my car.”
The guys around the table laughed, deep ha-ha-ha-has.
“My first season was with the Rangers and they shaved my head and buried my cup in the ice machine,” Peter Peluso confessed.
Bruce sucked in his breath, and she suspected he might have put a protective hand over his crotch if she hadn’t been sitting next to him. “That’s harsh,” he said. “My rookie season was spent in Toronto, and I got thrown outside in my underwear a lot. Talk about colder than a well digger’s ass.” He shivered to prove his point.
“Wow,” Jane said and took a sip of her drink. “Now I feel lucky that you boys just left me a dead mouse and call me all night.”
Several pairs of guilty eyes looked at her, then slid away.
“How’s Taylor Lee?” she asked Fishy, deciding to let them all off the hook-for now. Just as she suspected he would, he launched into his daughter’s most recent accomplishments, which began with toilet training and ended with a repeat of the telephone conversation he’d had with his two-year-old earlier that evening.
Since she’d met Bruce that first morning, she’d done a little reading on him. She’d discovered that he was going through a real messy divorce, and she wasn’t all that surprised. Now that she’d live a small sample of their lives, she imagined it would be difficult to keep a family together while on the road so much. Especially given the rink bunnies that hung out in the lobby bars.
At first Jane hadn’t noticed them, but it hadn’t taken her long to pick up on who they were, and now she spotted them easily. They dressed in tight clothes, their bodies on display, and they all had that man-eater look in their eyes.
“Anyone want to play darts?” Rob Sutter asked as he approached the table.
Before anyone could speak, Jane was on her feet. “I do,” she said, and by the scowl on the Hammer’s face, it was clear he’d meant anyone but her.
“Just don’t expect me to let you win,” he said.
Hustling darts had helped Jane put herself through college. She didn’t expect anyone to let her win. She made her eyes go wide as she reached for her drink. “Aren’t you going to go easy on me because I’m a girl?”
“I don’t give quarter to girls.”
With her free hand, she took the extra se
t of darts and headed across the bar. The top of her head didn’t even reach his shoulder. The Hammer didn’t know it, but he was about to get the big hurt he so richly deserved. “Will you at least tell me the rules?”
He quickly explained how to play 501, which, of course, she already knew. But she asked questions like she’d never played before, and he was magnanimous enough to let her go first.
“Thanks,” she said as she put her martini on a nearby table and took her place at the taped toe line. Nailed to the wall a little over seven feet away, the board was lit from above. She rolled the shaft of the cheap house dart between her fingers, testing the weight. She preferred a ninety-eight percent tungsten dart with an aluminum shaft and Ribtex flights. Like the set she owned. The difference between the brass darts she held in her hands and the darts resting in their custom-made box at home was the difference between a Ford Taurus and a Ferrari.
She leaned way over the line, held the dart wrong, and glanced down the shaft as if she were sighting in a rifle. At the last second before release, she stopped. “Don’t you guys usually bet or something?”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to take your money.” He looked at her and smiled as if he’d thought up something really funny. “But we could play for drinks. Whoever loses has to buy all the guys a beer.”
She contrived to look worried. “Oh. Hmm. Well, I’ve only got a fifty. Do you think that will cover it?”
“That ought to be enough,” he said, with all the arrogance of a man assured of his own success. And for the next half hour, Jane let him think he was winning too. Some of the other players gathered around to watch and heckle, but once she was behind by two hundred points and Rob was beginning to feel sorry for her, she got to work and beat him in four turns at the board. Darts were serious business, and she took serious pleasure in trouncing the Hammer.
“Where did you learn to play like that?” he asked.
“Beginner’s luck.” She downed the last of her drink. “Who’s next?”
“I’ll take you on.” Luc Martineau stepped out of the darkness and took the darts from Rob. The light from the bar chased varying degrees of shadows across his broad shoulders and the side of his face. Raindrops shone in his hair and the scent of the cool night breeze clung to him.
“Watch out, Luc, she’s a hustler,” Rob warned.
“Is that right?” One corner of Luc’s mouth lifted. “Are you a hustler, Ace?”
“Just because I beat the Hammer, I’m automatically a hustler?”
“No. You let poor Rob think he was winning and then you coldcocked him. That makes you a hustler.”
She tried not to smile, but she failed. “Are you scared?”
“Not hardly.” He shook his head and a short lock of dark blond hair fell across his forehead. “Ready to play?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “You’re a really bad sport.”
“Me?” He placed a big hand on the front of his ribbed navy sweater, drawing her attention to his wide chest.
“I’ve seen you whack the goalposts when a puck gets by you.”
“I’m competitive.” His hand fell to his side. “Not a bad sport.”
“Right.” She tilted her head and looked into his eyes, the light blue barely discernible within the dark bar. “Do you think you can stand to lose?”
“I don’t plan to lose.” He motioned toward the tape line. “Ladies first.”
When it came to darts, she took no prisoners and was both competitive and a bad sport. If he wanted her to go first, she wasn’t going to argue. “How much money are you willing to bet?”
“I’ll put my fifty against your fifty.”
“You’re on.” Jane doubled on with her first throw and scored sixty points by the time she was through.
