Nothing But Trouble (5 page)

“Give me a minute,” Ali answered him. “I need some time for it to gel in my mind.”

Brandon—who’d been leaning over the drink, squinting into it—straightened and grinned at Laura, pulling his wal et out of his back pocket. She had this insane desire to say, “No, al ow me.” He handed her a fifty this time, and Laura peered up at him, working hard at resisting his smile. “Keep it?” she asked, eyebrows raised innocently.

“Certainly not!” he said with a mock frown. “I did al the work.”

She bit back a smile. “Technicalities.”

“So just keep five of it.”

Tossing her head, she turned to the register, rang up the drink, then brought him his change. Al of it.

Brandon raised a brow, but he knew better than to fight Laura on the tip issue. God, he was utterly aware of this woman.

Even with a bar separating them, she was wreaking havoc on his libido. Her perfume scented the air. Her eyes made him crazy.

They were so liquid and so warm, they heated his insides as effectively as a good snifter of cognac.

And standing in front of her, he felt like a giant. He knew better than to underestimate her small size, but it really turned him on. Maybe he was a terrible chauvinist, but the idea of having this petite woman in his arms appealed to him on some primal level. The contrasts in their bodies would make him even crazier.

With that in mind, he went to work on getting her to go out with him. From his paper bag he pulled out a bag of bal oons, ignoring Laura’s confused frown. He blew up a sky blue one, then held in the air by pinching the lip. Then he removed a black felt marker and did his best to draw a donkey. His artistic talents weren’t exactly legendary, but he figured it was good enough to be identifiable. While Ali continued to ponder his drink, a strange frown growing deeper and deeper on her face, Brandon waited until Laura was finished fil ing an order before he nabbed her attention.

Her brows furrowed even further, but with what looked like adorable, reluctant curiosity, she dragged her feet in his direction. “What are you up to now?”

He turned the bal oon so she could study the drawing. Her frown remained for a moment, until understanding dawned on her features. Her big eyes narrowed. “Don’t tel me that’s a don—”

He let the bal oon go, and it breezed drunkenly around the bar while expel ing all that pent-up air. Then, in a blessed stroke of luck, it landed directly at Laura Tanner’s feet.

Brandon did his best to keep the immense satisfaction he felt out of his expression and out of his voice. “Ms. Tanner, I do believe a donkey just flew.”

“He’s got you there, Laura,” Hannah said.

Laura’s mouth opened, closed, opened again, but not a squawk escaped. Brandon would bet good money that there weren’t many people or situations that could render this prickly female speechless.

“I . . . I meant . . . a real donkey.”

Brandon turned to Ned. “You were a witness. You heard her. Did she say, ‘When
real
donkeys fly?’ I could swear she didn’t.”

“Nope,” Ned said, shaking his head. “I never heard the real part.”

Brandon was about to insist she live up to her end of the bargain when Ali glanced up sharply from his drink, her blue eyes troubled. “I don’t think . . . I mean, I think this pulp is faulty.”

“You don’t say,” Hannah muttered. “Mutant juice pulp.”

“Go on, Ali, I won’t be offended,” Brandon urged. “Tel me what you see.”

“Wel ,” she said, drawing out the word. “What I see is confusion.” 

Brandon winked at Laura, whose cheeks turned a beguiling shade of pink. He swung back to Ali reluctantly. “Are you certain you’re not reading Laura’s pulp? Because I’m not confused about a thing. I know exactly what I want.”

“Not now,” Ali said. “In the future. You’l have some confusion. Things are cloudy. You wil have . . . Oh, I better not say.” Brandon had to stop himself from grinning. Confusion. Ha!

“No, no, please say it.”

“Something, I don’t know what, is going to happen soon.

And it’s going to be al confusing. And it’s going to tie you and Laura together forever.”

Laura audibly gulped, then scowled. “That pulp is faulty, Ali. Remember, that’s not my usual brand of juice.”

“Maybe that’s the difference,” Hannah piped in. “That brand predicted your prince was here.”

Brandon had been rendered speechless by one word in Ali’s prediction.
Forever.
Not that he was opposed to a forever . . .

someday. In fact, for a while there he’d come close to proposing a forever to Beth. But after she’d quickly and almost happily sliced that idea to ribbons, he’d decided it would be a good long while before he invested enough emotion in a woman to consider a forever.

