by Amy Knupp
“I have several old laptops that still work,” Taylor said, pushing the overwhelming wave of emotion aside as best she could. “You’re welcome to borrow one for as long as you need it.”
“Taylor, you’ve done too much already.”
“They’re sitting in the closet in my office wasting away. Nothing’s wrong with them, just that newer models come out and, well…never mind about that. I’ve been meaning to do something with the better ones but haven’t gotten around to it. Please. Take one off my hands.”
“When you put it that way…?.” Vienna said. “If you’re really sure, I’ll take you up on the offer.”
“I’ll dig out one of the newer ones this week and get it cleaned off for you. Just let me know when you can pick it up.”
“Let me get this straight,” Alex said, looking slightly incredulous. “You have a computer collection? Enough to ‘dig’ through?”
“Yes. I guess I do, though it’s more of an occupational hazard than an intentional collection.”
“How many computers do you have?”
Taylor thought about the closet in her home office. It was her one lapse in neatness. A militant clutter remover in every other way, she had a difficult time parting with old laptops. It was odd, she realized, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. “More than a handful,” she admitted.
“Ten?”
She smiled sheepishly and shook her head.
“More?”
It was closer to fifteen but he didn’t need to know that. She shrugged noncommittally.
“Alex is allergic to computers,” Vienna explained.
“Damn straight,” he said proudly. “Fishing gear and guns are my speed.”
“Ah, that’s why we love you so much. Every family needs a Neanderthal fish-catching bear-killer.” Vienna patted him affectionately on his very tight abdomen—not that Taylor had noticed.
No, she hadn’t noticed at all when he’d raised his arms to lift something in the basement earlier and his shirt had ridden up. Not more than a dozen times, anyway.
Alex grabbed his sister and pulled her to his side, rubbing the top of her head roughly. There was no mistaking the bond between them.
The emptiness in Taylor swelled and she looked away so they wouldn’t notice the wetness in her eyes.
She missed her brother. Though he’d spent the past ten years in the military, this had still been the place he landed when he had time off. Taylor had treasured the few days here and there when he came home.
She longed to have someone around now, someone to keep her company, tease her. Yearned to have someone else breathing in the house besides furry critters who lacked conversation skills. She was aching for someone who could love her.
As soon as Alex and Vienna left, she’d go online and tell Dan yes to Tuesday night. Having company here this evening was a rarity. She wasn’t sure how many more nights she could face in this silent, somber house.
CHAPTER FIVE
DAN DRUMMOND WAS decidedly not what Taylor was looking for.
If she had to listen to one more word about video games, guilds or levels, she was going to…well, she didn’t know what she’d do. She hadn’t gotten that far in her pre-blind date freaking-out session because she’d been too caught up in important matters, like whether or not to put on lip gloss and which potential conversation topics she’d use in case of awkward silences.
An hour and fifteen minutes into the date and there’d been plenty of awkward. Not enough silence.
Dan was not her dream companion. And she hated to be prematurely judgmental but he was crawling closer to nightmare status.
She closed her eyes, savoring the break in his incessant chatter. He’d gone to the bar to get himself another “fully leaded” soda. As he’d explained, he had plans to play the online game that apparently ruled his existence later tonight and needed to be able to stay awake till all hours. If she wasn’t so relieved that he didn’t intend to take up too much of her evening, she’d be annoyed by his double planning.
Maybe it was just nervousness on his part, Taylor thought as she picked up the last piece of fried mozzarella from the combination appetizer platter they’d shared. Maybe she just wasn’t trying hard enough to ask him questions that didn’t involve his beloved game. She was, after all, rusty on dating. Had never been good at small talk, either.
The sight of him heading through the happy-hour crowd back toward their table had her stifling a groan of dread. Surely this couldn’t last much longer. She could get through a few more minutes, be pleasant. Act interested. Well, not interested interested, just…polite.
“So…” She searched her mind for one of those topics on the list, something they hadn’t covered in the first five minutes—the slot of time before he’d delved into his disturbing video-game obsession. “How long have you lived in Madison?”
He sat on the raised stool and set down his third non-alcoholic drink as well as a basket of cheese fries. “Couldn’t resist a little more food,” he explained.
Before he could answer her question, he took his phone out of his pocket.
“Excuse me just a second. A text from one of my guild guys.”
For the love of all things holy…
Taylor glanced around, desperately wishing for a graceful way out. Come to think of it, graceful wasn’t that important at this point. She just needed to cut her losses and escape.
She didn’t know what she was looking for, but she did know precisely what she wasn’t looking for. Or who, more specifically. Her pulse picked up when she recognized none other than Alex Worth sitting at the bar. He stared directly at her and she wanted to throw her head back in frustration. Even better, to duck.
Was it coincidence that he was here? No. He’d pried out of her when and where her date was. Pried wasn’t the right word—she’d offered up the information like a naive little lamb. Was he spying on her? Really, what did he think she was going to do? She prayed desperately that he was too far away to ascertain how horribly her rendezvous was going.
