In her agitation, she hot-footed it to Idaho Springs. When she was too far out to turn around, she realized that she’d forgotten to return the stuff that John bought her. She could take it to Eldora’s. For now, she went straight to the pub. When she arrived, she was early. They didn’t have a tourney until later.
She rented a table and played by herself. Her plan was to play until she couldn’t see straight. There were several guys who had their eyes on her. She was a woman alone in a resort town. She didn’t let it go to her head. They were no doubt predators looking for prey.
She was knocking the balls in, not particularly wanting to play with anyone when a good-looking man sidled up to her. He stood at the table long enough to annoy her. She looked up from her game. He was lean and dark and reminiscent of John. He looked like he could be related to the Blackwoods.
She thought about all the Blackwoods at the meeting that morning. Every single one of them with that dark straight hair, those big eyes, and perfect teeth. What had once turned her on about John now haunted her.
“You’re not a Blackwood, are you?” she asked with a lead tone.
He chuckled with the wickedness of the devil. “No, are you?”
He was handsome, and he knew it. He’d be dumb if he didn’t. It was probably the only reason why she gave him the time of day.
“I don’t believe you. And I don’t want company.”
“How about some competition?” His smile grew wide as if he was trying to charm her.
She shook her head. “Maybe another time.”
“Come on,” he begged. “I’m watching you play and you know how it is. I love the game too.”
“Look, go over there to that table.” She pointed with her cue. “If I’m not there in five minutes, start without me. By the way, I won’t be there.”
She knew it sounded cold, but she didn’t care. She should watch the smart mouth retorts because she was alone. She didn’t want a guy like this to be pissed off and follow her later out to the parking lot.
“Fine.” To her relief, he wandered off.
As soon as it was tournament time, he was back again. Lucy was annoyed enough that she didn’t have the sense to be concerned about him. He was not flirtatious but predatory, and the perfect target to direct her anger at. She tried to be aggressive to get rid of him. Instead, that made him come at her stronger. She’d put a bee in his bonnet. She got that, but still, she wanted him to leave her alone.
She walked over to buy in. There were two options in the tournament. She could pay a lower fee like she had the last time or double down for a greater yield. If she wanted to place a custom bet in excess of that, she could do that too. She paid the higher price for the tournament, putting down half of what she’d won the last time.
It was just the way it worked out, or he’d set it up that way, but Lucy and the guy she’d told to go away were matched first.
“What’s your name?” she asked him.
“Jason.” He gave her his best handsome look. His face had a perpetual dark smirk, like he was the reform school Blackwood. “What about you?”
“Sarah Jane,” she lied with pleasure.
“So, is there a reason they have the name ‘Lucy’ on the board?”
That shook Lucy. He’d outsmarted her.
“Yep.” She didn’t elaborate. There was no point in confessing her lie.
“Shall we flip on who racks, Lucy?”
“No, I’m okay with racking.”
Some games had neutral parties rack but, in this case, it was a tournament in a pub. House rules. She tried to hide the fact that her hands trembled as she handled the balls, but she couldn’t.
“Nervous?”
“Nicotine,” she lied.
“You don’t look like a smoker.”
“Closet habit.”
The guy was too astute, and it bothered her. He broke and ran the table for a period. Lucy finished him off. She won. Not from skill but from luck. She liked to control the outcome from the start, getting the first shot and playing until the opponent had no chance. Jason was one of the better players she had come up against in a while.
She hoped that would be the end of him, but like a bad cold, he wouldn’t go away. Instead of accepting his elimination, he bought in again, so that meant if she beat the people in between, she’d have to play him again.
“Are you serious?”
“Hey, I bet heavy, what can I say? I can’t go home empty handed.” His unending smirk annoyed her. “Only way to accomplish that is to beat you.”
He was getting inside her head. She had come here for relief and there wasn’t any. As long as there was a competitor, the list had to be exhausted until there was a sole champion. She thought about complaining to the manager, but no one was going to care as long as there was money involved.
Jason had to wait unless and until Lucy smoked everyone else. That meant out of the corner of her eye wherever she turned, she saw him. Mercifully, the other players weren’t that good, and she got to Jason fast. This hopefully would be over soon. She requested a break to make him wait.
“You’re good,” he said.
She wanted to reply “you’re not” but she was learning a lesson slowly, to keep her mouth shut. Things never ended well for smart mouth girls.
Her break was up and it was time to play. This go around, he had to rack, and she didn’t trust him. His mind games had worked on her. She hated playing this way, all tense and stressed.
She broke and sank one ball, then took a step back and slowed it way down. She would have to wipe out the balls in order to win because he was good enough to run the table if he had only a few left to sink.
So, she did the next best thing to sinking the next ball; she aimed it so that it would nestle in a group of balls, leaving him absolutely no shot at all. The smirk flew off his face. The muscles of his jaw worked overtime. He took a shot and missed. She won the game.
“Come on,” she said to the manager who watched. “Can we please call the game?”
