Dierk leans back, his gaze lingering on me.
“You just haven’t been with a real man, Edie. I wouldn’t mind
showing you a thing or two.” He licks his lips and scans me
seductively. Dierk speaks like this to everyone, but I know deep
down he’d show me exactly what he’s offering if I let him. Believe
me, I’ve thought about it a time or two, but so has every other
girl in town and the only difference between me and them is I
haven’t acted on those thoughts.
“Jesus, Dierk,” Joey punches his arm. “Her
grandfather just died. Keep it in your pants.”
“I’m sorry,” he replies and holds his hands
up in mock surrender. “But if you need a shoulder to cry on, I’ve
been told I can really
drive
the blues away,” he says, with
a confident smile, and Joey groans.
“Dierk…” Nikki pauses, shaking her head as
if she’s unsure of where to begin. There are so many things wrong
with his lame attempt at sexual innuendo.
“As tempting as that sounds,” I say,
sardonically, “I think I’ll pass. I’ll go get us a few more
drinks,” I tell no one in particular as I slide out of the booth.
Nikki doesn’t even notice I’m leaving as she texts on her
phone.
I meander up to the bar and wait until Earl
approaches me, his brows furrowed in sympathy. I’ve been getting
that look from everybody these days. ”How’re you holding up, sug?”
Standing at six feet tall, Earl is a towering man whose life is
plain to see as it stretches across his face in wrinkles. He and my
grandfather were good buddies, fishing partners, and I know he will
miss him almost as much as me.
“Beer’s helping.” I smile and look away from
him. I haven’t cried since the day Daddy Bud died, three days ago.
He asked me not to mourn him. “One good cry, baby girl, then chin
up,” he’d made me promise. If I stare into Earl’s worrisome eyes
much longer, I might breakdown and at this moment my buzz is the
only thing getting me through my pain.
“I’ll get you another pitcher,” he mumbles,
and heads down the bar toward the drafts. Guess he caught my
attempt to not discuss it. I slide onto a barstool and stare at
myself in the mirror that lines the wall behind the liquor bottles.
I’m only twenty-two, well, twenty-three in a month, but damn if I
don’t feel old. Life has somehow worn me down in a way I know it
shouldn’t have. Not when I’m so young.
“What are you going to do now?” I ask
myself—
I think quietly
—but apparently my buzz is altering my
ability to judge my own volume.
“I think the entire town is wondering that,”
a smooth, deep voice answers, and I jerk my head in its direction.
The first thing I see is a perfectly angular face, cut jawline, and
amazing brown eyes. But then…I see the rest of him. Dressed in a
black suit that fits him exquisitely, accentuating his broad
shoulders, the stranger peers down at me and heat blankets my skin
as I take all of him in. Why is my heart beating so fast? I’m not
sure I’ve ever reacted this way at the sight of a man before. Holly
Springs isn’t Podunk, we have a variety of folks, including ones
that wear suits so it’s not like I’ve never seen a guy in a suit
before, but the stranger, he doesn’t just wear his suit. He owns
it; like he was born to wear it; he looks like some kind of
freaking suit model or something. To top it off, he’s severely
attractive, clean shaven, and tall.
Shit. I’m staring. Stop staring, Edie.
“And how would you know what the town is
wondering? You’re not from around here,” I ask him casually as if
his extreme hotness isn’t making my skin tingle.
“I don’t have to be from around here. It’s
all anyone is talking about. Poor Edie James. I hate to tell ya,
most of them think you’re going to go mental.” He gives me a look
of sympathy before sipping his highball.
My head rears back. Who in the hell does he
think he is talking to me like that? Suddenly the haze of his
hotness that I’ve been entranced by fades. Maybe it’s the alcohol
or the fact my week has been crap, but I’m not in the mood for
someone’s assumptions or pity, especially from a complete
stranger—incredibly hot or not. With a smile as saccharine as I can
muster, I ask, “I’m sorry, you are?”