She pretended she hadn’t recognized Alex and returned her attention to her oh-so-engaging date.
“Oh, no.” Dan’s fingers moved over the letters on his phone in a frenzy. He frowned, his entire face falling.
“Is everything okay?” She leaned forward and nearly reached out but caught herself.
He didn’t answer right away, just kept punching the mini keyboard. Then he seemed to realize she’d spoken and he looked at her. “I’m sorry, Taylor. I’m not usually this rude. Got a bit of a situation here…?.”
His phone vibrated again and he read the new message. “Well, crap.” He tapped in another response. “Yeah. Taylor, I’m really sorry but I’m going to have to cut this short.”
“What’s wrong, Dan?” She was starting to wonder if someone had died or had some horrible catastrophe.
“Oh.” He surprised her with a grin and waved his hand. “Just a guild emergency. But we’ve got to take care of it right away or one of our main guys is threatening to leave the group.”
Her jaw must have dropped to the floor. “A…guild…emergency,” she repeated slowly.
“These guys aren’t a patient lot. This one is key to our success and he knows it.”
“Oh, well, then he holds all the cards.” Sarcasm wasn’t normally something she used aloud, but it had been building in her for the past hour. She couldn’t care less what Dan the Guild Man thought of her.
“Exactly.” He picked up the glass of cola and swigged a third of it down. “Thanks for being so understanding. I’ll be in touch.”
Not if she could help it.
Before she could wish him insincere luck with his crisis, he was gone.
Fantastic.
She could feel the people at the surrounding tables glancing in her direction, as if they knew her date had walked out on her. Her face heated as she picked up her purse, ready to make a quick getaway, but then the still-hot basket of fries caught her eye.
Oh, lord. Had he paid for any of this?
Humiliation balled in her throat. She lowered her chin to her chest, squeezed her eyes shut tightly and willed hot tears away. When she’d composed herself, she raised her head to track down the waitress who’d originally served them.
Just in time to watch Alex step up next to the stool Super Dan had occupied.
Someone really needed to invent a way to disappear.
“Is this seat taken?” Alex said with a sympathetic half grin, and she could tell he’d seen what had happened.
This was where she should have a cute, sassy line to throw back at him, to show him it didn’t matter that she’d been walked out on. Unfortunately, in typical Taylor style, she had no catchy lines and it did apparently matter. She simply shook her head in response.
He sat on the stool and indicated the fries. “Can I steal one?”
“Steal the whole basket. My treat.” She tried to smile nonchalantly but just wasn’t feeling it.
“Did that bastard really leave you here?” All hint of amusement was gone and the anger in his tone surprised Taylor.
“It appears so.” Taylor took a sip of her soda more for something to do than because of thirst. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s happy hour. Great drink specials.”
“Right. Ian’s doesn’t seem like your kind of place.”
He stuck another cheese-drenched fry in his mouth. When he’d finished chewing, he said, “What is my kind of place?”
Something with a less-sedate clientele, she thought. A room full of beautiful women dressed to kill. Even at happy hour, Ian’s catered to the business crowd. Guys in Dockers and women with non-trendy hairstyles.
“Why don’t we just get this over with,” she said.
“Get what over with?”
“The whole I-told-you-so lecture. ‘Can’t date a guy you met online.’ Et cetera.”
He started to speak but then stopped himself. “I was worried about you getting hurt physically. It didn’t occur to me the asshole would go AWOL on you.”
“I hadn’t anticipated that, either.” She swished her straw around in her nearly empty drink. “It wasn’t a bad thing, frankly.”
“He wasn’t worth your time, Scarlet.” He continued to devour the fries.
“If you only knew…”
The waitress stopped by their table then and asked if she could bring anything else. She did a double take, as if noticing Alex wasn’t the same guy as before. Then Taylor watched her whole manner change from business to flirty.
“Just the check, please,” Taylor said, unwilling to witness Alex landing a date without even trying.
The man at the next table gestured to the waitress. “You got it,” she said to Taylor and hurried off.
“Seriously?” Alex said, staring at her in disbelief. “He left you with the tab?”
“He was charming.”
“I’ve got to ask…what made him retreat?”
“Guess I’m just a scary date.” The truth seemed worse than taking the blame herself.
“Sure you are. Terrifying. I don’t buy that for a second.”
The waitress reappeared, moving in closer than necessary to Alex and putting her hand on his shoulder as she set the black vinyl sleeve in front of him. Really? It took a lot of nerve to be so forward when he was with another woman. Of course, that woman was Taylor, and obviously a man like Alex wouldn’t be on a date with her.
Too bad for the waitress that Taylor was the one leaving the tip.
Alex smiled blandly at his new friend and she told him to have a great evening before walking away.
He took out his wallet and was sliding his credit card into the plastic pocket before Taylor realized it. She reached out and grabbed it away from him, handing his card back.
“No way are you paying a dime,” she said.