By the appalled expression on Laura’s face, she was in complete agreement with him on that score. Which relieved and insulted him at the same time. After all, he’d been called a catch—and he came from a very wealthy family. Although he’d bet his inheritance that wouldn’t impress her in the least.

But he certainly had other redeeming qualities. He couldn’t think of any right at the moment, but he was sure he possessed a few. Then a thought occurred to him that he decided to test out on the crowd. “Wel , sure, as soon as Laura here agrees to go out with me, I’m quite certain I’l remember her forever and ever.”

Laura rol ed her eyes. Hannah snorted. Ned choked. But Ali, bless her sweet little pulp-reading heart, broke into a big, almost relieved smile. “That’s a fair interpretation! Yes, yes, I think that works wel .” She waved her hand, setting about five dozen bracelets jangling. “There’s nothing more to be done about it but to go out with him, Laura.”

Laura wanted to murder them all. These were supposed to be her friends? And they were forcing her hand in front of a crowd. If she agreed to go out with the bum, it would set a horrible precedent. News would travel that Laura was not averse to dating her clientele, which, of course, she was.

She was about to tel them all to take a hike when she saw the almost pleading expression on Ali’s face. If Laura refused, Ali’s prediction wouldn’t come true. And she’d stil be batting zero for a thousand or so.

She tried to tel herself that Ali’s stats weren’t her problem.

She tried to tel herself that the last thing she wanted to do was be manipulated into going on a date with Brandon Prince.

She was doing a real bad job on both scores.

“Oh, all right!” she snapped, making certain everyone there knew she was doing this against her better judgment, under protest, with deep, deep regret. She pointed her finger directly at the prince’s very sexy nose. “But I’m not going anywhere with you until we set some ground rules.”

He smiled, but then looked around at their audience.

“Could we, uh, set these ground rules in private?”

“What do I look like?” she retorted, throwing out her arms in exasperation. “One of the stinking idle rich? I’m working here, mister.”

Ali, who was quickly becoming a pain in the butt, piped in, “How about if Brandon sticks around and helps you close, and you can talk ground rules then?” Laura opened her mouth to protest, but Ali added, “Then Jimmy Raye and I can get an earlier start on our date.”

Blackmail. Sweet, optimistic, naive, loving Ali was turning into a first-rate blackmailer.

By the pleased expression on the frog-who-would-be-prince’s face, Laura guessed that he ful y approved of blackmail. Which Laura felt should certainly be repaid in kind. 

She smiled sweetly. “Fine with me. I’l be happy to let him clean the men’s room.”

That lowered the voltage on his grin a little, but not nearly enough to be satisfying. “It’s a deal,” the frog prince said.

* * *

LAURA COULDN’T believe it. Not only had the Yale grad actual y cleaned the men’s room, and done a good job at that, he’d also mopped down the floor of the bar and bil iards room.

By the time Laura had cashed out the register and locked the money in her smal floor vault—she did al her banking during daylight hours—the place sparkled, and it was a good half hour earlier than she normal y finished the nightly shutdown.

She straightened to catch him taking a seat at the bar, and her breath came to a dead halt. She had never, ever seen eyes that green, would have sworn God didn’t make any like that if she wasn’t staring into them for herself.

She tried to swal ow and get her lungs working again, but the only part of her body kicking in was her heart, which of its own accord had begun running a marathon.

That wouldn’t do. She needed to get her pulse under control so that she didn’t stupidly al ow him leeway in the ground rules department.

“You know how to tend bar?” she asked, allowing herself a skeptical tone.

“Some. Not those fancy drinks you can make, but I know how to mix the basics.”

“Think you can handle a vodka tonic?”

“I can certainly try.”

“Wel then, make yourself useful while I go log tonight’s receipts,” she said, holding up the register readout.

He jumped off the stool with a grin. “I’ve always wanted to try to be useful.”

Her gaze narrowed on him. “A new endeavor for you, is it?”

she said tartly, although for the last hour he’d proven himself more than useful. She stil couldn’t believe that this gorgeous hunk, who’d gone to Yale, for criminy’s sake, hadn’t even blinked when she’d handed him the toilet bowl disinfectant and brush and informed him he had to scrub the urinals.

