Had some man broken her heart?
The thought sent a surge of anger through him, a feeling he quickly stifled. He didn’t want to feel anger on Eden’s behalf, or concern or any of the other dozen emotions that stirred when they were together. Useless feelings, because Brady had no future with Eden. They were too different even if they were compatible in bed. Brady had let his hormones do his thinking for him in the past, but not this time. A little fun was fine, but anything more would be useless.
Not that Eden wanted more. She’d made their relationship, or lack of, very clear. Hell, she wouldn’t even have dinner with him.
So be it. He didn’t need dinner or dating or any of the other rituals that came into play when a man and woman hooked up. All he needed was Eden, panting in his arms, her voice trembling in his ears. He needed to know that she felt the same intensity that he did. The same desire. The same consuming pleasure.
He felt pretty sure she did but, with his track record, he wasn’t positive.
Not yet anyhow.
“WE NEED MORE popcorn.”
“Here. Take extra peanuts.”
“But they want popcorn.”
“We’re out of popcorn. I forgot to order it yesterday.”
“You forgot? But you never forget anything. I can’t remember the last time we ran out of anything. Are you feeling well?”
Well didn’t begin to describe Eden’s present state. She was great. Fantastic. More alive than ever before.
And stupid, she thought as her gaze went to the empty space behind the bar where she kept the popcorn. How could she have forgotten a major staple? Especially one loved by all of her female customers.
“I’ll give you one word—riot. Peanuts are not going to cut it for this crowd.”
“Give everyone a free drink.”
“The purpose of the promotion is to make money.”
“The purpose of the promotion is to bring in customers. And if we want repeat customers then we need to get their mind off the snacks—”
“Or lack of.”
“—and on to the beverages. Those I haven’t exhausted.”
“I need two beers, an iced tea and a fuzzy navel, and don’t forget the cherry in the iced tea. Doris Williams loves cherries.”
“Coming right up.” Eden ducked down and reached for the jar of maraschinos. The empty jar.
“Don’t tell me.”
“I’ll send James over to the Piggly Wiggly right now. You stall for time.”
“Stall? These women are thirsty and angry. Do you know that Floyd Piedmont hasn’t kissed his wife since the Cowboys lost their first practice game over six weeks ago? And John Henry hasn’t so much as glanced at Maggie since the Packers signed that new quarterback last season. She’s this close to painting herself green just to get him to look at her.”
“Stall,” Eden said again.
“I could tell war stories. I once went out with this guy who was more interested in his Chevy than me. Granted, it wasn’t exactly a football team, but the principle was the same.”
Fifteen minutes later, Eden slid a fresh jar of maraschino cherries beneath the bar, along with several canisters of Butter Pecan Toffee and breathed a sigh of relief. A temporary sigh.
First thing tomorrow, she was getting on the horn with her suppliers. She’d been distracted during last night’s inventory, but it wasn’t going to happen again—no matter how good Brady Weston looked wearing a pair of Wranglers and a tight white T-shirt.
Her heart kicked up a beat when she realized he was standing in the bar doorway looking so handsome and sexy and determined. The fierce light in his eyes sent a ripple of heat through her, along with anticipation of what was to come.
“Great idea,” he said as he tossed a flyer onto the bar top. “I don’t think I’ve seen this many people here since I got back into town.”
“You haven’t. This is definitely a record this year.” She couldn’t help the grin that tugged at her lips. “Jake will have a heart attack when word gets back to him.”
“I hear he’s hot to buy up this entire block, Merle’s place included, for that megastore.”
“I don’t know about everybody else, but he’s not getting this place. The Pink Cadillac is a legacy. My legacy. I grew up here.” At his raised eyebrows, she added, “I know it’s not exactly the ideal atmosphere for a child, but it was the best my parents could do. They had to work and watch me, and so I spent my afternoons after school behind this very bar helping my dad.” A smile touched her lips as she remembered all those long afternoons spent eating peanuts and arranging glasses. It hadn’t been the ideal childhood, but she’d liked it. The Pink Cadillac had been her home away from home. No way was she going to let Jake Marlboro get his slimy hands on it.
“Jake’s offering an awful lot of money from what Merle tells me.”
“Not enough. Not nearly enough for what he has in mind.”
“I don’t know about that.” Brady fingered a deep knick in the bar where old Monty McGuire had carved his initials one Saturday night when he’d been too drunk to know what he was doing and her father had been too busy to care. “Seems like you could open up a brand-new place out on the highway, right in the line of traffic. From an economic standpoint, it makes a lot of sense.”
“I’m not thinking about economics. This is my home. This is me.” She shook her head. “I guess that’s hard for you to understand.”
“Not too hard. I didn’t come back here for the scenery, that’s for damn sure.”
“Why did you come back?” There is was. The question that had haunted her since she’d seen him standing by the side of the road, looking so hot and sweaty and sexy. “Why did you leave Dallas?”
“There wasn’t anything there for me.”
“Then the rumors weren’t true.”
“And what rumors would those be?”
“The ones about you finding fame and fortune.”
