See Jane Score (10 page)

“Yeah, but I don't want to take your money.” He looked at her and smiled as if he'd thought up something really funny. “But we could play for drinks. Whoever loses has to buy all the guys a beer.”

She contrived to look worried. “Oh. Hmm. Well, I've only got a fifty. Do you think that will cover it?”

“That ought to be enough,” he said, with all the arrogance of a man assured of his own success. And for the next half hour, Jane let him think he was winning too. Some of the other players gathered around to watch and heckle, but once she was behind by two hundred points and Rob was beginning to feel sorry for her, she got to work and beat him in four turns at the board. Darts were serious business, and she took serious pleasure in trouncing the Hammer.

“Where did you learn to play like that?” he asked.

“Beginner's luck.” She downed the last of her drink. “Who's next?”

“I'll take you on.” Luc Martineau stepped out of the darkness and took the darts from Rob. The light from the bar chased varying degrees of shadows across his broad shoulders and the side of his face. Raindrops shone in his hair and the scent of the cool night breeze clung to him.

“Watch out, Luc, she's a hustler,” Rob warned.

“Is that right?” One corner of Luc's mouth lifted. “Are you a hustler, Ace?”

“Just because I beat the Hammer, I'm automatically a hustler?”

“No. You let poor Rob think he was winning and then you coldcocked him. That makes you a hustler.”

She tried not to smile, but she failed. “Are you scared?”

“Not hardly.” He shook his head and a short lock of dark blond hair fell across his forehead. “Ready to play?”

“I don't know,” she said. “You're a really bad sport.”

“Me?” He placed a big hand on the front of his ribbed navy sweater, drawing her attention to his wide chest.

“I've seen you whack the goalposts when a puck gets by you.”

“I'm competitive.” His hand fell to his side. “Not a bad sport.”

“Right.” She tilted her head and looked into his eyes, the light blue barely discernible within the dark bar. “Do you think you can stand to lose?”

“I don't plan to lose.” He motioned toward the tape line. “Ladies first.”

When it came to darts, she took no prisoners and was both competitive and a bad sport. If he wanted her to go first, she wasn't going to argue. “How much money are you willing to bet?”

“I'll put my fifty against your fifty.”

“You're on.” Jane doubled on with her first throw and scored sixty points by the time she was through.

Luc's first throw bounced back and he didn't double on until his third dart. “That sucked.” With his brows drawn together, he walked to the board and retrieved the darts. Standing within the pool of light, he studied the tips and flights. “These are dull,” he said, then looked across his shoulder at her. “Let me see yours.”

She doubted hers were sharper and moved next to him. He took them from her open palm and, with his head bent over hers, tested the points with this thumb. “Yours aren't as dull as mine.”

He was so close, if she leaned forward just a little, her forehead would touch his. “Fine,” she said, managing to sound halfway normal, as if the clean scent of him didn't make her breath catch in her throat. “Pick whichever three you want, and I'll take the others.”

“No. We'll use the same darts.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “That way, when I beat you, you can't cry.”

She looked into his eyes, so close to hers, and her heart thumped in her chest. “I'm not the one who threw a bounce-back on the very first throw, then blamed the darts.” And while her heart was thumping, he appeared totally unaffected. She took a step back and put distance between him and her silly reaction. “Now, are you going to talk all night, Martineau, or are we going to get busy so I can kick your butt?”

“You're cocky for such a short little thing,” he said and slapped the three darts he'd deemed the sharpest into her hand. “I think you have one of those short-girl syndromes,” he added, then joined some of his teammates who'd moved to the table several feet away.

She shrugged as if to say,
Yeah, so?
and walked to the line. With her weight perfectly balanced on both feet, her wrist loose and relaxed, she shot a double, a triple, and a single bull. Luc strode to the toe line as she retrieved the darts from the board. “You're right,” she said as she walked toward him, “these are much better.” She placed all three in his outstretched hand. “Thanks.”

His hand closed over hers, pressing the darts into her palm. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?”

“At a little bar near the University of Washington.” The heat of his hand warmed hers. “I worked there nights to put myself through school.” She tried to pull away, but his grasp tightened and the shafts dug into her flesh.

“Isn't Hooters around there?” He finally let go of her hand and she took a step back.

“No, it's across the lake from the university,” she answered, even though she figured he knew exactly where Hooters was located. His car could probably get there on its own. He was just trying to rattle her.

It wasn't working until he took a step toward her and said next to her ear, “Were you a Hooters girl?”

Despite the heat creeping up her neck, she managed a cool and collected, if not quite a Honey Pie, response. “I think it's pretty safe to say I'm not Hooters material.”

He lowered his voice, his warm breath touching her cheek as he asked, “Why's that?”

“We both know why.”

He stepped back and looked at her mouth before slowly raising his gaze to her eyes. “Tank top the wrong color?”

“No.”

“You don't like the shorts?”

“I'm not the kind of girl they're looking for.”

“I don't think that's true. I know for a fact they hire short girls. I've seen them in there.” He paused a moment, then added, “Of course, that was in Singapore.”

They both knew they weren't talking about her height. “You're trying to rattle me so you'll win, aren't you?”

Tiny creases appeared in the corners of his blue eyes. “Is it working?”

“No,” she lied and moved to the sideline where the Chinooks stood. “Did you come through with those beers, Rob?”

He patted her on the top of her head. “Sure did, Sharky.”