The manager shrugged. Jason bought in again. Her only options were to give up or play. He was wearing her down. He set the balls up again.
“I will win.”
She didn’t know if she could win again. It was her pride that kept her going. That same pride had wreaked havoc in her life lately. Mouthing off and letting her emotions take over for her brain.
She knew she would come to regret what had happened earlier that day. Leaving the meeting. Lashing out at John. Leaving her house open. But at the moment, she couldn’t feel much about anything.
Jason took the first shot of the next game and made a spectacular break. She tried not to let it get to her. He ran the table and was going to win. It pricked at her pride. She’d just made a small fortune that she’d lose in a game to a jerk.
Jason took his next shot and scratched. She couldn’t believe it. She was so prepared to lose. Somehow it didn’t feel like winning. The manager called the game because Jason was out of money and no one else wanted to play. She won her second tournament at Tommyknockers. They took her picture and printed it out to put on the wall. They gave her the title of house champion.
Jason extended his hand to shake. “Good game.”
She didn’t want to accept it, but she did. “Thank you.”
“Can we start over? Maybe play a game for fun, you know, after you take a break? Can I buy you a victory drink?”
“Yes, that would be great.” She took a seat at the bar with him.
The manager bought them each a drink. “Way to steal my thunder, dude,” Jason said. “Is pool your only game?”
“Pretty much.” Her purse buzzed. She checked her phone. Deena had texted “Ok” to being fired and it made her heart ache. She had to fix that. While she didn’t want Deena the lawyer, she wanted Deena her friend.
Lucy set her phone on the bar. A card that had been stuck to the back broke free. It was John’s contact info for Blackwood Corporation. It was a two-sided card. S
he’d gotten it the first day they met, but she’d never bothered to read it. She plugged the address into Google Earth and waited for it to load up.
“I apologize, Jason. Give me a sec.”
She pulled up a picture of an enormous home—his home. She nearly fell off the barstool. She’d accused him of not telling her he lived nearby and yet technically he had told her within minutes of their meeting. She hadn’t paid attention. It was another moment where her emotions took over for her brain.
Lucy didn’t know what to think. She was still angry at the situation. Angry that he could sell something she cared so much about, but then again, she’d walked away tonight as if nothing mattered, including him. She was wrong about it all.
She knocked back her drink. It was time to go home—her home. She rose from the stool.
Jason grabbed her, not hard but firm enough to jolt her. She looked at his hand.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m leaving.”
He flashed a smile of bright white teeth. “But you have my money.”
“Excuse me? They have the money until they deposit it into my account. Then I’ll have your money.” She tried to tug free.
He wasn’t letting go. “Play me again.”
If John Blackwood were here, this guy wouldn’t touch her. If Caleb were there, for that matter, it would be the same. She knew they probably were the worst street fighters in the world, but they looked intimidating, and wouldn't have tolerated his aggressive behavior.
“No.”
“Come on. Double or nothing.”
She had enough drama for one day and couldn’t believe no one noticed this person harassing her. “Bartender, will you please call the manager over?”
Jason stood above her like a bully. “I’m asking you nicely to play me again and let me have a chance.”
Since the bartender wasn’t helping, she slapped a ten on the bar for her drink. “I’m out of here.”
“Come on!” Jason yelled. “You owe me another chance.”
The manager finally appeared. “Problem?”
“Can you walk me to my car and watch until I make it out onto the road?” She pointed to Jason. “Don’t let this guy follow me.”
“Sure thing.”
Lucy had a moment of clarity. She’d made so many choices that day. Some good and many bad. She didn’t regret playing pool, but she was done with it for a while. She regretted her exchange with John. She owed him an apology.
She put John’s address in her GPS and hoped he would forgive her.
Chapter Nineteen
John
John sat in the living room of his magnificent, cathedral ceiling home, resenting it. He and Caleb had argued over the floor plans because they hadn’t been mature enough to consider what a terrible idea having identical designs would be even though they were hundreds of acres away.
The house was a cedar home that had one huge room that was the living area and dining room. The walls were glass, stone, and wood, with great big windows so that all he saw in the daylight were mountains and evergreens. There was a huge river rock fireplace that took up one wall and exposed beam ceilings throughout. It was over-the-top beautiful, a masterpiece actually, but it was lonely.
He stretched his arms out on the back of his sofa, wondering if he’d intentionally dodged telling Lucy where he lived. It had all gone so fast. They had packed a lifetime in a couple of days. Where his house was located seemed unimportant, but in hindsight, sharing his body and not his address seemed shallow.
She made him sound like he was devious, like whatever had gone down between them resulted from a master plan. It wasn’t like that at all. If she had only let him explain.
The piece he struggled with was her temper. The volatile part was hot in bed, but bad for the soul. Everyone had a thing, a character defect or two.
He thought of his beloved cousin Maya, who he loved more like a sister, battling her own demons.
Lucy’s flaw was her sharp tongue. He was sure he loved her—not that it mattered, because she’d set him aside. But even if she hadn’t, would he be borrowing more trouble trying to make it work?
