Rattled (8 page)

“Do we really have to do this?” Erin asked.

Camie fluffed her blonde curls. “We don’t
have
to, we
want
to, because it will be fun.”

They were dressed up by local standards, Camie in snug jeans, scooped-neck T-shirt, and cowboy boots, Erin in black jeans and a V-neck, long-sleeved shirt that hid her bruises.

Erin pulled down the windshield visor and checked her reflection. She looked washed out in the wan light, but at least her scrapes had healed enough that she could cover some of the bruising with makeup. She sighed. “I look like a zombie.”

“Hmm.” Camie examined her in the faint glow of the street lamp coming through the windshield. “Well, you do have that ‘I’d like to eat your brains’ gleam in your eye, but since when do men notice a woman’s eyes? You’re showing cleavage and you have a great ass. Anything more is wasted effort.”

Erin shook her head. “Then they’ll all be looking at you, as usual. You’re twice the woman I am—literally, when it comes to bra size.”

Camie laughed. “Yeah, they like to look.” She slid out of her Jeep. Erin barely caught the muttered undertone that followed. “They just don’t like it much when I start talking.”

They crossed the plaza toward the bar with the painted words “Black Dog Saloon” in fat black letters on the side, over a painting of a dog that was probably supposed to look tough but instead looked hung over. Old enough to be called a historic site, run down enough to be called a dive, the Black Dog was a local institution—one that Erin usually avoided. She knew Camie would have let her off if she’d pleaded exhaustion from her injuries, but for the first time in her life, she was looking forward to going to a bar. Sort of, anyway. The thought of maybe seeing Drew there gave her a funny feeling just under the rib cage, and she wasn’t sure how much was hopeful excitement and how much was fear.

The swinging doors stood open so yellow light spilled onto a row of motorcycles and bicycles parked outside. Camie stepped through first and greeted the long-haired young man seated on a stool just inside. “Hi Sam, how’s the crowd tonight?”

“Hi Camie, Doctor Hale. Not too bad. A lot of the students have gone home already, but the ones who are here are celebrating the end of finals.”

Peering over Camie’s shoulder, Erin saw a booth filled with local schoolteachers drinking margaritas and a couple of tables of college students. A cluster of “townies,” mostly Hispanic men in their 20s and 30s, surrounded the two pool tables in the back. Erin didn’t see Drew with them and let out a long breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

“You need to see our IDs?” Camie asked Sam.

He returned her grin. “I’ll let it go this time.”

“Thanks. Oh, I see a table freeing up.” Camie darted across the room. Erin followed more slowly. The Black Dog had its own kind of rustic charm, but she never felt at home among the noise and rowdy banter. At least smoking was restricted to the back courtyard. The sense of suffocation came only from her own nerves.

Halfway across the room, she glanced toward the bar and almost stumbled. Drew had his foot up on the low rail, elbow on the bar like he’d been parked there a while among the cowboys and grizzled old men hunched over their drinks. The woman behind the bar, who was dressed in a frilly purple bustier like an Old West prostitute, leaned toward him and laughed. Erin didn’t have to know how to flirt in order to recognize it.

Drew glanced over his shoulder and met her eyes. She realized she’d stopped in the middle of the floor and was staring. Heat rose in her face but his gaze pinned her. He smiled, waved, and started toward her without a backward glance at the pouting bartender.

“Hey.”

“Hi.” Erin couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Camie had stopped a few paces away, claiming a table with two chairs as a young couple left their empty glasses and headed toward the music in the next room. “Hey, Drew, nice to see you!”

“You too.” He walked to the table with Erin. “Can I get you two a beer?”

“The beer is terrible,” Camie said. “Rum and Coke for me.”

He looked at Erin. “Just the Coke. I’m still on painkillers. Not prescription anymore, but I don’t want to take chances.” Great. That didn’t make her sound like a prissy little bore.

He nodded and turned away. Camie grinned at Erin. “You don’t take chances, huh?” she murmured. Erin’s heart did a flip. Starting tomorrow, they were taking a whole slew of chances. More than she’d probably taken in her entire life. Best not to think of that now. She had enough to stress about.

