She went into the Public Market. At this late hour, pretty much everything was closed up. The fish vendors had gone home, and the dewy, beautiful vegetables had been boxed up until tomorrow. The stalls—normally filled with dried flowers, handmade crafts, and homemade food items—were empty.
She turned into the Athenian, the old-fashioned tavern made famous in Sleepless in Seattle. It was at this polished wooden bar that Rob Reiner had told Tom Hanks about dating in the nineties.
The smoke in here was so thick you could have played ticktacktoe in it with your finger. There was something comforting in the lack of political correctness in the Athenian. You could order a trendy drink, but their specialty was ice-cold beer.
Meghann had perfected the art of scoping out a bar without being obvious. She did that now.
There were five or six older men at the bar. Fishermen, she’d guess, getting ready to head up to Alaska for the season. A pair of younger Wall Street types were there, too, drinking martinis and no doubt talking shop. She saw enough of that kind in court.
“Hey, Meghann,” yelled Freddie, the bartender. “Your usual?”
“You bet.” Still smiling, she moved past the bar and turned left, where several varnished wooden tables hugged the two walls. Most were full of couples or foursomes; a few were empty.
Meghann found a place in the back. She sidled into the glossy wooden seat and sat down. A big window was to her left. The view was of Elliot Bay and the wharf.
“Here ye be,” Freddie said, setting a martini glass down in front of her. He shook the steel shaker, then poured her a cosmopolitan. “You want an order of oysters and fries?”
“You read my mind.”
Freddie grinned. “Ain’t hard to do, counselor.” He leaned down toward her. “The Eagles are coming in tonight. Should be here any minute.”
“The Eagles?”
“The minor league ball team outta Everett.” He winked at her. “Good luck.”
Meghann groaned. It was bad when bartenders started recommending whole ball teams.
I’m sorry.
Meghann began drinking. When the first cosmo was gone, she ordered a second. By the time she saw the bottom of the glass again, she’d almost forgotten her day.
“May I join you?”
Meghann looked up, startled, and found herself staring into a pair of dark eyes.
He stood in front of her, with one foot up on the seat opposite her. She could tell by the look of him—young, blond, sexy as hell—that he was used to getting what he wanted. And what he wanted tonight was her.
The thought was a tonic.
“Of course.” She didn’t offer a half smile or bat her eyes. Pretense had never appealed to her. Neither had games. “I’m Meghann Dontess. My friends call me Meg.”
He slid into the seat. His knees brushed hers, and at the contact, he smiled. “I’m Donny MacMillan. You like baseball?”
“I like a lot of things.” She flagged down Freddie, who nodded at her. A moment later, he brought her another cosmopolitan.
“I’ll have a Coors Light,” Donny said, leaning back and stretching his arms out along the top of the seat back.
They stared at each other in silence. The noise in the bar grew louder, then seemed to fade away, until all Meghann could hear was the even strains of his breathing and the beating of her heart.
Freddie served a beer and left again.
“I suppose you’re a baseball player.”
He grinned, and damn, it was sexy. She felt the first twinge of desire. Sex with him would be great; she knew it. And it would make her forget—
I’m sorry.
—about her bad day.
“You know it. I’m gonna make it to the show. You watch. Someday I’ll be famous.”
That was why Meghann gravitated toward younger men. They still believed in themselves and the world. They hadn’t yet learned how life really worked, how dreams were slowly strangled and right and wrong became abstract ideas instead of goalposts for all to see. Those truths usually hit around thirty-five, when you realized that your life was not what you’d wanted.
That, of course, and the fact that they never demanded more than she wanted to give. Men her age tended to think sex meant something. Younger men knew better.
For the next hour, Meghann nodded and smiled as Donny talked about himself. By the time she’d finished her fourth drink, she knew that he had graduated from WSU, was the youngest of three brothers, and that his parents still lived in the same Iowa farmhouse that his grandfather had homesteaded. It all went in one ear and out the other. What she really focused on was the way his knee brushed up against hers, the way his thumb stroked the wet beer glass in a steady, sensual rhythm.
He was telling her about a frat party in college when she said, “You want to come to my place?”
“For coffee?”
She smiled. “That, too, I guess.”
“You don’t screw around, do you?”
“I’d say it’s quite clear that I do. I simply like to be direct about it. I’m … thirty-four years old. My game-playing days are behind me.”
He looked at her then, smiling slowly, and the knowing sensuality in his gaze made her engine overheat. This is going to be good. “How far away do you live?”
“As luck would have it, not far.”