“You might want to… ” Erica glanced down over her, hesitating.
“Erica? I want to know. Really.”
“Well, you might want to change your wardrobe a little. For someone who doesn’t want to be stereotyped as the wide-eyed ingénue, you sure give off an Alice in Wonderland vibe. I almost carded you when you walked up to the bar earlier. Or asked you what kind of Girl Scout cookies you were selling.”
Ursa stared at Erica in disbelief, before she laughed.
“I’m sorry, I was just—”
“No, please don’t apologize. I’m wearing work clothes, but still…you’re absolutely right. I could really shake up things in the wardrobe department when it comes to Z. It’s no wonder he refuses to see me as anything but his sweet next door neighbor.”
“I don’t think that’s the only way Z sees you.”
Ursa went still. “Really?”
Erica gave a wry shrug. “A guy doesn’t get as worked up as Z Beckett looked when he stormed out here earlier for the likes of a girl scout.”
Ursa’s cheeks grew hot, but she was pleased by Erica’s observation.
“You staying in town for a while?” Erica asked her.
“I took some time off work. I planned to go and spend some time with my Mom at Lake Tahoe. I usually go there for Memorial Day. But before I went to Tahoe, I was hoping to work through this…disagreement I’m having with Z,” she said cautiously. “I have a reservation at the Motor Lodge here in Columbia. But after meeting with Z just now, I don’t know. I’m thinking about cancelling the reservation.”
“You’re not giving up that easy, are you?”
Her spine straightened.
“No,” she said firmly after a pause.
Erica nodded once in calm satisfaction. “I have a suggestion. Why don’t you wander over to the clothing store?”
“You mean Z’s store?” Ursa asked, pointing toward the door and recalling the biker-themed clothing and accessory store she’d seen before entering the Moto Café.
“Yeah. Biker Rags, it’s called. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think changing your appearance is going to solve all your problems. But it might put you in touch with something inside you that’s already there. I think some leather and tight jeans might be just the thing to go with all your lace, honey. Just do me a favor, okay?”
“Sure.”
“If you plan on Z Beckett seeing this new facet of your identity anytime soon, please let me around to witness it,” Erica said with a mischievous little grin that made her look ten years younger.
Chapter Seven
That night when Ursa walked into the Moto Café, it was a distinctly different experience than it had been this afternoon.
In so many ways.
Firstly, she’d been nervous this afternoon. Tonight, she was so worked up with anxiety, she thought she was going to hurl.
Secondly, instead of the handful of afternoon customers, the restaurant/bar was currently filled with leather-wearing, tattooed, pierced patrons. Gone was the lazy, laidback atmosphere from this afternoon. This crowd was rowdy, ready to party, and hyped up by the energetic country-rock band currently blasting out music on the stage.
Erica had informed Ursa earlier today that she was certain Z would be there tonight. Wednesday nights were half-priced beer and band night, and had been popular in the establishment even before Z bought the place and made improvements and renovations. He’d been there every Wednesday since becoming the owner-manager.
The third difference between tonight versus this afternoon was the reaction she got for her entrance.
Apparently, studded buckle leather boots, a pair of tight jeans, and even tighter white lambskin leather, lace-up bralette, went a long way to get a girl the kind of notice she craved.
Not that she wanted the attention from this crowd of strangers. She hungered for it from Z. She hadn’t realized until she walked into the rowdy bar, however, that dressing over-the-top sexy didn’t work in any specific way. It couldn’t be targeted just at Z. It seemed to have a blanket effect.
A guy that looked more like a cowboy than a biker took aim with his pool cue, glanced over in her direction, and jerked his arm spasmodically without ever removing his gaze from her. He missed the ball by half a foot. His buddies starting laughing loudly at his error, all of them looking in her direction and grinning knowingly. The cowboy straightened, never peeling his stare off her. He tilted his hat at her and grinned.
