Just What I Needed

by Lorelei James

  He lifted a brow. “You got something against tall blonds with blue eyes?”

  Then I realized how snappish my retort had come across. “Sorry. No. I find tall, blue-eyed blonds incredibly attractive.” I flashed him a quick smile. “Especially the bearded variety. I’ve been overlooked and occasionally dumped because I’m not a blonde temptress, so it’s a knee-jerk reaction.”

  “You’re plenty tempting, trust me. And don’t pretend you aren’t aware that any guy in this bar would change places with me in a heartbeat.”

  “Because I marched up to you and kissed you like it was my right?”

  “I ain’t gonna lie—that was one hot ‘Hello, baby. I wanna eat you alive’ kind of kiss. It’s especially sexy when you’ve got wide-eyed innocence. Yet that mouth of yours . . .” His gaze dropped to my lips. “It’s the stuff fantasies are made of. Plus, you’ve got great hair and a fantastic ass.”

  “When were you looking at my ass?”

  “As soon as your back was turned. I really wished your table had been farther away.”

  Oddly flattering.

  “So, sweetheart, why don’t you come clean about why you really kissed me?”

  “You want the long version?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t care just as long as it’s the no-bullshit version.”

  The words tumbled out of me in a rush. “My friend dragged me here and within an hour she’d hooked the interest of a really hot rugby player and left with him. As I lamented my crappy day and the sad state of my life lately, my ex-boyfriend showed up with his new girlfriend. And through a very awkward conversation, I learned that he’d been with her before we broke up. So in trying to not look pathetic because I was sitting alone, I lied and said I was waiting for a date.”

  Walker assessed me with scary detachment for several long moments before he spoke. “So that knockout kiss was all for show to make your dickhead ex jealous?”

  “No.” I glanced down at my hands. “I mean, yes, I had a plan of sorts, but when you walked in—”

  “When I walked in . . . what?” he said testily.

  “My plan vanished. I wasn’t thinking about my jerk of an ex at all because I was entirely focused on you.” As embarrassing as that was to admit, I met his gaze again.

  “Is your ex still here, watching us now?”

  “I have no idea.”

  He frowned as if he didn’t believe me.

  “Look. I didn’t come up with the date idea to make him jealous. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to make sure he knew that I’d moved on. I moved on the day I found out he was cheating on me. And to hear that he’d been cheating on me longer than I’d been aware of? I considered kneeing him in the nuts and using her fake boobs as speed punching bags. But then I figured even a dive bar like this would frown on that behavior. And the person I’d call to bail me out of jail was on a date with a rugby player.” Somehow I managed to stop the blast of words and took a breath.

  Walker let loose a robust laugh that was as charming as it was sexy.

  The waitress returned with his beer.

  He tried to pay but I waved him off and sent our server on her way. He held his mug up for a toast. “To giving in to overwhelming urges. You made this crap day a hundred times better.”

  “Back atcha.” I touched my half-empty glass to his and drank.

  After he set his beer down, he leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “So tell me what you do when you’re not randomly kissing strangers in a bar.”

  I played coy. “Why don’t you guess how I make my living?”

  “What do I win if I guess right?”

  Ah. So he was the “What’s in it for me?” type. “What do you want?”

  “Your phone number.”

  “Okay.”

  He pulled out his phone and looked at me.

  “Oh. You want it now?” I rattled off the number without thought, watching his thick fingers type the digits in, wondering what he did for a living to earn calluses like that.

  After he slipped his phone into his front pocket, he studied my face before his gaze dipped to the lace camisole stretched across my cleavage. “You’re a teacher cutting loose during summer vacation. Your recent ex was also a teacher and you caught him banging more than the erasers with his new student teacher.”

  I laughed. “I’ll give you points for creativity, but I’m afraid I’ll just deduct those points when I tell you that you’re wrong.”

  He affected an expression of shock. “I’m wrong? Damn. I’m never wrong. But I get another chance, right?”

  “I don’t remember agreeing to those parameters.”

  “Aha. That answer gave you away.”

  “How so?”

  “Only lawyers or cops phrase things that way.”

  “Strike two.” I sipped my margarita and eyed him over the salted rim. “You confident your third guess is a charm? Or are you about to strike out?”

  He ran his hand over his beard. “You sound like my brothers with the sport references.”

  “Which is totally out of character for me since I don’t follow any sports.”

  That surprised him. “None?”

  “Nope. I don’t get men’s fascination with all things ball related.” Right after the words left my mouth, Walker grinned.

  “I could try to explain it to you, but I don’t know if a conversation about my balls is appropriate since we just met.”

