Be Mine(25)

Frozen in place between two tables, Nate watched her, waiting, wondering if he should offer to help. Wondering what to say. But in the end, he didn’t say anything at all. Jenny didn’t look in his direction. She didn’t even glance up. She just stood and headed back behind the bar.

Nate slid the business card off the table and left.





CHAPTER THREE



“YOU REALLY KNOW HOW to pick ’em,” Rayleen cackled from her corner table for the tenth time that night.

Jenny sighed and rolled her shoulders, determined to continue ignoring the old lady.

“He sure did have pretty hair, though. Do you give it a hundred strokes at night? That’s the recipe for a good marriage, you know.” More cackling. Rayleen was drunk.

“He’s my ex, Rayleen.” Jenny sighed. “I don’t stroke anything of his, and I haven’t in a long time.”

“Well, he’s back now. And ex sex doesn’t count, or that’s what I’ve always heard.”

Jenny finished wiping down the bar and glanced toward the last tables of lingerers. “Is that what your exes told you? Because I think that’s called an ulterior motive.”

“Ha!” The unlit cigarette clenched between her lips bounced as she spoke. “That’s what I told them. And hell, yeah, I had a motive.”

Accustomed to the white-haired lady’s constant sex talk, Jenny just nodded as she looked at the clock. It was one, and Ellis apparently wasn’t coming back. “All right, folks!” she called. “That’s it! Closing time.”

There were a few good-hearted groans as the two tables cleared out, but they all offered friendly waves as they left. Not for the first time, Jenny was glad that pitcher night ended at one. They were open until two Thursday through Saturday, and she was sure she was too exhausted to have made it another hour. Her ex-husband was the gift that kept on giving.

He’d reappeared two months earlier, calling to say he was in town and asking if he could buy her coffee. She’d wanted to say no. Just hearing his voice had made her anxious enough that she’d immediately reached for the car keys, just to know she could run if she needed to. She hadn’t spoken to him in ten years, which was exactly how she’d preferred it. But guilt had made her say yes. Guilt that she’d run the way she had, leaving nothing but the wedding band she’d set on the table while he slept. Granted, their marriage had been brief and an idiotic idea from the start, but he hadn’t been the one to walk out. She had.

He hadn’t done well since then. She knew that much from brief snatches of gossip when old friends passed through Jackson. So she’d said yes to his invitation, heart beating with anxious regret before she even made it out the door.

She should have gone with her first instinct. Ellis hadn’t grown up at all. And she’d ended up paying for the coffee, along with two muffins and a donut he’d ordered for the two of them and then eaten by himself.

Ellis had been looking for a place to crash, but more than that, he’d needed a job. Times were tough back in small-town Idaho. He’d been out of work for a year. But it was a slow ski season in this economy, and there wasn’t enough work for the regulars who showed up every year, much less a stranger who’d just arrived.

When he’d asked about working at the saloon, with her, Jenny’s heart had leaped with terror at the very idea. She’d said no before he could even finish asking.

God, she’d felt horrible about it. She still did. Like a cruel, heartless bitch. But the idea of her past and her present mixing up into one tangled mess... No. She didn’t run in circles. She ran to escape. She couldn’t do it.

But he’d really needed help. And she’d refused. And here he was again.

She’d assumed he’d gone back to Idaho, but instead, he’d apparently been hanging out with the group of losers who always surrounded Steve Tex, a guy who’d once been a promising snowboarder and was now a perpetual ne’er-do-well.

Jenny didn’t like that. She didn’t like it at all. Ellis wasn’t dumb, but he’d always been naïve. Look how quickly he’d fallen for Jenny, when she obviously hadn’t deserved that kind of trust.

Ellis was cute and easygoing. He liked everyone. And in the time she’d known him, he’d never shown an ounce of self-preservation. That was what had scared her tonight, because she knew the kinds of people who hung out with Steve Tex. Users and drifters and sneaky bastards. Steve’s house, which had once been a mansion bought with sponsor money from his snowboarding days, was now a run-down, beat-up den of feral half adults.