Luc’s first throw bounced back and he didn’t double on until his third dart. “That sucked.” With his brows drawn together, he walked to the board and retrieved the darts. Standing within the pool of light, he studied the tips and flights. “These are dull,” he said, then looked across his shoulder at her. “Let me see yours.”
She doubted hers were sharper and moved next to him. He took them from her open palm and, with his head bent over hers, tested the points with this thumb. “Yours aren’t as dull as mine.”
He was so close, if she leaned forward just a little, her forehead would touch his. “Fine,” she said, managing to sound halfway normal, as if the clean scent of him didn’t make her breath catch in her throat. “Pick whichever three you want, and I’ll take the others.”
“No. We’ll use the same darts.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “That way, when I beat you, you can’t cry.”
She looked into his eyes, so close to hers, and her heart thumped in her chest. “I’m not the one who threw a bounce-back on the very first throw, then blamed the darts.” And while her heart was thumping, he appeared totally unaffected. She took a step back and put distance between him and her silly reaction. “Now, are you going to talk all night, Martineau, or are we going to get busy so I can kick your butt?”
“You’re cocky for such a short little thing,” he said and slapped the three darts he’d deemed the sharpest into her hand. “I think you have one of those short-girl syndromes,” he added, then joined some of his teammates who’d moved to the table several feet away.
She shrugged as if to say, Yeah, so? and walked to the line. With her weight perfectly balanced on both feet, her wrist loose and relaxed, she shot a double, a triple, and a single bull. Luc strode to the toe line as she retrieved the darts from the board. “You’re right,” she said as she walked toward him, “these are much better.” She placed all three in his outstretched hand. “Thanks.”
His hand closed over hers, pressing the darts into her palm. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?”
“At a little bar near the University of Washington.” The heat of his hand warmed hers. “I worked there nights to put myself through school.” She tried to pull away, but his grasp tightened and the shafts dug into her flesh.
“Isn’t Hooters around there?” He finally let go of her hand and she took a step back.
“No, it’s across the lake from the university,” she answered, even though she figured he knew exactly where Hooters was located. His car could probably get there on its own. He was just trying to rattle her.
It wasn’t working until he took a step toward her and said next to her ear, “Were you a Hooters girl?”
Despite the heat creeping up her neck, she managed a cool and collected, if not quite a Honey Pie, response. “I think it’s pretty safe to say I’m not Hooters material.”
He lowered his voice, his warm breath touching her cheek as he asked, “Why’s that?”
“We both know why.”
He stepped back and looked at her mouth before slowly raising his gaze to her eyes. “Tank top the wrong color?”
“No.”
“You don’t like the shorts?”
“I’m not the kind of girl they’re looking for.”
“I don’t think that’s true. I know for a fact they hire short girls. I’ve seen them in there.” He paused a moment, then added, “Of course, that was in Singapore.”
They both knew they weren’t talking about her height. “You’re trying to rattle me so you’ll win, aren’t you?”
Tiny creases appeared in the corners of his blue eyes. “Is it working?”
“No,” she lied and moved to the sideline where the Chinooks stood. “Did you come through with those beers, Rob?”
He patted her on the top of her head. “Sure did, Sharky.”
Sharky? Well, she’d earned a nickname, and it was better than what she was sure they called her when she wasn’t around. And he’d patted her head as if she were a dog. Progress, she thought as she watched Luc raise his hand, snap it forward, and bury the dart in the bull’s-eye.
“Luc hates to lose more than anyone I’ve known,” Bruce told her.
“Maybe you shouldn’t beat him
,” Peter warned. “It might snakebite his game.”
“Forget it, guys.” She shook her head as Luc buried the second dart in the out area and swore like a hockey player. “I’m not going to let anyone win.”
“Losing might make him play with a real mad-on at the Compac Center tomorrow night.”
“Yeah, remember when he lost at bowling by one pin and the next night he duked it out with Roy?” Darby reminded everyone.
“That probably had more to do with Luc and Patrick’s trash-talking than a bowling score.”
“Goalie grudge match.”
“They played old-time hockey that night.”
“Whatever the reason, they mixed it up at center ice, and man, it was beautiful.”
“When was that?” Jane wanted to know.
“Last month.”
Last month, and he still had more than half the season to go. For several long moments, Luc stood at the toe line, staring the board down as if he were in a contest of wills. A trail of light poured across the cheap red carpet and lit up his leather shoes and black pants to his knees. Then, as if he were launching a missile, he buried the dart deep in the double twenty for a total of sixty-five points. The scowl pulling at his brow as he strode to her and handed her the darts told her he wasn’t satisfied with trailing behind by seventy-five points.
“If they gave points for burying the dart through the board, you’d stand a chance of winning,” she said. “Next time you might want to use finesse rather than muscle.”
“I’m not a finesse kind of guy.”
No kidding. She moved into position, and just as she was about to release the dart, Luc spoke from the sidelines. “How do you get your hair pulled back that tight?” The other Chinooks laughed as if Luc were real funny.
She lowered her arm and looked over at him. “This isn’t hockey. There’s no trash-talking in darts.”
He flashed her a smile. “There is now.”
Fine. She’d still beat him. While he continued to heckle from the sidelines, her three throws equaled an even fifty. Her lowest score so far. “You’re behind by a hundred and sixteen,” she reminded him.
See Jane Score Page 8