  I nudged his knee with mine beneath the table. “Quit stalling. What’s my occupation?”

  “You’re a hostage negotiator with the FBI.”

  I made a buzzer sound.

  Walker leaned forward. “I give in. Tell me.”

  Part of me wanted to lie and tell him I was a flight attendant—that had been a favorite fake occupation of Amelia’s during college. But I liked this guy. He seemed to appreciate my quirky sense of humor, instead of acting like he wanted to run for the door. “I’m an artist.”

  “Really? That’s cool. What medium do you work in?”

  “All of them. I couldn’t decide on a specific discipline because I couldn’t see myself doing the same thing over and over like Thomas Kinkade does.” I always used him as a reference because everyone seemed to know his name.

  “But he’s mega-rich,” he pointed out.

  “Good for him that he’s above the poverty line as a working artist,” I said dryly. “But making money with my art hasn’t been my priority. I’m not saying that from an elitist attitude. The art I create just usually doesn’t fit any kind of commercial mold.”

  “Such as?”

  “The commission I lost today—which was one thing that contributed to my crap day—was for a textile piece. A mixed-media wall hanging that Missus Art Patron deemed too . . . modern and edgy.”

  Walker frowned and reached for his beer. “Isn’t the definition of mixed media . . . modern?”

  “Apparently she didn’t get the memo regarding the parameters of newfangled artistic mediums. So rather than working with me to find a compromise, Mister Art Patron canceled the entire project. Now I’ll have to find a part-time gig to cover that chunk of lost income.”

  “That sucks. You said that was one thing. What’s the other crappy thing that happened today?”

  The situation with my family seemed too personal to share. I stirred my watered-down drink, trying to come up with something else.

  Walker took my hand and swept his thumb across my knuckles. “Might make you feel better to talk about it.”

  My belly did a little flip from his touch. I glanced up at him. He appeared genuinely interested, so I let fly. “My grandma left me her pearls after she passed on. I was too young to take ‘proper’ care of them, according to my stepmonster, so she put them away until I was older. Every time I’ve asked about them, I’ve been assured the necklace is in a safe place and I can have it once I’m settled. Except now, since my half sister has gotten herself engaged, there was an engagement party I wasn’t invited to
and she’s getting the pearls to wear on her wedding day. I hate to sound like a petulant child, but that’s not fair. My grandma did not put a stipulation on them that the first granddaughter to tie the knot gets the pearls. But I have no recourse. It was just so typical of my stepmonster to make me feel like even if ‘first wed’ had been a determining factor in who gets the pearls, everyone knows it wouldn’t have been me anyway.”

  “Babe. I’m sorry. That isn’t fair.” He set his forearms on the table. “Maybe we oughta plan a heist.”

  I couldn’t help but grin. “Can’t you see the headline? ‘The Case of the Purloined Pink Pearls.’”

  He laughed.

  “While I appreciate the offer, should I be worried that you’re a professional cat burglar?”

  “Nah. I’m more of a dog guy.”

  “Funny. But speaking of . . . what does Walker Lund do to fill up his weekday hours?”

  He smirked and those damn dimples winked at me. “Guess.”

  “I should’ve seen that coming.”

  “Yep.”

  “You dress up like a Viking warrior and reenact famous battle scenes at the Shakopee Scandinavian Culture Center. You wear skintight leather breeches and a fur vest over your bare, glistening chest. Oh, and you have a big . . . sword and kick-ass shield that you use to beat back all the wenches who stand in line to be pillaged by you.”

  “Nice try. Points for vivid imagery and the use of the word ‘glistening’ with a straight face. But no.”

  “Shoot. I so thought I’d nailed you.” Dammit, Trin. What is wrong with you?

  “And extra points for sexual innuendo.”

  “Unintentional,” I retorted.

  “Still counts. Quit stalling and guess.”

  He’d set his hand back on the table by his beer glass. I reached over and ran the tips of my fingers across his rough-skinned knuckles. “Workingman hands,” I murmured. “Maybe you’re a Viking longboat builder?” When I looked up at him, the heat in his eyes set my stomach into free fall.

  “That. Right there,” he said on a low growl.

  Confused, I said, “What?”

  “That innocent look in your big green eyes. Makes a man think about all sorts of things that aren’t even close to innocent.”

  I blushed and felt like a complete dork. Wasn’t I supposed to be past this at my age? “With that smooth line, you’ve got to be a salesman of some kind.”

  “Me? Smooth?” He laughed. Hard.

  I half expected him to start slapping his knee.

  Then he picked up my hand. “I’m not some smooth-talking bar rat. In fact, according to my mother and my sister, I’m more than a little rough around the edges.”