Ursa’s nausea swelled. She felt like she’d been thrown into a foreign sea filled with ravenous sharks. The cowboy was cute and cocky: tall and lanky, with blondish brown hair, tanned skin and white teeth. When she saw him set down his cue and start in her direction, she plunged into the crowd, searching for Z’s dark head above the sea of people. When she didn’t see it, she experienced a bizarre rush of disappointment and stark relief.
How’s he going to react, seeing me this way?
She glanced down nervously at the vision of her breasts cradled in soft lambskin leather. The leather had been dyed white. In contrast, her skin glowed a golden color. The laces had been left sexily untied to reveal a healthy—possibly indecent—amount of cleavage between the taut, stretching leather cords.
She didn’t tell herself to escape, but suddenly she’d done an about face and was headed toward the exit.
“Ursa!”
She spun around and saw Erica between several seated customers at the bar. The older woman finished pouring a beer, set it on a tray and gave Ursa a beckoning wave.
There was a single seat at the bar situated between two couples. Ursa took it reluctantly.
“Look at you,” Erica said. She seemed highly amused, which made Ursa’s discomfort rise even further—if that was possible. “I didn’t even recognize you for a few seconds.”
“It’s too much, isn’t it?”
Erica laughed. “Hell no. I just had no idea you were hiding all that underneath your Alice in Wonderland get-up.”
Ursa’s cheeks burned.
“Your hair looks fantastic. Did you get it highlighted this afternoon?”
“No” Ursa said, fingering a stray dark gold curl that fell down her arm. She’d blown it out and put some loose curls in it for her little mission tonight. “It just looks lighter when I wear it down.”
Erica pointed at her head. “Stuff that gorgeous is not meant to be hidden,” she stated matter-of-factly.
“Thanks,” Ursa muttered uneasily.
“Don’t worry, I’m not hitting on you.”
“I didn’t think you were,” Ursa insisted anxiously, worried she’d unintentionally insulted her new friend.
Erica put up her hand in a calming gesture. “Chill, child. It’s all good.” Despite her reassurance, she still looked as if she’d just heard a really excellent joke. Ursa glanced around skittishly at the crowd. Erica’s grin faded.
“You really are about to jump out of your own skin,” Erica observed, setting a cocktail napkin in front of her.
“Is Z here?”
“He’s in the back at the dock, accepting a shipment we just got.”
Ursa placed her opened hand at her throat and felt her leaping pulse.
“You need a drink,” Erica said confidently.
“I don’t really drink much.”
“Then it won’t take much to take the edge off.” She walked over to the back bar and pulled down a bottle and a glass at once.
“What is it?” Ursa asked when she set down the drink in front of her a few seconds later.
“Think of it as a chill pill,” Erica said with a smile. A customer called out to her from the opposite end of the bar. “Just try to relax, Ursa. Weren’t you the one telling me what a decent guy Z is this afternoon? It’s going to be fine.”
Maybe Erica was right, Ursa told herself. Yeah, she was pretty desper
ate for Z to sit up and take notice that she wasn’t a child anymore. Her attempts were bound to make him a little uncomfortable and unpredictable, given how she was messing with the status quo.
But it was still Z, still the same person she’d known her whole life.
Wasn’t it?
Trying to fortify herself, she took a healthy swallow of Erica’s chill pill. Initially she winced at the unfamiliar, alcoholic taste. But then the flavor penetrated—earthy, spicy with just a hint of caramel. She took a smaller sip and sighed.
I better watch out. I could get used to this stuff.
She settled into her seat, idly watching Erica expertly prepare drinks with a sexy self-confidence. Every once in a while, she’d turn back to the crowd and eagerly look for Z. He was so tall and broad through the shoulders, he’d easily stand out in a crowd.
But there was no sign of him.
Erica had been one hundred percent right, she realized. The drink was taking the edge off her out of control anxiety.
“I should have known you’d drink scotch.”
Ursa glanced around at the low, sexy southern drawl. Beneath the brim of the suede hat, she saw the whiskey-colored eyes and cocky little grin of the cowboy who had stared at her when she entered the café.