Before she could escape, he slipped behind the bar. He took up way, way too much space, both vertically and horizontally, if those rather impressive shoulders were any indication. She’d always felt that her workspace was roomy, but not with this big lug standing back here.

“You’re, uh, real y tal ,” she pointed out, for what reason she didn’t know.

“An unfortunate family trait,” he said with a shrug.

“Are the green eyes a family trait, too?” she asked, before she could stifle her curiosity.

“On my father’s side.”

“The hair?”

“Father again.”

“Dimples?”

He grinned. “My mother’s fault.”

“Oh, no!” she blurted, shaking her head. “They’re beautiful.”

They both went stil as those words seemed to hang in the air between them. Laura felt her cheeks catch fire and wished fire would disintegrate the rest of her as wel .

Her flaming cheeks must have shone like neon to him, because he smiled and lifted his hand, skimming his knuckle up and down her face. She wanted to protest, but she was struck mute, her vocal cords frozen with sensation.

He smiled, the dimples slashing into his cheeks. “Beautiful, huh? Is that an insult or a compliment?”

She didn’t have a clue. She’d never called a man beautiful in her life, didn’t know why she’d done so now when beautiful didn’t begin to describe his handsome masculinity.

For the last eight years, ever since she’d found the courage to dump her heel of a husband, she’d never felt vulnerable around a man again. Not physical y, and certainly not emotional y.

Right now she felt like she was about to enter the ring with a heavyweight champion. And she was going to lose.

Laura tried to find the courage to back away, duck under his caressing hand and make certain one of the rules they agreed upon tonight was that he never, ever touch her again.

But as she watched his eyes go smoky with carnal intent, saw his head begin to lower to hers, she couldn’t drum up a single protest. What she ought to do was shove him away. What she did do, confound it, was tip her head back to give him easier access to her lips.

A spark of triumph flashed in his eyes before his lips touched hers, which of course should have made her mad as a bull at a rodeo. But the feel and taste of his lips—warm and firm—prompted al the fight to whoosh right out of her.

Laura didn’t exactly have a ton of kissing experience. Her slug of a husband hadn’t been big on it, and she could count on one finger the number of men who’d kissed her since then. But this big, gorgeous stranger was demonstrating the fine art of smooching with remarkable skill.

Laura’s pulse raced all over again as his lips moved sensuously over hers. She was drowning in a foreign sensation she couldn’t quite identify. Was it fear? If so, it was unlike any other type of fear she’d ever experienced. But it settled low in her bel y, hot, spicy, not altogether unpleasant. In fact, not unpleasant at al , if the way she slid her arms around his neck and forced him to continue kissing her was any indication.

Somewhere deep inside, she knew she should break the contact, back away, and immediately add “no kissing” to the list of ground rules. And she would. Real soon. In the next hour or so. She’d been so caught up in this unfamiliar flood of sensation from the pressure of his lips, she hadn’t bothered to take inventory of what other body parts of his were touching other body parts of hers. She became aware of it now. Somehow he’d managed to press them thigh to thigh, hips to hips, breasts to hard, unyielding chest. And it felt wonderful.

“Well, looky here,” a vaguely familiar voice said, penetrating Laura’s foggy brain. She knew it didn’t belong to either her or Brandon, because they were stil lip-locked. And it took her a moment to recognize that the voice was impossible, because they were alone in the bar.

Brandon must have heard it too, which meant she hadn’t imagined it. As one, they turned toward the voice, which had come from the direction of the bil iards room.

Attached to the voice was the skinny and scraggly body of Mr. Red Bandanna, who she’d tossed out of the bar earlier that evening. Attached to Mr. Red Bandanna’s hand was a gun.

Beside him, leaning heavily on crutches and grinning like an idiot, was. Mr. Hog Tattoo.

Laura vaguely registered the way Brandon stepped in front of her, shielding her from the two thugs. “What the hel is this?”

he asked, his voice a dangerous growl.

Laura leaned to the left in time to catch Red Bandanna’s sickly smile. “This, as they say, is a stickup.”

“I’LL STICK THAT—” Laura began.

“Shhh,” Brandon interrupted her. “That’s a real gun.”