She couldn’t push Ellis away without making sure he understood what he’d gotten into. But damn, he’d chosen a truly inconvenient time to pop back into her life, ruining her first promising flirtation in months.

Nate had left at some point. She wasn’t sure when, because she’d been too mortified to look at him. But he’d left, and he wouldn’t be back. He’d even taken the card. But she had the first one he’d given her, and she’d call tomorrow. She’d call and she’d take that class and she’d never speed again, if only because she couldn’t bear to speak to Deputy Hendricks after that.

An ex-husband goading her into a high-tempered, beer-smashing, barroom scene was probably one of the least effective flirtation strategies she could have employed. God, she was really the picture of success. A washed-up bartender driving a car that was more suited to a teenage boy pumped up on acne meds and energy drinks. A white-trash divorcee yelling at her ex in public and knocking over drinks. Nice.

She could probably still persuade Nate to sleep with her if she really pulled out all the stops, but who wanted to have to talk a man into bed?

Then again, considering how she’d melted with excitement at just touching his hand, maybe it would be worth a little humiliation. Men talked their way into bed all the time, didn’t they? They never seemed self-conscious about it.

Groaning at her own pitiful thoughts, Jenny closed out the register and dropped the key into Rayleen’s hand. “You should really be more careful with that,” she said as Rayleen tucked the key into her bra. “Half the town probably knows you keep it between your breasts.”

She shrugged. “If I get robbed, it’ll be the most action I’ve seen in a while. Could be exciting.”

“Yeah? Does that mean there’s nothing going on with Easy?”

“Ha! I wouldn’t give that old coot the time of day.” But she blushed when she said it, her pale cheeks blooming with color. The old rancher came by at least twice a month to play gin rummy with Rayleen and engage in some verbal sparring. It was looking more and more like foreplay, and Rayleen’s blush gave her away. She’d be getting some action sooner than Jenny would, that much was obvious.

“So who was that handsome piece of work you were sitting with?”

Jenny froze in the act of reaching for her jacket. Damn. She’d thought she was going to get away clean. “Nobody,” she said automatically.

“Yeah? Hell, there’s been nobody in my bed for years. If he’s really Nobody, I’d have a damn big smile on my face every day, missy.”

“He’s a deputy,” Jenny countered quickly. “He came by to give me some information on a defensive driving class. That’s all.”

“That’s all? Then you should be ashamed of yourself. That boy has some special frisking in mind for you.”

Rayleen’s words created an unwelcome image in Jenny’s mind: her body pressed against the hood of his sheriff’s truck, him too close behind her, his hands running down her sides, then back up to cup her breasts.

“Good night, Rayleen,” she said quickly. She’d already cleaned the bar and locked up the liquor. The last two tables needed clearing and wiping, and she felt guilty passing those by, but Rayleen liked to get the last few things every night. It gave her a reason to hang out until closing.

Jenny clicked the lock button on the door before she closed it behind her. The least she could do was be sure Rayleen wasn’t robbed because Jenny had been careless. The woman only needed to walk across the parking lot to get to the little house where she lived, but Jenny still worried about her. Not in the off season when it was mostly locals, but during ski season, a lot of temporary workers came through, and Jackson felt less like a small town.

Walking through the lot, lost in worry, Jenny almost screamed when she heard a car door open just a few feet away. Her heart leaped into her throat, then slammed into a rapid beat as she backpedaled, but as the man stepped out of the truck, she realized it was Nate.

“Oh!” she gasped, her breath puffing out on a cloud in the icy air. “You scared me half to death!”

“I’m sorry.” He held up both hands as if he were approaching someone unstable. “I’m unarmed.”

His forearms looked more than strong enough to make his bare hands into lethal weapons, but she kept that thought to herself. At which point her brain came fully back online and reminded her of who he was and what had happened earlier.