“Why should you have known that?” she asked him, surprised to hear how calm she sounded.
“It’s smooth and golden… liquid amber. Potent as hell,” he said, his gaze dropping over her throat and the front of her leather bra top. He met her stare again, his devilish smile widening just a hairsbreadth.
“Just like you,” he murmured.
She laughed softly. “You know, that’s actually not a bad line.”
His white teeth flashed. “That was just off the cuff. I can do better with planning.”
“Don’t do any planning on my account.”
“Don’t turn down any offers until I put all my money on the table. Can I buy you another? You’re almost empty,” he said, pointing at her glass.
“Oh…I guess I am.” Her voice sounded strange to her own ears, like she was listening to herself through insulation. He made a quick hand signal. Ursa realized he was talking non-verbally to Erica, who seemed to read him with ease.
“You come here a lot, huh?” she asked him.
“Long enough to know you’re no regular. I would have noticed you,” he said, wedging his long body into the space between Ursa’s stool and the man’s next to her. It forced him to stand extremely close. He leaned his elbow against the bar, facing her, his body just inches from hers.
“So you used to come here before Z bought the place?” she asked him.
The cowboy’s expression sharpened. “You know Z Beckett?”
“Since birth,” she said, surprised and pleased by how flippant she sounded as she took the very last swallow of her drink. Scotch. So that’s what this awesome stuff was.
“You okay, Ursa?” Erica asked, removing Ursa’s empty glass from the bar.
“Awesome. I was just talking to—”
“Luke,” the cowboy said. He held out his hand. “Luke Severen.”
“Happy to meet you, Luke,” she said, pumping his hand enthusiastically. “I’m Ursa.”
Erica exchanged an amused glance with Luke. “Here’s your second drink, babe,” she said, setting a glass on the bar in front of Ursa. “But that’s your limit, until you get your sea legs on this stuff.”
“You’re kidding, Erica. Cutting off a little filly like this when she’s just starting to run?”
“You heard me, Luke,” Erica replied, her expression growing somber as she regarded him. “You’re not gonna play your usual games with this one.”
“Aw, who says I’m playing games?” Luke drawled, looking wounded. “And who’s going to stop me, if I am?”
“I will,” Erica said without hesitation. “And Z Beckett might have a thing or two to say about it, as well. Speaking of which,” Erica said softly to Ursa, nodding significantly behind her.
Ursa spun around in her chair. Instinctively, she reached, pushing on Luke’s shoulder to see around him. Luke stood so close, he’d been blocking her view.
She saw Z from across the crowd. He wore a classic white T-shirt that highlighted his bronzed skin and the elaborate tattoo sleeve on his right arm. His arms crossed loosely below his powerful chest, making his muscles bulge. He talked casually to a shorter man with brown hair and a beard. Z smiled at something the man said.
Her heart jumped like an anxious rabbit’s. Z’s smiles were rare and shockingly compellingly. Ursa thought it had something to do with the fact that a residue of a guarded, wounded boy still existed within his powerful character. Other people sensed it, too, she realized. The man Z spoke to seemed to light up at his casual smile. Ursa understood his enthusiasm. Every time you attempted a conversation with Z, you were always a little surprised he’d stop and face you or talk back… let alone smile.
Sadie and Esme had always told her that Z Beckett epitomized the elusive, edgy, cool kid during their high school years. His magnetism had only amplified as he’d aged.
Z nodded, slapped the man on the shoulder, and walked past him in Ursa’s direction. She sensed the split second when his gaze met hers. She saw him pause in the midst of the crowd, before she shrunk back behind Luke’s chest.
“He looks mad,” she said quietly, more to herself than anyone.
“He always looks mad,” Luke said. “You and Z Beckett—are you two a thing or something?”
“No,” Ursa said distractedly, nearly all her attention focused around forty feet behind her. Is he walking over here? She reached for her glass and took a swallow of the scotch, relishing the burn.
