LITMIR.BIZ

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blouse and jeans, her nearly black hair waves framing classic features, the young woman was one of those rare creatures who, while undoubtedly pretty enough without makeup, could knock a man’s socks off with it. Smoky shadow and carefully applied eyeliner only served to accentuate huge, ice-blue eyes, while she had the kind of mouth just made for red lipstick. And Alek knew more than one European model who would kill for that flawless complexion.

      “It’s about all these other customers, Jeffrey Eugene?” she said in an accent thick as treacle, then turned that bright, sweet smile on Alek, and he was startled to feel his blood stir in a way it hadn’t for a long, long time. Flirting with waitresses wasn’t Alek’s thing. Nor was he flirting now. Exactly. But that smile certainly snagged his attention. Not to mention a libido he’d been sorely neglecting of late.

      “Luanne Evans, Alek Hastings.” Jeff took a swig of his beer, then another tug of her apron. “Be nice to him,” he said in a stage whisper. “He’s from out of town.”

      “Oh, yeah?” Her voice was breathy and weightless, like a child’s. She picked up Jeff’s sweating bottle, then wiped off the already-clean table, which made her breasts move in a way Alek found more than a little distracting. “From whereabouts?”

      His eyes jerked to her face. “Carpathia.”

      “No foolin’?”

      Alek leaned back in his chair, a smile tickling his lips. “You’ve heard of it?”

      “Some of us,” she said, obviously for Jeff’s benefit, “actually paid attention in geography class.” Then she rattled off not only the location of the tiny principality nestled in central Europe, but the square mileage, Carpathia’s capital and the fact that their monarchy—now constitutional—had gone unchallenged for more than four hundred years. And while Alek sat there, at once flummoxed and extraordinarily impressed, she stared at him for a long moment, ignoring repeated entreaties from the next table. Then she crossed her arms underneath that pair of truly lovely breasts. “One thing bothers me, though.”

      “And what might that be?”

      “What in tarnation are you doin’ here?”

      Alex smiled. Slowly. Now he was flirting, no holds barred. Her directness, her intelligence, her spirit—and, all right, her physical attributes—positively inflamed him, body and soul. “I thought I knew, up until a few minutes ago.” The smile broadened as he leaned forward, let their gazes tangle. “But now I wonder if perhaps I’ve been led here…for reasons I’ve yet to discover.”

      Although she kept her smile in place, not even the darkness could disguise her blush. Alek felt duly—and justifiably—chastised. But before he could apologize, he caught the look on Jeff’s face, one that clearly said I want that as he gave Luanne their orders, then snatched her pencil out of her hand. Playful, still. And respectful—Alek, took note—despite an attraction that Alek surmised had more substance than his friend was letting on.

      “So, darlin’—when you gonna put me out of my misery and marry me?”

      Ah.

      But, apparently recovered from Alek’s gaffe, Luanne only laughed. Carefully arranged tendrils grazed her cheeks when she shook her head. “Now, you know as well as I do that marrying you would be like marrying my own brother.” She recovered her pencil, then popped him lightly on the head with it. “Wouldn’t be natural.” Then she sashayed off, giving them both an enticing view of the way her jeans cupped that extremely nice, perfectly rounded bottom, how her hair water-falled nearly to her waist.

      On a sigh, Jeff lifted his bottle of beer, peered at it with one eye closed. “Kinda makes incest look a lot more attractive, don’t it?”

      Alek chuckled, counting his blessings the young man had apparently missed Alek’s lame, and ill-considered, attempt at a pick-up line. “You’ve got a thing for her, I take it?”

      Squinting, Jeff tipped back his chair. “Oh, we tease a lot, Lulabelle and me—shoot, we’ve known each other since we were in grade school—but I don’t suppose it would seem natural, like she said. But I’m here to tell you—” he nodded his beer bottle in Alek’s direction before he took a pull “—I’d do anything for that gal, I really would. No matter what my dang-fool family thinks.”

      Alek frowned at the edge to Jeff’s voice. “Meaning?”

      The chair thunked back to the floor as Jeff leaned forward again. “Meaning, some folks seem to think where you live or what you do for a living is more important than you who are. Never mind that Luanne was the smartest girl in school—fact, if it weren’t for her, I never would have gotten my sorry butt through algebra—or that, after her mama got sick, she supported the two of them for three years without askin’ for a lick of help from nobody.” Jeff shook his head, disgust pulling his mouth taut. “Galls the life out of me, sometimes, the way people judge other people, y’know? Well, damn it, I know what she’s worth. If anything, she’s far too good for the likes of ninety percent of the men around here, and that’s a fact.”

      Although Alek had to smile at the young man’s pup-protecting-his-mistress loyalty, something—a vague disingenuousness, perhaps?—kicked up the odd hackle or two. Nothing he could define, just an odd feeling that a smart person would do well to not take Jeff’s easygoing manner at face value. However, applause for the singer, followed by Luanne’s appearance with their food, stanched further musings. The waitress had a smile and hair ruffle for Jeff…and a cool, cautious head-nod and “Hope you enjoy your dinner” for Alek. She didn’t seem angry or hurt, though, as much as…disappointed.

      She moved off to another table a few feet away, chatting and joking with the patrons as if she’d known them all her life. Which she undoubtedly had.

      Alek suppressed a sigh. Granted, he was used to getting what he wanted. In fact, most people would probably consider him spoiled. With good reason. Even so, he found no pleasure in using people or in taking undue advantage of his position.

      Or in hurting feelings, if he could help it. That a woman working in a bar should be more thick-skinned was beside the point. Perhaps she had little choice in her place of employment. Perhaps she dreaded coming to work, night after night, fearing that, just because she was pretty and friendly, some moron might misinterpret her natural ebullience as a come-on.

      Well, the least this moron could do was to attempt to remedy the situation.

      She jerked, a little, when he caught up to her at the bar a little later. Although her lips curved into a smile as she deftly loaded drinks onto her tray, a certain guardedness immediately settled into those bright blue eyes—eyes that, nevertheless, had no compunction about meeting his.

      “Everything okay?” she asked over the barrage of conversation cocooning them. “C’n I get you boys anything else?”

      “I just wanted to apologize,” he said, and the eyes went saucer wide.

      “For what?”

      “For offending you earlier.”

      She stared at him for a long moment, clearly having no earthly idea what to do with his comment. Then she yanked the tray off the bar, averting her gaze. “No offense taken,” she said softly.

      Only she turned back, the beginnings of a smile tweaking at one corner of her mouth. “But I appreciate you taking the trouble to apologize. That was real sweet of you. Most men… Well, it was just real nice, is all. Thanks.”

      And that should have been that. Except, for the rest of the evening Alek found his attention straying to the vivacious young woman with a laugh or smile or friendly word for everyone. If life had been less than kind to her, she certainly didn’t seem to be holding it against anyone. And he acknowledged to himself that, in those few seconds between his apology and her acceptance, something in Luanne Evans’s honest blue eyes had shot straight through to the cynicism knotted inside him, loosening it just a bit.

      Edging aside the despair just enough to let in the barest trickle of something he couldn’t

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