“A wonderful place.”
She nodded, not coming close to catching the sarcasm in his voice.
Why him? That’s what he wanted to know. There were probably twenty other guys in the bar. Why had he been the one to come to her rescue? Why hadn’t someone else stepped in?
“Like I said, my dad’s a minister.” She ate another French fry, then drank more of her margarita. “My mom died when I was born, so I don’t remember her. The thing is, when you’re the preacher’s kid, everybody feels responsible for keeping you on the straight and narrow. I didn’t have one mother—I had fifty. I couldn’t even think something bad before it was being reported to my dad.”
“Uh-huh.”
Kevin turned back to the game and tried not to listen.
“So that’s why I don’t know the bar thing.”
“What bar thing?” he asked before he could stop himself.
“That this isn’t a bar people bring their dates to. I’m practicing being bad.”
That got his attention. He swung back to face her. “Bad?”
“You bet.” She finished her margarita and pushed her glass to the edge of the counter. “I’d like another one, please,” she said, then beamed at the bartender. “It was great.”
She turned back to Kevin. “I just wish I could have a little umbrella.”
He didn’t care about that. “Tell me about being bad.”
“I haven’t been. Ever. So that’s what I’m doing on my drive to Hawaii.” She glanced around as if to make sure no one was listening. “This is only my third time in a bar.”
“You’re kidding,” he said, more because he was hoping she wasn’t telling the truth than because he didn’t believe her.
“When I left home three days ago, I’d never even had anything alcoholic to drink. So that first night, when I stopped, I went into a bar.” She bit into another fry and wrinkled her nose. Humor crinkled the corners of her eyes.
“It was horrible,” she said when she’d swallowed. “I felt so out of place and when a man smiled at me, I ran out the door. Yesterday was better.”
He gave up. There was no point in avoiding what was obviously his fate. “Your second time in a bar?”
She nodded. “I had white wine, but I have to tell you I didn’t like it at all. But I did almost speak to someone.”
Great.
The bartender finished blending the margarita and set it in front of her. “Want to run a tab?” he asked.
Haley pressed her lips together for a couple of seconds. “Maybe,” she said at last.
“Yes,” Kevin said. “Run her a tab. You want your own order of fries?”
“Okay. Extra salt, please.”
The bartender muttered something under his breath, then wrote on his small pad.
“A tab,” Kevin said when they were alone, “means they keep a list of what you’ve ordered. You pay once at the end of the evening instead of paying each time.”
Haley’s blue-hazel eyes widened. “That’s so cool.”
He had a feeling the world was going to be one constant amazement after the other for her.
He studied her pale skin, her wide smile and trusting eyes. This was not a woman who should be let out on her own.
“You need to think about heading back to Ohio.”
“No way.” She took a long drink of her margarita. “I’ve spent my entire life doing what everyone else has told me to do. Now I’m only doing what I want. No matter what.”
Her expression turned fierce. “You can’t know what it’s like,” she continued. “I never get to voice my opinion. If I even try, I get ignored. No one cares what I think or what I want.”
“That’s why you’re running away?”
“Exactly.” She picked up a French fry, then put it back on the plate. “How did you know I was running away?”
“You’re not the kind of woman to come to a place like this on purpose.”
She glanced around at the seedy clientele, then shrugged. “I want new experiences.”
“Like little umbrellas in your drinks?”
“Exactly.”
She smiled. He had to admit she had a great smile. Her whole face lit up. She’d said she was twenty-five, but in some ways she acted more like an awkward teenager than a grown woman. No doubt being the daughter of a single father minister had something to do with it.
He thought about suggesting that next time she find her new experience at a more upscale bar, but then he reminded himself he wasn’t getting involved. He had enough problems of his own without adding her to the list.
“It’s not that I don’t like the piano,” she said.
“What?”
“The piano. I play. It was expected. I can also play the organ, but only a few hymns and not very well.”
“Okay.” He started eating his burger.
“The music is great. But I wanted to be a teacher.”
“Your father objected?” he asked before he could stop himself.
She sighed. “He would never come out and tell me no. That’s not his way. But there was subtle pressure. In a way that’s a whole lot harder to resist. I mean, a direct statement can be argued, but hints and nudges kind of sweep you along until you suddenly wake up and find yourself in a place you don’t want to be.”
She took another long drink of her margarita. The bartender appeared with a plate of fries. Haley smiled her thanks.
Kevin finished his burger and thought about making his escape.
“You want me to replace what I took?” she asked, motioning to his plate.
“No thanks.”
She shrugged, then munched on another fry. “So you’re a U.S. Marshal. What are you doing here?”
“I just delivered a prisoner to the federal penitentiary up the road.”
Her eyes widened. “There’s a prison here?”
“Didn’t you see the signs about not picking up hitchhikers?”
“Sure, but I thought it was some kind of joke. You know, a local gag on tourists.”
“This isn’t a real tourist haven. Most of the folks are passing through or here to visit relatives.”
