Lassoed by Fortune

CHAPTER Seven


The atmosphere within the upscale restaurant seemed incredibly tranquil and soothing.

The words soft and romantic were the first two that sprang to mind when Julia looked around. Instrumental love songs drifted through the air, thanks to a better-than-average sound system. The music was just loud enough to be detected, yet quiet enough not to be obtrusive.

This was definitely a place, Julia concluded, designed for lovers and couples who wanted to become lovers.

She and Liam did not belong here, she thought. But to suddenly turn around and walk out of the restaurant at this point would only seem odd and attract unwanted attention. Not to mention some undoubtedly snappy, unwanted comments from Liam.

They were here so they might as well stick it out, Julia decided, scanning the immediate area for a second time. Maybe she’d learn something she could use when she talked to Wendy and Marcos about the design and theme of the restaurant they were looking to build in Horseback Hollow.

“First time here?” a tall, slender blonde asked them with an understanding smile. She was wearing a name tag and looked every inch the hostess as she indicated that they were to follow her into the dining room.

“How can you tell?” Julia asked. Did they look as if they were so out of place to this woman?

“It shows in your faces,” the hostess answered. “I promise you’ll be repeat customers soon enough.” Her words were accompanied by a light laugh.

Even her laughter was soft, blending in delicately with the rest of the ongoing muted sounds in the restaurant.

As she followed behind the hostess and her eyes became accustomed to the dim lighting, Julia saw that the restaurant appeared to be full to capacity. By her calculation, it had only been open since twelve-thirty. Business was apparently very good.

“Is it always like this?” Julia asked the young woman walking ahead of them.

The slender blonde turned around. “No, it’s usually a lot busier than this,” she replied in all seriousness. “Standardly, we have a long waiting line out front. But if you’re wondering, your privacy is guaranteed,” she promised. “Will this booth be all right?” she asked, stopping at a booth for two.

The booth was part of several set up along the wall, each one cleverly arranged so that it gave the impression of being isolated from the others, even though it wasn’t.

“The booth is fine,” Julia replied. “But we really don’t need to have our privacy guaranteed,” she added.

“Speak for yourself. I don’t want anyone to know I’m here,” Liam said, waiting for Julia to slide into the booth first so that he could finally sit down himself. He had been hungry for more than the past half hour and his stomach was growling, more than a little impatient, waiting to be fed.

“I wouldn’t worry if I were you, Jones,” Julia told him shortly. “The kind of people you know wouldn’t be found in a nice place like this.” Her voice was distant, but that was his fault. He’d stung her pride with his dig about not wanting to be caught in a romantic restaurant with her.

“You two have been a couple for a while now, haven’t you?” the hostess asked knowingly, handing each of them a menu.

“No,” Liam declared, looking at the hostess as if she had a trifle too many birds perched on her antenna.

“Not even for a few seconds,” Julia denied with feeling.

“Sorry, my mistake,” the woman said, although she didn’t sound as if she was really convinced that she had made one. She paused a moment longer to explain the possible misunderstanding. “It’s just that the two of you sounded so intense, I just naturally assumed that you had been together a long time.”

“We haven’t been together at all,” Julia told the hostess with feeling. “We just know each other from high school. Slightly,” she underscored.

There was an enigmatic smile on the hostess’s lips as she nodded and murmured, “I see.” The smile crept into her eyes. “Your server will be here in a few minutes,” she promised, then lowered her voice just a touch more before saying, “Enjoy your first time.”

“She didn’t say ‘here,’” Julia said, her voice slightly agitated after the woman had retreated to the front of the restaurant.

Liam stared at her. Julia was babbling, he thought. “What?”

“‘Here,’” Julia repeated. “That hostess should have said ‘Enjoy your first time here,’ but she left off the last word.”

He didn’t see what the big deal was. From where he was sitting, Julia was getting herself all worked up over nothing. “Maybe it was implied and she just forgot to say it.”

Julia looked in the direction that the hostess had disappeared. She shook her head. “No, I really don’t think so.”

“Okay,” Liam answered gamely—and then his voice dropped seductively. “So maybe she really meant for us to enjoy our first time.”

Julia didn’t have to ask him what he meant by that. There was what she could only refer to as a wicked smile curving Liam’s rather full mouth and that, in turn, could only mean one thing.

Incensed, Julia raised her chin defiantly. “It would take a lot more than soft lighting and soft music to make that happen.”

“Well, according to the hype, the soft lighting and soft music in this place are supposed to be the starting point. That’s the purpose for all this, am I right?” he asked her pointedly.

How did she manage to get backed into a corner like this? “Much as I hate to say it, yes, you’re probably right,” she grudgingly admitted.

Liam leveled a look at her. Ordinarily he didn’t mind matching wits and exchanging barbs, but somehow, it just didn’t seem right in a place like this. Since they were here—and he was hungry—he made up his mind to make the best of the situation. But only if she wasn’t going to be waspish.