  “It looks good on you.” I paused, resisting the urge to lift my hand high enough to stroke his beard. “What does a rough-around-the-edges man do for a living?”

  “I’m in construction.”

  “Any specific area? You build roads or hospitals?”

  “No. Mostly we renovate.”

  “Like historical renovations? You make sure that when houses and buildings are updated the elements indicative of their period remain intact?”

  “Yes, in some instances. My business is eighty percent renovation, ten percent restoration and ten percent falls into an ‘other’ category. Right now we’re in the middle of two major restorations and three renovations. Summer is our busiest time since the season is so short. I hit a couple of snags today—the client demanding changes that a third party suggested. I had a late meeting with the building owner on one of the properties. And that conversation went so well I immediately needed a drink.”

  “No girlfriend waiting to soothe you with a cold brew after a hard day’s work?”

  “Sweetheart, I wouldn’t have let you kiss me like that if I was in a relationship and I sure as hell wouldn’t have kissed you back the way I did.”

  I fought another blush. “That makes my behavior really irresponsible . . . not even considering you might be involved with someone.” I shook my head. “It was like I was in a lust-trance.”

  “Lose the guilt. There were two pairs of lips working that kiss.” He swigged his beer. “And I don’t cheat.”

  “Is that a rule you’ve always abided by?”

  His left eyebrow winged up. “You think I made that decision out of guilt after cheating?”

  “I just wondered if we have that hard learning curve in common. It sucks that I have to make a mistake—sometimes a big mistake—as a catalyst to change my ways.”

  The intent way his eyes searched mine indicated I’d ventured too far into personal territory. This was the point where the guy usually retreats. In a preemptive response, I’d smile and say something noncommittal as I dug my car keys out of my purse. But for some reason this time . . . I froze.

  Evidently my deer-in-the-headlights look amused him.

  “You have any idea how hard I’m digging on you right now?”

  “Digging on me,” I repeated. “Is that a construction worker’s come-on?”

  He laughed. “No. But I wish I’d made that connection. What I’m trying to say is, I want to see you again. Is that a possibility?”

  “Walker . . . can I be blunt?”

  “I don’t know—you’ve been so vague in your answers prior to this,” he said dryly.

  “That candor gets me in trouble more often than not. So here goes. You’re hot. Like hard-core hot. I honestly can’t imagine why I thought you’d be single. And guys like you don’t take an interest in women like me.” I held up my hand to keep him from interrupting. “That isn’t me fishing for compliments. So I have to know: Are you asking me out because you’re assuming that I’m okay with a hookup?” I had some pride. I didn’t want to be the weird chick he’d thrown a bone. I really didn’t want to be the tagline to his “This one time a woman kissed me in a bar and I ended up banging her next to the Dumpster” drinking tales shared around the construction site.

  Walker angled forward. “Were you trying to be insulting with that question?”

  “No! It’s a legitimate question, given that I threw myself at you and said hello with my tongue. It’s not a stretch for you to be hopeful that I’d up the ante to saying hello on my knees if we went on an actual date.”

  The ferocity in his eyes and in the hard set of his jaw made him look even more like a Viking about to wage battle. “If I thought you were just looking for a hookup, I wouldn’t be sitting here. I’ve had a better conversation with you in the last half hour than I did the entire time I was with my last two girlfriends.”

  He paused and looked at me—really looked at me. The way I’d always wanted a man to look at me, and it knocked the breath from me.

  “From the moment I saw you, I felt that same unexplainable pull.”

  “You did? Seriously?”

  “Yeah. So let’s see where this goes. Say you’ll go out with me.”

  Maybe it was crazy to say yes, but I did anyway.

  His phone in his pocket started to buzz. He didn’t ignore it—I was on the fence whether that was a good or bad thing.

  He answered with, “Hey. What’s up?” He frowned. “Are you okay?” He briefly closed his eyes and ran his hand over his beard. “Where? Yeah. I know that area—I don’t know what the hell you’re doing there. Just stay put. I’ll be there in fifteen. Is the tow truck already there? Okay, good. When it gets there, do not get in with the driver.” He held the phone away from his ear for a moment as the woman on the other end yelled at him. “Dallas. Knock it off! Jesus. You do not get to bite my head off when you’re calling for my help. I hear any more insulting shit and you can call your mom and dad for a ride.” Walker looked at me and covered the mouthpiece. “I knew that’d shut her up.”

  I snickered.

  “I’m leaving now. Stay put. Call me if you get freaked out.” He pocketed his phone. “My youngest cousin is having car trouble and I won the lottery to go fetch her.”

  “You’re a good cousin.”
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