“John Wilson.” He holds out his hand to
shake mine, but I just glance at it before my gaze meets his again.
It really is a shame I’m about to tell this guy off because he has
the most gorgeous brown eyes. Eyes that look like they could bore
inside of me and find out all of my deep dark secrets. Not that I
have many, but if I did. “I’m sorry for your loss.” He clears his
throat and frowns slightly.
“You knew my grandfather?”
He smiles faintly. “Yeah. I knew Bud. He was
a good man.”
My heart squeezes with his words. Daddy Bud
was the best of men. Either way, the suit doesn’t know me and
shouldn’t be telling me how the town thinks I’ll go ‘crazy.’ “Well
Mr. Wilson, I appreciate your concern, but my personal business is
none of your business,” I say, saucily.
Oh yeah, I’m officially
drunk.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have to go work on going
mental.”
I slide off the barstool and he says, “I
didn’t say I agreed with them.”
Spinning around, I narrow my eyes at him.
“Why are you talking to me?”
“You look…lost. I’ve been there,” he says
seriously as he stares down at me. I’m not sure what his expression
means, but he looks almost…understanding?
“Lost? And what? You can show me the way,
Mr. Wilson?” Why’d I say that? Because he looks like trouble. Sexy,
sophisticated, make my toes curl in ecstasy sort of—trouble. I
don’t need that kind of stress in my life. I’m almost positive he’s
coming on to me, so my response seems appropriate. He looks like
the kind of guy that loves women, gets them easily, and lets them
go just as fast. When he doesn’t respond, I continue to tell him
off in my belligerent state. “I’m not the type of woman that needs
to be ‘shown the way,’ but I’m sure any of the other ladies in here
might bite if you baited them with that line.”
God, I’m so
clever.
Stupid man thinking he can just breeze into town and
pick me up when I’m sad and vulnerable and charm me with his big
city sexiness.
“Clearly you have it all figured out,” he
responds and smirks, and I hate how sexy he looks. “It was lovely
to meet you, Edie.” He takes my hand where it sits by my side and
kisses it.
I stare at him blankly, the skin on my hand
prickling from where his lips just touched it.
“Is there a problem here, Edie?” Earl asks
as he slides my pitcher of beer across the bar to me.
I finally tear my gaze away from the
incredibly sexy man in front of me and answer, “No, Earl. Just a
friendly conversation that’s now over. Have a lovely evening, Mr.
Wilson.” With a cheeky smile, I take the pitcher and head back to
my table. The skin on my hand where his lips brushed burns, but in
a good way—or a really bad way, depending on how you look at
it.
“Who was that?” Nikki asks, staring at the
suit as I slide into my seat.
“He knew Daddy Bud,” I whisper.
“That’s a fine piece of man.” Nikki nods
approvingly.
“Stop looking at him! You’re being obvious,”
I hiss at her.
“He wouldn’t notice,” Dierk adds. “He’s too
busy staring at you, Edie.”
With that, I glance back to the suit and our
eyes lock. Heat covers my face and I jerk my eyes away.
“Looks kind of prissy to me,” Joey
snorts.
“If by ‘prissy’ you mean could fuck any girl
in this bar if he chose to do so, then yes, he looks prissy,” Nikki
teases, her blue eyes still honing on the suit.
“That’s exactly what I meant,” Joey says
dryly. “That guy looks so fuckable,” he says in mock falsetto.
We all laugh as I fill my pint glass with
more beer from the pitcher and quickly begin to chug it down. There
are already so many things I want to forget about today. I want to
forget the loss of Daddy Bud, his funeral, the fact I have no idea
what I will do now, and to top it off, a sexy stranger that somehow
got under my skin after barely speaking to him. I need to drink
myself into obliteration.
“I’m going to drive you two home tonight,”
Dierk volunteers as I continue to chug my beer down.
“That’s probably a good idea,” Nikki
nods.
And that’s the last thing I remember.