He gave her a choice. “Look, you want to bicker or do you want to see what the food is like here?”

He was being reasonable, she realized—and worse, she wasn’t. Who would have ever thought—?

“Sorry, you’re right. We should order and see what’s good.” After all, that was why, at bottom, she had come here.


“Wow.” He looked properly surprised just before he added, “Alert the media. We came to an agreement.”

“So how about we strike a temporary truce?” she suggested.

“Absolutely,” he told her with enthusiasm, putting out his hand across the table.

Julia hesitated for a moment, then slipping her hand into his, she shook it.

Their waiter, a tall young man with sandy-brown hair, perfect, chiseled features, gleaming white teeth and no hips to speak of, approached, greeted them unobtrusively and left them with a basket of warm, crisp bread, pats of butter wrapped in silver foil and the promise to return for their orders “soon.”

“At least he didn’t recite the specials of the day,” Julia commented. That tradition, meant to be helpful, had for some reason always gotten on her nerves.

“Maybe they’re all special,” Liam quipped. He skimmed the two pages that made up the menu. The specials were listed at the top of the first page. “Or maybe he just assumes we know how to read.”

Julia laughed at his comment. Liam could be amusing when he wanted to be, she grudgingly—and silently—admitted.

“What looks good to you?” she asked Liam, glancing over the two long, descriptive columns that comprised the restaurant’s afternoon menu.

When Liam didn’t answer, she raised her eyes from her menu and began to ask her question again, but the sentence remained stuck on her tongue, unable to move, to materialize. He was looking at her pointedly, answering her question without saying a word.

And just like that, she could feel the room around her growing warmer. Could feel heat creeping up the sides of her neck, threatening to turn everything in its path a unique shade of pink.

Julia’s innocent question had instantly brought a single word to his mind as well as to his tongue.

You.

Mercifully, Liam managed to stop the word before it actually emerged and wound up embarrassing both of them. He was rather certain that he wouldn’t have had a clue how to talk himself out of that one.

But the incriminating word hadn’t been said aloud, so, for now he was safe and as long as he made no slips, everything was going to be all right.

After a beat Liam replied, “Not sure yet. There’s a lot of flowery rhetoric to wade through. In my experience, good food speaks for itself. If it can’t, it might mean it’s not so good after all and it’s just trying to pull the wool over your eyes with a lot of pretty ten-dollar adjectives.” He decided to give her an example of the point he was making.

“I once bought a watch that was supposed to be waterproof. The ad claimed it ‘laughed’ at water. One day I accidentally spilled some water on it and not only didn’t the watch ‘laugh’ at the water, it didn’t even so much as chuckle. The damn thing died less than five minutes later, never to ‘tick’ again. The bottom line is if something’s good, it doesn’t have to convince you of the fact.”

“You might have a point,” she heard herself saying grudgingly. Maybe all the adjectives that went along with this place were overkill. She made a mental note to herself to be careful of overkill.

“Wow, you agreed with me twice in one day.” He pretended to cover his heart to keep it from leaping out of his chest—or worse. “I’m going to get a swelled head.”

“‘Going to?’” she echoed, dryly questioning his last comment.

“And she’s back.” Liam couldn’t resist mimicking the voice of a radio announcer making an introduction.

“I never left,” she informed him dryly.

The waiter returned, looking from one to the other, a silent question in his soulful brown eyes. Julia ordered something referred to as Heaven’s Promise, while Liam pointed to an item called Love At Last. The waiter pronounced them both excellent choices and promised to return within a few minutes with their meals.

“You know what you ordered?” Liam asked her after the waiter had left.

“Chicken—” The note of confidence left her voice after a beat. “I think, but I’m not sure.”

Liam laughed, nodding his head. “Actually, I think we both did.”

“Should be interesting,” she ventured, looking forward to comparing the meals once they arrived.

“We’ll see,” he replied.

He noticed that she was scanning the area again, doing her best to take in the other booths. But they were, as the hostess had promised, arranged so as to maximize the occupants’ privacy. He could either watch her, or make small talk. But he had no patience with either.

Instead he decided to ask out of the blue, “So what happened between you and the perfect husband?”

Her head whipped around. Julia looked at him, completely stunned. “What?”

“You and Neal,” he elaborated. “Neal seemed like perfect husband material. He was a lawyer, faithful— He was faithful, right?” he asked, checking.

“Yes, he was faithful,” she snapped. There was no way she wanted to chance Liam starting a rumor that Neal had fooled around. Neal was one of the good guys and deserved better. She wasn’t about to see his reputation dragged through the mud just because Liam happened to have a fanciful mind.

“And he was good-looking—if you liked that all-American look,” Liam qualified, making it sound like a minus instead of a plus. “On paper, you two sound perfect for each other. So what went wrong?”

She couldn’t believe the nerve of this man. “And what makes you think that’s any business of yours?” She really wanted to know.