Sharky?
Well, she'd earned a nickname, and it was better than what she was sure they called her when she wasn't around. And he'd patted her head as if she were a dog. Progress, she thought as she watched Luc raise his hand, snap it forward, and bury the dart in the bull's-eye.

“Luc hates to lose more than anyone I've known,” Bruce told her.

“Maybe you shouldn't beat him,” Peter warned. “It might snakebite his game.”

“Forget it, guys.” She shook her head as Luc buried the second dart in the out area and swore like a hockey player. “I'm not going to let anyone win.”

“Losing might make him play with a real mad-on at the Compac Center tomorrow night.”

“Yeah, remember when he lost at bowling by one pin and the next night he duked it out with Roy?” Darby reminded everyone.

“That probably had more to do with Luc and Patrick's trash-talking than a bowling score.”

“Goalie grudge match.”

“They played old-time hockey that night.”

“Whatever the reason, they mixed it up at center ice, and man, it was beautiful.”

“When was that?” Jane wanted to know.

“Last month.”

Last month, and he still had more than half the season to go. For several long moments, Luc stood at the toe line, staring the board down as if he were in a contest of wills. A trail of light poured across the cheap red carpet and lit up his leather shoes and black pants to his knees. Then, as if he were launching a missile, he buried the dart deep in the double twenty for a total of sixty-five points. The scowl pulling at his brow as he strode to her and handed her the darts told her he wasn't satisfied with trailing behind by seventy-five points.

“If they gave points for burying the dart
through
the board, you'd stand a chance of winning,” she said. “Next time you might want to use finesse rather than muscle.”

“I'm not a finesse kind of guy.”

No kidding
.
She moved into position, and just as she was about to release the dart, Luc spoke from the sidelines. “How do you get your hair pulled back that tight?” The other Chinooks laughed as if Luc were real funny.

She lowered her arm and looked over at him. “This isn't hockey. There's no trash-talking in darts.”

He flashed her a smile. “There is now.”

Fine. She'd still beat him. While he continued to heckle from the sidelines, her three throws equaled an even fifty. Her lowest score so far. “You're behind by a hundred and sixteen,” she reminded him.

“Not for long,” he boasted, then walked up to the toe line and threw a double bull and a single twenty.

Dang. Time for a little trash talk of her own. “Hey, Martineau, is that a pumpkin on your shoulders or is that your vacuous head?”

He glanced at her. “Is that the best you can do?”

The rest of the Chinooks seemed equally unimpressed.

Darby leaned toward her and whispered, “That was kind of lame.”

“What the hell is vacuous?” Rob asked.

Darby answered for her. “It means empty or hollow.”

“Why didn't you just say that, Sharky?”

“Yeah, you can't trash-talk using words like that.”

Jane frowned and folded her arms across her chest.
Vacuous
was a perfectly good word. “You guys don't like it because it doesn't start with an
F
.
”

Luc threw his third dart and scored a total of eighty points. Time to quit playing around and get serious. She walked to the line, raised her arm, and waited for the heckling to begin. But Luc remained silent, unnerving her more than his insults. She managed to shoot a triple twenty, but when she took aim again, Luc said, “Do you ever wear anything besides black and gray?”

“Of course,” she said without looking at him.

“That's right.” Then, just as she was about to shoot again, he added, “Your cow pajamas are blue.”

“How do you know about her cow pajamas?” one of the guys asked.

Mr. Information failed to answer and she looked over at him, surrounded by his teammates, his hands on his hips and a smile on his lips.

“The other night I left my room to buy some M&M's,” she told them. “I thought you guys would all be in bed, so I wore my PJs. Luc snuck up on me.”

“I didn't sneak.”

“Sure.” She lined up her shot and threw a double ten. Then he waited until the exact moment she released her third dart to say, “She wears lesbian glasses.” She missed the board completely. That hadn't happened in years.

“I don't either!” Only after she denied it did she fear she may have objected a bit too vehemently.

Luc laughed. “They're horrible little black squares like all those NOW girls wear.”

The rest of the Chinooks laughed too, and even Darby said, “Oh, yeah, lesbian, all right.”

Jane pulled the darts from the board. “They're not. They're perfectly heterosexual.” Geez, what was she talking about? Heterosexual eyeglasses? These guys were all making her crazy. She took a calming breath and handed the darts to Luc. She would not let these dumb jocks rattle her. “I am not gay. Although there is certainly nothing wrong with it. If I were gay, I'd be out and proud.”

“That would explain the shoes,” Rob joined in.

Jane looked down at her boots. “What's wrong with my Docs?”

For the first time that night, the Stromster decided to speak. “Maahhn shuz,” he said.

“Man shoes?” She looked into his young face. “Since I defended your Mohawk earlier, I expected better of you, Daniel.” His gaze slid away and he took sudden interest in something across the room.

Luc moved to the line and scored forty-eight points. When it was her turn again, all the guys on the sidelines took turns heckling her. The conversation turned severely politically incorrect when they decided that the reason she wore dark colors had to be because she was
depressed
about being gay.

“I'm
not
gay,” she insisted. She was an only child and hadn't been raised around boys, except her father, of course, but he didn't count. Her father was a serious man who never joked at all. She had no experience with this sort of teasing.

“It's okay, sweetheart,” Luc reassured her. “If I were a girl, I'd be a lesbian too.”