He looked at the clock and wondered how it had gotten to be so late. He rolled to his feet as a pair of headlights washed across the inside of the house. John wasn’t set on a main road. He lived on a private road and was isolated. If someone was here, it wasn’t by accident.
It was pitch black out, a bad time for someone to show up. On some level, he felt vulnerable. That was until he heard a woman’s laugh. Lucy.
He opened the door to watch her tilt her head back to take in his house. A house she felt compelled to laugh at.
Somewhere inside him, he was thrilled to see her, but he was cautious to the point of being reluctant to let her inside.
“Are you going to stand there and gawk or do you want to come in?”
She stumbled up the steps in heels far too tall to be safe. “John, it’s so big,” she purred.
“Whatever, Lucy.” He stepped to the side to let her in, but she caught her heel on a raised nail and twisted her ankle.
“Ouch.” She lifted her foot and hopped on the other.
Knowing she would most likely fall and break her neck, he swept her up in his arms. “You okay?”
“To the couch please.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“No, I had one beer,” she admitted. “I’m wobbly because your porch is a danger zone.”
He was relieved and glad she wasn’t intoxicated. He didn’t like the idea of her driving drunk.
He set her on the sofa and took the single chair beside it. “What’s up? Why are you here?”
“Because of you. I acted like a jackass today. I might have acted like one before. I wanted to tell you I found the business card you gave me. You know, the one with your home address on it. The one I didn’t pay attention to.”
He nodded. “I had given you my address.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Inside he felt relieved that he had given it to her. That at least solved the mystery of him intentionally misleading her, which wasn’t normal behavior for him. Then again, nothing with Lucy had been normal from the beginning.
He checked his phone.
“So, you came over at one o’clock in the morning to tell me that?”
“Wouldn’t you?” She lifted her shoulders in question. “I couldn’t wait to say I’m sorry. In my defense, I was confused. A lot has happened over the last few days. While this justifies nothing, when I called you on it, you apologized, like you were admitting it. I didn’t know what to think.”
“You make some valid points, but in my defense, a lot happened over the last few days for me too.”
“Apology accepted.” She rocked forward but winced when she put weight on her ankle.
He rushed and sat next to her, pulling her feet into his lap. He unstrapped her shoes and rubbed her sore foot.
“You don’t have to do that.” She looked around the great room. “I’m sorry I woke you.”
“I wasn’t asleep.”
She took in the surrounding grandeur. “Nice place.”
He shrugged. “If you like empty ski lodges.”
“Care if I stay the night—on the couch? Not sure I could drive with this ankle. Besides, then your lodge wouldn’t be empty.”
He took her ankle and slipped some pillows beneath it. “You can stay.”
“Thanks. I’ll take it from here. Just need a blanket.”
John grabbed a throw from a nearby chair. He dimmed the lights so there was enough light to see, but it was soothing and invited sleep. He stretched out his arms and let the fabric fall and drape over her.
“Let’s take off your pants.” On any other day that would have been a come-on but today he was doing what was right for her. “You’re not going to be comfortable and your ankle is swelling.”
She nodded and turned just right so the light caught her tear. She was crying. It c
ould have been her ankle, but he suspected it was the day. It had to be a hard thing to come back and apologize.
She unfastened her pants and lifted up. John slipped them down to her thighs and then went to the hem and pulled them off. Her panties rolled down her hips. He was playing with fire because they had such physical chemistry. With little encouragement, they would find themselves in bed.
They both reached for her blanket at the same time, drawing it up around her. Their hands met. He closed his eyes because he wanted her, but he was hurt, and so was she. Her fingers tightened around his. He shoveled his hands behind her back and her knees and lifted her to set her on the elk skin covering the floor in front of the stone fireplace.
He kicked on the gas flames with the remote. She was in her underwear and the shirt she had on, which differed from the shirt she had worn that morning. She’d said she had a drink, which meant she’d gone out. A flicker of jealousy flared within him.
He removed what clothes she had left and drew off the oversized shirt he wore. Making love to Lucy at this point was so wrong on so many levels, but he needed her. They needed each other. The combustive nature of their passion had blown up in their faces and wounded them both, but connecting in the way they knew best would help to heal them.
John knelt down before this beautiful woman he’d fallen tip over tail in love with. He swooped down to kiss her. His lips went first to her forehead, drawing in her scent, which he loved. It helped fortify all that was good in his memory.
He kissed the bridge of her nose, and then each of her cheeks, relishing the softness of her skin. He lowered to the underside of her jaw, to the curve of her neck to spur her arousal the way he knew kissing her there would.
Then, at last, he took her mouth. Passion flowed from him to her. He lifted the floodgates by kissing her, by slipping his tongue into her sweet mouth and savoring the warm, wet delight.
He twisted his tongue with hers, dancing and mating, capturing her lower lip, biting it gently with the wish to own it. He hoped she was his but doubted the possibility. For all the easiness he had in his life, this might be the one time the universe said no.
What If: A Small Town Big Love Novel Page 14