“The fortune part might have a little truth to it. I had a good job. Good from an economic standpoint.”
She grinned. “But you weren’t interested in economics.”
“I was. In the beginning.” He shrugged and wiped a trickle of condensation from the side of his beer mug. “I had to be if I intended to make Sally happy, but it wasn’t enough. I busted my ass from sunrise until well past sunset, and in the end it just wasn’t good enough.”
In his gaze she saw that it was more like he thought he wasn’t good enough. She saw the doubt and insecurity. The betrayal. Feelings she knew all too well.
“You must have loved her.”
“Love never figured in. It was all about doing the right thing. She was pregnant and so I married her and spent the next eleven years paying for my mistake.”
“Why did you stay when she lost the baby?”
“Because Westons don’t run away from their mistakes. That’s what my grandfather always said. They stay and face the music. I didn’t do that then, but I am now. I’ll face anything to set things right and make it up to him. I really disappointed him.”
“We all make mistakes. The key is to learn from them.”
“That’s the truth. I should have listened to my grandfather. He told me Sally was just after a free ride, but I didn’t listen. Never again. Sally wasn’t the right sort of woman for me. I just didn’t see it at the time.”
The words sent a surge of disappointment through her, crazy as that was. He was only telling the truth. He and Sally had been worlds apart. Brady had lived in a fine ranch house while Sally had lived two houses down from Eden clear on the opposite side of town. Clearly a have-not while Brady epitomized the haves.
“From what I heard,” Eden found herself saying, “all you saw was a good time where Sally was concerned.”
“True enough. Not that there’s anything wrong with that as long as both parties involved have the same idea.”
“Like us.”
“Exactly. We both know what we want from each other.”
“One week of sex,” she said, reminded herself, eager to shake the strange sense of camaraderie she felt. So what if they had a few things in common other than lust? Who cared if she understood his reasons for coming home the way he understood her reasons for refusing to sell? Seeing eye to eye on a few things didn’t make them compatible, and it certainly didn’t change the fact that she was Eden Hallsey, bar owner and bad girl, while Brady was the town’s golden boy—wealthy and handsome and heir to the Weston fortune.
“Which brings me to the reason for my visit. We have a date.”
“We do not have a date.”
“We have a nondate.”
“We don’t have anything.”
“Not here. Not with all these people watching.” His gaze darkened. “Unless you want someone to watch. Is that it, Eden?” He leaned across the bar, his fingertips playing over hers as she held a sweaty beer bottle. Os that one of your fantasies?”
You’re my fantasy.”
The answer echoed through her head and poised on the tip of her tongue. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, admit such a thing to him. To any man. Eden Hallsey was the object of men’s fantasies. Not the other way around. Even if the man in question happened to be Brady Weston who reduced her to sophomore status with one slow, sexy grin.
She fought for her most nonchalant voice. “It could be. Then again, I do like my privacy.”
“What else do you like?”
You. She shrugged, ignoring the answer that whispered through her head. “I’d like to get back to work. It’s not every day the place has this many customers.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
She couldn’t help but smile. “I know.”
“So Jake’s really making things tough, huh?”
“He’s trying, but obviously he’s not succeeding. Not anymore. I was hoping this idea would pan out, but I wasn’t sure if the women would actually come out to congregate while their hubbies watched the game over at the VFW hall.”
“Why the VFW?”
“Free pizza and beer during half-time. With the way those guys eat, serving up freebies would defeat the purpose of advertising to bring them in. I’d have to up the offer, which would mean more pizza and beer.”
“Unless you offered something else.”
“I don’t think they’d go for yogurt-covered pretzels.”
“They might go for a bigger TV, as in a big screen.”
“Those are expensive.” She chewed her bottom lip, her mind doing the math and she calculated the added expense. “But it might be a good investment. If it worked.”
“You’ll never know unless you try. Besides, it might be worth a try just to piss off Jake.”
She grinned at the prospect. “He already hates me. This would really get in his craw.”
“Hell hath no vengeance like a woman scorned, eh?”
“Amen to that.”
“You must have loved him a lot.”
“Once. A long, long time ago. But he killed any feelings right away when he betrayed my trust.” At his raised eyebrows, she had the insane urge to blurt out the truth to him, that Jake had lied about her. That she hadn’t done half the things he’d said. That she wasn’t the bad girl everyone had been led to believe.
Maybe not then, but now…
Now she was every bit the loose woman the world thought her to be. Her affair with Brady was proof of that.
“What happened between you two?”
“I made a mistake. One I never intend to make again.” She retrieved two more bottle of beer and added them to Kasey’s tray. “I really have to get back to work. Now’s not a good time to hash over all this.” Particularly when she was feeling so vulnerable after talking to him, looking into his eyes, wanting so much to trust him.
She killed the last thought. Never again.
“Fifteen minutes.” He motioned toward the door and the limousine visible just beyond the window. “Me and my ride will be waiting.”
“That’s yours?”
“For tonight. For you and me.”
“But I can’t just leave—”
“Kasey can fill in.” He indicated the waitress dishing out bowls of peanuts in the far corner before he reached for the small white box he’d sat on the bartop next to him. He pushed the container toward her.