She glanced over her shoulder, then leaned close and lowered her voice. “People here know men in prison?”
He groaned. “Haley, have you ever been outside of your hometown before?”
“Of course. I spent four years at the Southern Baptist College for Young Women.”
Just perfect. “And after your college experience?”
“I went back home, where I got my master’s in music and finished up the courses I needed for my teaching credentials. I graduated with honors.”
She reached for her glass. Her hand missed the stem by about three inches. She stretched out her fingers, then curled them into her palm.
“My skin feels funny,” she said. “My cheeks tingle.”
Kevin swore silently. He glanced at the nearly finished second drink, then turned his attention to the bartender drying glasses with a dirty towel.
“Doubles?” he asked.
The old man grinned. “Thought you might want to get lucky.”
Perfect. Just perfect. In less than forty minutes the nondrinking preacher’s daughter had just consumed the equivalent of four shots of tequila. The full effect of the alcohol wasn’t going to hit for about twenty more minutes. He would bet a week’s salary that she would be on her butt about thirty seconds after that.
He slapped some money onto the bar and stood. “Come on, Haley. I’m going to get you out of here while you can still walk. Have you got a hotel room?”
She blinked at him. “I can walk.”
“Sure you can. Why don’t you try?”
She wore the ugliest beige shoes he’d ever seen, but at least the heel wasn’t too high. When she slid off the stool, she stood straight just long enough to give him hope. Maybe he’d overreacted. Maybe—
She swayed so far to the left, she nearly toppled over.
“Am I drunk?” she asked,
sounding delighted as she managed to stand straight. “The room is spinning. Wow. This is so cool.”
Yeah, everything was cool to her. “Do you have a motel room?” he repeated, speaking slowly and deliberately.
“Yeah. The pink one. I liked the color. It’s over there. Outside.”
She pointed to the exit and nearly fell on her face. Kevin gritted his teeth.
“Put your arm around my shoulders,” he instructed as he wrapped an arm around her waist.
His first impression was of heat; his second, of slender curves that got his body’s attention in a big way.
Instead of following orders, Haley simply sagged against him. “You smell good,” she said as he half carried her toward the door.
“Thanks.”
He would get her to her motel and leave, he told himself. She would probably pass out in a matter of seconds and wake up with a hangover big enough to cure her of ever wanting another margarita. She’d made it this far without him, she would get to wherever she was going without his assistance.
Kevin knew he was trying to convince himself that he wasn’t responsible for Haley. Unfortunately he wasn’t doing a very good job.
They stepped into the sultry evening air. Haley sucked in a deep breath, then turned to look at him. As she was leaning against him, her face rested on his shoulder. Her mouth was inches from his. One of her wisps of blond hair brushed against his cheek.
“So,” Haley said, licking her lips. “Is this where you take advantage of me?”
“What?”
She blinked slowly, then smiled. “I don’t think I’d mind.”
Chapter Two
She wouldn’t mind?
Kevin did his best to ignore the sexual desire that slammed into him the second she spoke the words. His unexpected attraction to Haley couldn’t begin to matter. Not with circumstances being what they were. She was drunk, alone, out of her element and, with his luck, a virgin. Thanks, but not tonight.
Lightning cut across the sky, as if warning him the Almighty was keeping tabs on the evening’s events. With that in mind, Kevin ignored the curves pressing against his body and the way those curves made him feel. She might be a little slimmer than he’d first realized, but she seemed to have everything in the right place under her ugly dress. Not that he was going to be checking her out.
“Did you say a pink motel?” he asked, looking around at the motor inns on both sides of the highway.
“Uh-huh. There’s flamingos.” She blinked at him. “I like birds.”
“Good to know.”
He spotted a low, two-story structure that matched her description. He mentally cringed at the plastic flamingos stuck into the cement. If the place looked this bad at night, what did it look like in the light of day? Of course, there was no accounting for taste.
At least they didn’t have to cross the highway to get there. The motel was only a couple hundred yards up the frontage road.
“Let’s start walking,” he said, still supporting most of her weight.
A second bolt of lightning illuminated the sky.
“Look!” Haley said, pointing at the heavens. “Don’t you love lightning? Don’t you wish it would rain?”
“Sure.”
Because a douse of cold water might cool him off. Drunk women begging to be taken advantage of were nothing but trouble. He had to keep reminding himself of that as Haley’s soft blond hair brushed against his cheek.
He got them moving in the direction of the motel. Haley was still upright and remotely mobile, but he had a feeling that was going to be changing in the next few minutes. At least she was still managing full sentences.
“Do you know your room number?”
Rather than answer, she sighed. He felt the soft puff of air on his cheek.
“You never answered my question,” she said instead.
“What question?”
He made the mistake of looking at her face—at her blue-hazel eyes and the curves at the corners of her mouth. At the knowing expression that heated his blood and made him consider possibilities.
“No way,” he muttered more to himself than to her. He was not going there with her.