“You don’t deserve to be left with it.” He held out his hand.
“I’m humiliated enough,” she said in a low voice as she counted out enough cash to cover the total plus a measly tip. “I just want to leave.”
He backed down, as if he understood.
“Thank you.” She wasn’t sure why she said it, but then she’d never been accused of being smooth.
“I’d offer to give you a ride home but I don’t have a car yet.”
“Tell me you didn’t walk here.”
“I didn’t walk here.”
She didn’t entirely believe him. “I’ll give you a ride home unless you plan to stay. I need to get out of here. Immediately.”
“I’m not staying. Not my kind of place, you know.” He smirked when she met his gaze.
No one should have eyes that alluring, she decided. In this light, they looked more blue than gray. There was no question many women had gotten lost in those depths.
Taylor wasn’t going to be one of them. She slipped off the stool and headed through the throngs toward the door, not allowing herself to check whether Alex followed.
He fell in beside her once they hit the parking lot. They walked in uncomfortable silence as Taylor flipped through her list of conversation starters for Dan the Dork. None of them were adequate. She couldn’t imagine Alex wanting to discuss the New York Times article about Cloud computing or the latest electronic tablet releases. And she already knew about his family and his background.
The click of her open-toed hot-pink heels on the pavement seemed magnified by their lack of conversation. She compulsively counted the last steps to reach the driver’s-side door. Punching the remote to open the locks, she climbed in and started the engine. Alex squeezed into the passenger seat and slid it all the way back, drawing her attention to his long, cargos-clad legs. His muscular thighs stretched the material tight and she momentarily imagined those legs without the pants. She suspected they would match the tautness of his picture-perfect abs—or at least they would have at one time. She was curious about how his injury had affected his leg.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, and she whipped her head away and put the car in Reverse. What was wrong with her? She tried to rationalize with herself, get herself to believe she had merely wondered about scarring or other evidence of the trauma he’d been through. She wasn’t a lusty person and didn’t tend toward fantasies inspired by six-pack abs or sculpted pecs. Now that she thought about it, though, she’d bet a large sum that his chest was photo-worthy, as well.
“You going to tell me why the wonder ass walked out tonight?” Alex asked as she turned out of the parking lot onto the street.
“No. Are you going to tell me how you got to Ian’s?”
“Vienna dropped me off on the way to some talk for one of her classes.”
“Nice of her. She got her project in on time, I assume?”
“Of course. Nothing will stand in that girl’s way when it comes to school or getting a job. She’s obsessed.”
“There are worse things to obsess about.”
“Determined is a better word,” he said, lowering his window to let the early-summer air in.
“What kind of a job is she interested in?”
“Her concentration is in marketing. I don’t know exactly what she’s looking for, but she claims she wants more than a run-of-the-mill entry-level assistant-peon position.”
“Does she have a lot of connections around town?” Taylor asked. She turned the air conditioner off.
“Beats me. I try to stay out of her way.”
“I could introduce her to some of the marketing people at my company. I don’t know if they have any positions open but it couldn’t hurt.”
“She’d eat it up. Don’t go to too much trouble, though.”
“No trouble.” An idea popped into Taylor’s head that would serve both her and Vienna well. “I’ll talk to her about it when she comes by to get the loaner laptop.”
They fell into another silence as she stopped at a red light. She stared straight ahead at the bread truck in front of them, hyperaware that Alex was looking right at her. He
art pounding, she fidgeted with the sideview-mirror controls, minutely adjusting hers. She lowered her window halfway and tapped the steering wheel, willing the traffic signal to turn green.
“Are you going to try the online deal again?” Alex asked out of nowhere.
“I might.”
She wouldn’t. Because he was right. Dan had been able to hide his weirdness from her in spite of several long emails. Who was to say another man’s hidden interest wasn’t collecting corpses? After tonight’s epic failure, she wasn’t willing to take another chance on going out with someone she hadn’t previously met in person. It might work for millions, but not for her.
But Alex didn’t need to know that.
She couldn’t bring herself to admit it out loud. To own up to her poor judgment.
“What’s it going to take to convince you?” Alex asked. “What if I introduce you to some men. Guys I know.”
“First problem, who could you possibly know that would be willing to go out with someone like me?” She could just imagine what his friends would say if he brought her name up.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.
“Never mind.”
“Scarlet, I’m trying to help you. I don’t agree with the way you’re going about the manhunt thing so I offered to introduce you to people you can trust. That’s all.”
She felt him staring at her again and tried to ignore the need to squirm.
“I don’t get you,” Alex said.
“You don’t want to get me.”
She pulled into the Worth driveway.
“You remembered where I live. Impressive.”
“I have an above-average brain,” she muttered, only half paying attention to the pointless conversation.
“Some guy will fall in love with that. Just not someone you’ll find on the computer.”
“Alex,” she said, keeping her gaze fixed straight ahead. “Could you…go now? Please.” He continued to study her then shrugged.
“See you Saturday.”