“What’s this orchid for?” she asked as she opened the box to find the delicate flower nestled in tissue paper.
“It’s a wild orchid, darlin’, and it’s for tonight.”
She pulled the flower from the box and turned it around, searching for a wrist band or a lapel pin. “I don’t get it. You want me to wear it tonight?”
His grin was slow and heartstopping, the expression not quite touching his eyes which remained dark and intense and hungry. So very hungry. “No, darlin’. I want you to experience it.”
The minute the words left his mouth, the truth hit her.
Wild Orchid. He was referring to the movie she’d seen ages ago with Mickey Rourke. Suddenly, her mind conjured a specific scene of a man and a woman in the backseat of a limousine. But she didn’t see the man and woman from the movie. She saw Brady and herself, and heat rippled thought her.
“Fifteen minutes,” he said as he paused in the doorway, his deep voice barely carrying above the croon of Kenny Chesney drifting from the jukebox. “I’ll be waiting.”
9
SHE’D DONE IT in a limousine.
Eden stared out the window and watched as the sleek black car eased away from the curb.
Not only had she done it in the back seat of the limo, but the driver had been just a few feet away, his gaze trained on the road ahead.
At least that’s what she’d thought at the time. When she’d actually thought. But thinking had been the farthest thing from her mind when Brady Weston had pulled her into the car, and into his arms.
At least her rendezvous hadn’t been as blatantly obvious as that in the movie. The stars had not only done it in the backseat of a limousine, but they’d gotten down and dirty with other people sitting in the opposite seat. Watching.
The only other person in the car with them had been the driver, and there had been no indication that he’d had any clue as to what they were doing. Still the possibility that he knew, that he’d heard, had been just as much a turn-on as an actual audience.
And just as embarrassing.
Eden pushed away the strange feeling. Embarrassment was an emotion better reserved for the shy, demure types who didn’t have a reputation to uphold.
Eden, on the other hand, was a bonafide bad girl. A worldly woman. One who wouldn’t so much as blink an eye at the prospect of hot sex in a limo, much less blush over it…
The thought trailed off as she lifted a hand to her hot cheek. Oh, God, she was blushing, despite her determination to stay calm and cool and aloof.
She was far from calm with her heart beating ninety to nothing and cool was a distant memory thanks to the flush making her skin burn and tingle. As for aloof?
She remembered the way her chest had tightened when she’d opened the florist box containing the wild orchid. No man had ever given her flowers before Brady.
And in this case, it was only one flower. One measly little flower that hadn’t set him back more than five bucks at the most.
It didn’t matter. He might well have shown up with a dozen roses that had cost him an entire paycheck. She remembered the giant ranch house that sat on the outskirts of town. The expensive Expedition his grandaddy drove around town. The enormous amount of money his sister had tipped just a week ago when she’d given Brady his welcome home party. Okay, so Brady could very well buy the entire flower shop with one paycheck.
Instead, this time he’d shown up with a single, inexpensive flower, and she’d loved it. It wasn’t the quantity or the money involved. It was the thought he’d put into the action that touched something deep inside her. The fact that he’d taken time out of his busy day to visit the flower shop and pick out something so beautiful
and so fitting for the occasion. No man had ever taken the time to discover her true desire. To make it come true.
Just admit it. You like him. You really like him.
That’s what her heart said, but this wasn’t about her heart, despite the fact that she looked forward to seeing his smile even more than she anticipated his touch. This was purely physical and she intended to keep it that way.
It was all about control, and the only reason she was having such soft feelings for him—the fluttering heart and racing pulse and sheer warmth she felt whenever she saw him—was because Brady had taken that control from her. He was the one dictating the how, when and where—something she’d allowed only one man in her past to do. And that man had broken her heart with his betrayal.
Not this time.
They weren’t friends, no matter how much it seemed otherwise.
Eden retrieved her purse and slipped out the back door. Climbing into her pickup, she gunned the engine and headed toward the local video store.
It was all a matter of control, and from here on out, Eden was the one calling the shots.
“I CAME AS QUICK as I could. What’s wrong—” The words stalled in his throat when Brady caught sight of Eden’s reflection in the hall mirror.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” she called out.
She stood in front of her closet, almost completely nude and oblivious to his presence.
He should look away. That would be the polite thing to do, but there was nothing polite about his relationship with Eden. It was wild and wicked and lusty and so he looked. Not so much because he wanted to, however. He had to. She was far too beautiful and he was far too worked up, his heart still pounding from her recent phone call.
You have to come over right now. I need you.
That’s all she’d said, and so he’d been left to wonder what it was she needed. Need in a sexual sense. Or need in a handyman, can-you-unstop-my-toilet sense?
He’d played with the various possibilities on his way over before his mind had conjured a third alternative. Could she be in trouble? Just that thought had sent him tearing down Main Street, his truck tearing up pavement at an alarming rate. The notion of her sick and helpless had filled him with a surge of protectiveness the likes of which Brady Weston had never felt before.
The Pleasure Principle Page 10