“Well, we have to talk about something and talking about the weather gets boring fast. But we argue about everything else, so I thought this might be the one topic that was safe to talk about. If you don’t want to,” he continued gamely, “we could just stare at one another until the waiter comes back. Then we can pretend to be busy stuffing our faces, making it impossible to chew and talk at the same time—”

Julia sighed. He had a point, she admitted grudgingly. And she really didn’t mind talking about Neal. She supposed this came under the heading of making the best of an uncomfortable situation.

“Nothing ‘happened,’” she finally told Liam. “The marriage had just run out of steam.”

That presupposed that there had been steam once upon a time. He found that a little hard to believe. Neal Baxter had as much vibrancy about him as a prescription tranquilizer.

“Then there was steam to begin with?” Liam asked her.

Ordinarily she would have indignantly replied that of course there had been steam. Lots of it. But the way Liam was looking at her—as if he could read her thoughts—she had a feeling that he knew that “steam” between Neal and her had never been part of the equation. Moreover, that he somehow knew that hers had been just a marriage not of convenience, but a convenient marriage.

“Neal was a really nice guy and we were friends,” she told him. “I think we both got married hoping that what we had would grow. Instead, it just stagnated. We were far better friends than lovers.” The second the words were out of her mouth, Julia was suddenly stunned that she had actually said that. Flustered, she attempted to cover it up. “What I mean—”

He could almost read her mind and feel her sudden panic—as well as know the reason for it. It wasn’t hard to guess.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to quote you anywhere. It goes no further.” He looked at her knowingly. “So what you’re saying is that there was no spark between the two of you, no flash and fire.” It wasn’t a guess on his part but a reaffirmation.


“What I’m saying,” she told him with conviction, “is that Neal deserves to be happy and I hope he is. Someone told me that he’d gotten engaged recently. If it’s true, I just hope the woman realizes that Neal is a very special man and that she’s very lucky. I wish Neal and his future wife nothing but the very best.”

Liam looked somewhat surprised by her good wishes for a man who had once shared her bed. And she meant that, he could tell by the look in her eyes. It was all too calm and genteel for him.

“You do?”

“Yes. Why?” Why did he look so surprised to hear her say that?

Liam shrugged. “Nothing. You just seem very complacent about all this and that wasn’t what I’d heard through the grapevine,” he told her.

The grapevine. Not exactly the most straightforward source of honest news, she thought. She didn’t bother asking him what it was that he had heard. Lies didn’t bear repeating, not even once.

“Well, people like to talk, it helps while away the time, I guess. And if the facts make something dull, well, can’t have that, can we?” she asked sarcastically. She didn’t care for gossip and it was all the worse when it was about her. “But if you want the truth, I really do wish him well.”

“Well, my hat’s off to you,” Liam told her in all honesty. “And him, I guess.”

She’d followed him up to a point, but now he’d veered off again. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I take it that you broke it off with him.”

She did her best to keep a poker face. “Why would you say that?”

She actually had to ask him that? He found it amusing, but he played along, giving her a reason. “You never struck me as someone who just went along with things if she didn’t like the way those things were going.” She was nothing if not a scrapper. Maybe that was one of the things that he found attractive about her.

“Well, if you must know, yes, I broke it off with Neal, which is why I’m glad he found someone else.” She didn’t like having him on her conscience. She could still remember his expression—shock mingled with sorrow—when she’d finally gotten through to him.

“And he went quietly, huh?” Liam mused, seemingly marveled and clearly surprised by the man’s behavior.

“Yes. Why?” It was her turn to push the question.

“Nothing.” He shrugged carelessly again. “But if it was me and my woman had decided that it was over between us and told me she was taking off, well, I wouldn’t just meekly lie there and take it. I’d do something about it. I’d do something about getting her back,” he said with conviction. “And I’d do it fast, before she had time to get used to the situation.”

“Oh, you mean like hog-tie her and leave her in the barn until she was going to come to her senses?” she scoffed, her voice a mixture between being flip and a tad contemptuous.

“Well, maybe not that—” he conceded, then tagged on, “unless it was a last resort.” His reply was followed by a wide, amused grin.

She knew he was kidding, but there was something in his eyes, something about the way he was looking at her, that caused a little thrill to tango up her spine and back down again. For just a fraction of a second, she felt that he was talking about the two of them—even though logically, she silently insisted, he really couldn’t possibly be. After all, there was nothing between them. They hadn’t even gone out.

And yet...

They looked at one another for what seemed like one of the very longest moments on record, interrupted finally by someone clearing his throat. Belatedly, she looked over to see that their waiter had returned with their covered meals on a cart.

“I can come back later if you wish,” he offered, ready to wheel the cart with their meals on it away for a little longer.

“No,” she replied to the young man. “You came just in time.”

She thought she heard Liam murmur, “Amen to that,” but she wasn’t sure it wasn’t just her imagination giving voice to her own thoughts.