They settled at the table. The countrified rock blaring from the next room had the buzz of a live band with talented musicians but mediocre equipment. Through the wide opening between the rooms, Erin could see a few couples dancing.

“So here’s the question,” Camie said, looking very serious. Erin hoped she wasn’t going to ask about Erin’s feelings for Drew. “Do I let him buy me a drink like a gentleman, or do I assert my feminist independence?”

Erin laughed. “I don’t know, but soft drinks are free, so I’m off the hook.”

“I don’t want to be rude,” Camie declared. “He can pay. Wow, look how quickly he got service.”

Drew was already turning away from the bar, one hand holding a beer and the other cupping two smaller glasses. The bustier bartender craned her head so she could watch him walk away.

Drew handed over their drinks and looked around. He walked away without even saying goodbye. Looking for more interesting company, Erin figured, hating the sinking disappointment she felt.

Drew spoke to some people at another table, grabbed an empty chair, and came back. He plunked down next to them with his beer. “You’re looking much better,” he said, his gaze steady on Erin’s face.

“Ah, yes.” She couldn’t look away and had completely forgotten how to make small talk.

One of the guys by the pool tables called out, “Hey, Drew, man, you want a game?”

“Not right now,” he called back.

“Well you have made yourself right at home here, haven’t you?” Camie teased.

Drew shrugged. “Doesn’t take long in a town this size.”

Camie leaned back and studied him. “I have to admit, you fit in here. Put you in a pair of cowboy boots, one of those enormous belt buckles, and you could be a rancher.”

“I was,” Drew said with a slight smile. “But I recovered.”

“No kidding? You punched cattle and mended fences and all that? And gave it up to be a pilot?”

“I couldn’t wait to get out. Montana winters. No thanks.”

“What, a little cold and snow sent you running? Poor baby.”

Drew raised his eyebrows at her. “Says the woman who lives in New Mexico.”

“Hey, we get snow! Once a year at least.”

Drew shook his head. “Amateurs.”

Erin cleared her throat, determined to take some part in the conversation. “So that’s why you left? For warmer weather?” She could understand that. New England winters probably weren’t as bad as Montana’s, but she’d been surprised by how much she enjoyed the year-round warmth of the high desert.

“That was part of it, a big part.” Drew frowned into his drink as if looking into the past. “I grew up with ranching, didn’t know anything else. Didn’t even know how hard the work was, because I didn’t have anything for comparison. Didn’t think too much about my future. Then one spring when I was fourteen, we had a late snowstorm. A cow had just dropped a calf, way out in the fields, and I had to go bring them in. Took me an hour dragging them through blinding snow. I collapsed next to the calf in the hay, wrapped around it to try to warm it up, and fell asleep. When I woke up, the calf was dead.”

He looked up and gave a little shake of his head. “That’s when I decided to get out. I’d always wanted to fly, so I joined the Air Force as soon as I was old enough. I couldn’t wait to get someplace nice and hot.” He grinned. “Though if I’d understood just how hot some places get, I might’ve reconsidered.”

Erin stared. A rancher, an Air Force pilot. He was like a completely different species from the boys she’d known growing up in Connecticut, the men she’d met in college. She was, quite literally, speechless.

Camie, however, simply gave a slight sneer. “Military, huh.”

“You have a problem with the military?” Drew asked.

Camie shrugged. “I never got that thing about guys in uniforms. I just figure it means someone tells you what to do all the time, and you follow orders.”

Drew smiled. “Unless you get high enough in the ranks, and then you give the orders.”

“Did you?” Camie challenged.

“No, I did my time, learned to fly, and got out. I guess I didn’t do so well with the orders after all. I like working for myself.”

He looked at Erin. She told herself to say something, anything. “So you travel a lot? Work wherever somebody needs a pilot?”

“Yeah, I do contract work. Spent about six years flying for other companies and then finally bought my own chopper.” His eyes lit with pride. “I just paid it off. I teach flying lessons, take people on tours, do jobs like this ghost town thing. Whatever sounds interesting.”

