“You’ve got that James Dean thing going . . .”
The woman beside Luke at the bar had short dark hair, an easy smile, and slurred words. He’d offered to buy her a drink before realizing how many she’d already had going in.
“What do you know about James Dean?”
She reached forward, pushed hair from Luke’s forehead, and nearly fell off the bar stool.
Beside him, Wyatt laughed into his beer.
“It’s the hair.”
Luke caught her before she ended up in his lap.
A prospect he might not have minded if she were sober.
Her glazed eyes passed over him and on to Wyatt. “Your friend is kinda cute, too.”
Wyatt wiggled his fingers in the air in a wave. “Hey, darlin’.”
“Oh . . . that’s cute.”
Seemed like everything was cute to this one.
“It’s Trish, right?”
Trish slapped a hand on Luke’s shoulder and leaned close enough for him to smell the alcohol in her pores. “You remembered.”
“Ah-huh . . . right. Did you come with friends tonight?”
Trish twisted a little too fast and wobbled while pointing to the far side of the bar, where two similarly dressed women were playing pool with several men.
Instead of suggesting that Trish meet up with her friends, Luke used the excuse of a need for the bathroom, leaving Wyatt to fend for himself.
He approached one of Trish’s friends, who held a pool cue in one hand, a beer in the other. “You came with Trish?” he asked, pointing behind his back toward the bar.
The woman offered a toothy smile. “Is she getting into trouble?”
“She’s pretty hammered. Think maybe she should have someone watching out for her before she ends up in a truck bed with a stranger.”
Toothy Smile rolled her eyes. “Hey, Jen. We need to rescue Trish.”
The woman she called Jen swung her gaze toward the bar and moaned. “Not again.”
The two of them handed off their cues and wove through the crowd. Once they had Trish’s attention, Luke watched Wyatt pick himself up off the bar stool and make his way across the room.
“You wouldn’t believe what she offered to do to both of us.” Wyatt was grinning.
“I can imagine.” Luke tilted the rest of his beer back and set the empty bottle on a nearby table.
“What are you drinking?”
Zoe forced a smile over her shoulder. The man asking her the question had been beside the guy who was now getting his ass beat on a dartboard by Jo. Military short hair, thick shoulders, thick neck . . . and from what she could see by the grin on his face, thick ego.
“Perrier with lime.”
His smile wavered.
“I’m driving.” Not that she needed to explain, but she did anyway.
“Jack and Coke,” he told the bartender as they passed by.
Zoe looked at her nearly empty drink and didn’t comment.
“You live around here?”
She shook her head. “Wisconsin,” she lied.
The smile that attempted to manifest for half a second quickly became a flat line between his lips.
“So you’re here on vacation?” As he asked the question, the leggy blonde walking by caught his eye.
Zoe took great pleasure in delivering her next lie. “Missionary work, actually. Where do you go to church?”
The bartender set down his drink. He tossed a bill on the bar, downed his beverage in one swallow, and stood. “Great talking with you . . . uhm . . .”
They hadn’t exchanged names.
She let him out with a smile. “Great talking with you, too.”
He walked away, and a deep chuckle beside her diverted her attention.
“This is the third bar we’ve been to.”
“This didn’t used to be so hard,” Luke said.
Wyatt waved a beer in the air as he spoke. “I’m practically married and you’re not available.”
“I am very available,” Luke protested with heat in his voice.
“The tipsy woman at the pool hall?”
“Drunk, not tipsy.”
“The blonde at Shiners?”
“Blonde,” he said, as if the color of her hair explained everything.
Wyatt narrowed his eyes.
“She wore a ring on her right hand. Newly divorced or stepping out. I don’t want that.”
“What’s wrong with newly divorced?”
Luke wasn’t sure, so he went back to his original dislike. “Blondes never did anything for me.”
Wyatt glanced around. “What about her?” He pointed his beer at a brunette passing by.
Somewhat attractive . . . kinda short. Luke shrugged.
“Not available. Your head isn’t in the game.”
Luke turned back to the bar and signaled the bartender. “My head is very much in the game. It needs to be in someone’s game.”
Wyatt laughed. “Your head is in Texas.”
Luke had the bartender’s attention and skipped his first thought of another beer. “Jack straight up.”
Wyatt lifted his eyebrows.
Even with the noise in the bar, the silence that followed between him and Wyatt sounded like an iceberg in the Pacific.
Luke waved his hand a second time once he downed his first shot of whiskey.
The bartender shifted his eyes between both men and walked away once Luke lifted his glass. Images of Zoe danced behind the mirror in the bar.
“My head is not in Texas,” Luke said.
Wyatt ordered another beer.
The jukebox shifted gears from country to classic rock.
“I know I’m breaking the man code here . . . but I call bullshit on that.”
The liquor in Luke’s head did a tiny tap dance and reminded him he wasn’t a teenager any longer.
“I’m not thinking about her.”
Wyatt set his beer on the bar and squared his shoulders to the back mirror. Looked like the two of them would be speaking through the thing.
“What I don’t understand is why you’re not with her.”
“She left.” Luke didn’t need to say who she was . . . didn’t need to pretend with Wyatt that Zoe didn’t exist. “I’m over it.” He drained his drink.
“You may have been over it. But after the reunion, you stopped being over it.”
Their ten-year class reunion brought Zoe back to town. She’d stuck around long enough to sizzle his world with memories and desire, only to leave when all the festivities ended. Then, when Melanie’s daughter was in the hospital, she’d come back. The two of them had a couple of conversations that made him think maybe . . . just maybe.
Then she left again.
And she didn’t return.
“She’s in Texas. I’m in Oregon.”
“And?”