She pushed away from him and tried to stand on her own. She was nearly successful. With her feet firmly planted, she swayed back and forth, stumbled a step, then regained her balance by holding her arms out a little on each side.
“What is it about me?” she demanded. “Why don’t men want to take advantage of me? Am I ugly? Is my body hideous?”
Did they really need to be having this conversation now? He eyed the night sky—thick with clouds and the promise of rain. More lightning flashed in the distance.
“We’re going to get soaked in about thirty seconds,” he said.
She glared at him. “I mean it. What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing’s wrong with you.”
“So why don’t you want to have—”
For a second he thought she was actually going to say “sex” but at the last minute she pressed her lips together and stared meaningfully. At least he assumed that’s what she was doing. That and tipping over.
He grabbed her around the waist and hauled her against him.
“Walk,” he commanded.
She started moving.
“Tell me,” she demanded. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Like I said—nothing. It’s not you.” Hell, why not just tell her the truth? “It’s the whole preacher’s daughter thing. No one wants to spit in the eye of God.”
She considered that while they crossed the rest of the bar’s parking lot and stepped onto the motel parking lot.
“What about forbidden flute?”
The flute thing threw him for a second. “Do you mean ‘fruit’?”
She nodded vigorously and nearly collapsed. “My head is spinning,” she said, sounding as thrilled as a kid at a carnival. “The sky’s spinning, too.”
“Great.”
“I can be fruit,” she insisted.
“If that’s what you want.”
“Don’t you think of me that way? Aren’t I a temptation?”
He was impressed she could manage a three-syllable word. Unfortunately, while her verbal skills remained intact, her motor skills were fading fast. He had to support more and more of her weight to keep them moving toward the motel.
“Room number,” he said.
“Look at what happened with Eve and the apple. That could be me. I could be an apple.”
“I’ll bet you could even be a plum. Keep moving.”
“Plum? Who wants to be that?”
They had reached the building. Kevin paused to lean against a column supporting the overhead walkway around the second story.
“I need your key,” he said. “I’m going to take it out of your purse.”
She smiled brightly. “Okay.”
He opened the clasp and dug around until he came up with a key attached to a plastic pink flamingo. The number three had been painted on the flamingo’s wing.
At least they weren’t going to have to negotiate the stairs.
She shifted her weight just as he closed her purse. The action caused her to slide against him, which pressed her right breast into his side. Instinctively he wrapped both his arms around her to hold her upright. She turned until they were facing each other. Pressed together. Close. Too close.
Her slightly unfocused eyes half closed. “You’re very strong,” she murmured.
“Don’t even go there,” he told her, trying to figure out where he was going to find room number three.
“Strong and sexy.”
Before he could stop her, she reached up and pulled off his cap and stuck it on her own head. Of course she looked completely adorable.
“I’ve never thought about a man being strong before,” she continued with a sigh. “It’s nice. As for the sexy part.” She covered her mouth with her fingers. “I’ve never thought about a man that way before, either.”
; “All right, Haley. Let’s go.”
He got them moving toward the row of doors, each labeled with a number. There were seven on each floor.
“Do you think I’m sexy?” she asked.
They passed seven. He didn’t answer.
“Kevin?”
Six. Just three more doors and then they were home.
“Can I at least be an apple?”
Bingo. He stuck the key in the door and pushed it open.
“In we go,” he said, helping her over the threshold.
“Not even an apple,” she murmured, sounding tragically sad.
He told himself that speaking the truth would only get them both in trouble. In her current state there was no telling what she would do if she figured out that she was exactly like forbidden fruit and he was a man who had been starving for years.
He followed her into the room, which was typical for a cheap roadside motel. Full-size bed, small dresser, a couple of chairs and a door leading to a white-on-white bathroom. It looked clean enough, he supposed, a little surprised to find himself wanting Haley to have something nicer than this. What did he care where she stayed? As long as it wasn’t with him.
He pulled the key out of the lock and closed the door. Haley continued to hold on to him. He moved them both toward the bed so that when she finally did let go, she wouldn’t have very far to fall.
Speaking of which, once he really noticed the bed—wide, covered with a blue spread and very empty—he found it hard to notice anything else.
Sexy, willing women and beds just seemed made for each other.
He had to admit he liked the feel of her pressing against him. She was warm and seemed designed to fit him. He allowed himself a brief but meaningful fantasy, then put it firmly out of his mind. For one thing, he didn’t take advantage of anyone, ever. For another, his track record wasn’t exactly the greatest.
He dropped the key onto the small table between the chairs and put his hands on her shoulders.
“Why don’t you sit down?” he suggested. “The bed is right behind you. If you’re still, the room will stop spinning.”
She smiled. “I like it spinning.” She blinked and when she opened her eyes, her gaze lasered in on his mouth.
“Do you know that I’ve only ever been kissed by three men. Well, only one man, really. The other two were boys in high school.” She frowned. “Or were they young men? When do boys become men?”
Completely Smitten Page 2