“Not that Z Beckett’s ‘things’ seem to last more than a night,” Luke was saying conversationally to Erica. “I know a girl who told me Beckett told her point blank that he wasn’t interested in the long haul with a woman…that he was trying to focus on his health and getting his life together.”
“Z said that to someone?” Ursa asked shakily before she took another drink.
“Yeah. It worked like some kind of chick magic,” Luke said, sounding both resentful and envious at once. “The girl dropped like a shot for him, and she had no one to blame for herself the next morning when he showed her the door. Hey, this is a great song,” Luke said, pointing over his shoulder. “Do you want to dance?”
“What?” Ursa asked blankly. She was still trying to compute what Luke had just said. At first, she’d been glad to hear Z was trying to stay away from women in order to focus on getting his life together. But then, Luke had suggested Z had spent the night with the girl and got rid of her afterword.
Why am I surprised? That’s what he did with me, isn’t it?
Besides, I was the one who was lecturing him about avoiding stress in order to avoid relapse. And yet here I am, poking and prodding at him.
In the corner of her vision, she saw Z approaching. His dark eyebrows slanted over shining blue eyes that were trained directly on her. He appeared strained, suspicious, and determined. Out of nowhere, his threat from this afternoon flew into her mind’s eye. I swear to God I’ll find you wherever you are, and I’ll turn you over my knee. I don’t care if you’re in your office, or with your mom, or sitting in church, I’ll turn your ass red.”
She gulped one more drink of scotch and grabbed Luke’s hand.
“Yeah, let’s dance. Follow me,” she said, before yanking Luke in the opposite direction of an oncoming Hurricane Z.
Chapter Eight
What kind of game was Ursa playing?
It didn’t even occur to Z that before he’d run into Ursa at the Crucifixion Café where he’d been about to get his ass kicked by Frankie Saccardi’s gorillas, he’d never once considered the idea of Ursa Esterbrook playing games. Ursa was the opposite of a player.
O
r she had been. Once.
When he’d first caught a glance of her anxious face around the shoulder of that idiot cowboy who hung around the Moto Café, he’d noticed that her long, golden hair spilled across her shoulder and back. Alarm bells had started to go off in her head. He couldn’t recall ever seeing Ursa with “come-and-get-me” hair. That’s what he privately thought of the way women wore their hair before they went to a club or bar—all loose and waving, a temptation for a man’s fingers and closing fist.
Then he got nearer to Ursa, and spied the top she was wearing. Or almost wearing.
Oh, hell no.
The white leather—whatever it was—left her smooth, toned upper back and shoulders bare, not to mention a two inch strip of midriff. He paused a moment in the crowd, staring in disbelief.
Beneath that sexy strip of smooth, golden skin, she wore a pair of jeans that molded her like a second skin. Her plump ass looked like a piece of luscious sex fruit perched on the edge of the barstool.
He was surprised every guy in the bar wasn’t buzzing around her like wasps to honey-dipped apples. Distantly, he realized Cowboy Luke was probably the single deterrent to the swarm. The guy was generally known as a bar stud, and most of the other male patrons knew it. They seemed to make way for Luke once he’d made his intentions clear on whom he planned to bed on any given night.
Z saw red for a second at the idea of his intentions being set on Ursa.
Ursa’s face flashed over her shoulder. They made eye contact ever so swiftly. Then she was grabbing Cowboy Luke’s hand and they were both scurrying away from him.
Z clamped his jaw hard and followed.
Ursa wasn’t sure why, but for just a few seconds out on that dance floor, she almost forgot about Z and enjoyed herself. Maybe it was because the band and the song were really good, or because Luke was a great dancer.
Or possibly it was due to the newly discovered power of scotch.
Luke spun her around so energetically she bumped fronts with him when they came back together. Grinning widely, he dropped her hand. They began to dance freestyle to the boisterous music, their bodies sliding together as they moved to the driving beat. Luke put his hands on both of her hips, his fingers pressing into the tops of her ass cheeks.
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