Whatever sounded interesting. Erin could hardly imagine a life like that, going where you wanted, when you wanted, not knowing what the next year, or maybe even the next month, would hold. It sounded terrifying. And yet somehow wonderful. “So you move around a lot.”

Drew shrugged. “I guess I haven’t found a reason to stay in one place for long. Someday, maybe, when I find some place that feels like home.”

Camie finished her drink and rose. “I’m going to dance. See you kids later.” She winked at Erin and headed for the next room, her hips already swaying to the hard beat.

Panic fluttered in Erin’s chest. How could she possibly entertain a man like Drew, all alone?

He had turned to watch Camie go. Now he looked back at Erin. “Interesting woman.”

“Yeah, Camie’s the best.” That at least was a topic Erin knew something about.

“She’s single?”

Erin’s heart sank. “Yes.”

“Why?” When Erin just stared in puzzlement, he added, “She’s beautiful. Smart. A bit prickly, maybe—I can see how she wouldn’t make a man’s life easy. But she’s loyal and has a good heart, I got that from seeing her with you in the hospital. How come she doesn’t have some guy blind crazy about her?”

Erin told herself it was wrong to be jealous of her best friend. Anyway, everything Drew said about Camie was right. Too bad she admired him that much more for noticing. “Like you said, Camie is beautiful and smart. One or the other intimidates most men.” Erin thought probably the combination wouldn’t bother Drew one bit. She gave a mental sigh.

“This is a small town,” Erin added. “We have basically two types of people. The townies you see back there.” She bobbed her head toward the pool tables. “They don’t exactly appreciate a woman who’s ten times smarter than they are. I’m not trying to insult them, I just mean Camie’s a genius, and I don’t use that term lightly. The other type we have around here are the science students and professors, a lot of really smart people. Some of Camie’s teachers still talk about how she was their best student ever.”

A woman stumbled up to them and leaned over Drew, pressing her breasts against his shoulder. She had big teased hair and way too much makeup, in Erin’s humble opinion, which she told herself had absolutely nothing to do with jealousy. “Hey baby, you want to dance?” the woman purred.

“Hi Shanna,” he said. “Not right now, I’m talking to a friend.”

Erin’s hand tightened on her glass and she carefully looked at it instead of them. He’d called the woman by name. How many times had he met her here before? Had he danced with her, gone home with her? And the woman had some nerve. She didn’t even acknowledge Erin’s existence, like she thought Drew would be desperate for an excuse to get away from a woman like her.

Erin stole a glance at them. Drew gazed back at her, not at the woman’s painted face or the bulging mounds pressed inches from his eyes. He hadn’t used the excuse to get away. He’d turned down the woman’s breasts—that is, her invitation to dance—and called Erin a friend. She felt a flutter of pleasure, especially when Drew casually removed the woman’s tugging hand from his arm and sent her grumbling on her way.

“So what’s she do?” he asked. “She’s a professor too?”

“What?” It took Erin a second to realize he was still talking about Camie. “No, she works in the machine shop at the college.”

“That’s a job for a genius?”

“Camie is too independent to jump through hoops. She never finished her bachelor’s degree, because she’d only go to the classes that interested her. Or she’d get going on some side project, inventing something. She could walk into a final and ace it, without ever coming to class. But if teachers graded on homework and attendance, forget it.”

“All right, I see how those brains would intimidate your average guy. Probably some of the brainy ones as well. But what about one of those professors at the college?”

“A lot of them are already married. Some are brilliant, but so geeky—sorry, focused—that they can hardly function outside the lab. Camie likes to get out and do things. Rock climbing, caving, you name it. She just hasn’t found a man who can keep up with her yet.” Erin wondered if she were looking at just that man. Something ached inside her. As much as she’d been trying to be more adventurous, at heart she was cautious, practical, and even-tempered. She’d never be anything like Camie, the kind of woman who could fascinate a fascinating man like Drew.