LITMIR.BIZ

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knew was that she felt upset after being with him often enough that she was certain he had to be.

      “You know. You are... Provocative.” He was. He provoked her. That was the word. Not mean, maybe, but she always left interactions with him feeling like she’d been poked with a stick.

      He lifted one brow. “Provocative? Well. That has several connotations to it, sweet thing.”

      There he was. Provoking. “Do not call me that.”

      “Don’t call you what?” He lifted his glass and indicated the empty state to Laz. “Honey or sweet thing?”

      “Both. Neither. I am nothing remotely sugar-based to you.”

      “Well. My mistake.”

      Laz refilled Luke’s glass and Olivia shot him the evil eye. “I’m not paying for two drinks.”

      “You’re a peach, Olivia,” Luke said. “I’m real sorry about that stuck-up comment.”

      She looked out of the corner of her eye and saw that Bennett was watching her closely. That Bennett was watching Luke and herself. She turned back quickly, focusing her attention on Luke.

      “I’m not your peach, either.” She sniffed.

      For some reason she couldn’t quite pin down, she settled into her seat a little more firmly and listed a bit to the side, her shoulder brushing up against Luke’s.

      He paused with his glass up against his lips, his green eyes turning sharp enough to cut straight through her. Her eyes lowered, resting on those lips, still pressed against the whiskey tumbler. He had just a bit of gold scruff right there around his mouth, spreading over his square jaw, the beginnings of a beard or just the end of a long workday. For some reason, she found herself captivated by it. And by the shape of his mouth.

      Quickly, she raised her gaze back to his, and found it wasn’t any more comforting.

      Then his eyes narrowed and he tilted his head slightly to the side, looking quickly over his shoulder and back at the table of Dodges behind them.

      “Don’t play games with me, Olivia,” he said, his voice low, rough. “You’re not going to win any of them.”

      She swiveled her head to look at him, keeping her face blank. Keeping her mind blank. “What do you mean?”

      “You leaning in like that. Because he’s watching. You think you’re gonna make him jealous?”

      She reeled back, moving herself away from Luke. As far away as possible. “No. I wasn’t doing anything.”

      He chuckled. “Yes, you were.”

      She hated him. She really did. He seemed to put the pieces of her motivation together faster than she did and it wasn’t fair.

      “No one would believe it,” she said. “Nobody would believe that I...”

      The words froze in her throat. Not just because she could hear how bitchy they sounded, but because suddenly she couldn’t remember what she had been about to say anyway. Because he was looking at her with that steady green gaze, that glass still poised just below his lips and the overhead lights of the bar were highlighting that scruff on his face. Suddenly, she was thinking about the texture of that, too. She wondered if it would be rough, like she imagined his hands would be. He was a very rough sort of creature.

      She was not a rough sort of creature.

      “Oh, they’d believe it,” he said, his lips tipping upward into a cocky smile. “Even good girls do something stupid every now and again.” He took a swallow of his whiskey. “Might as well be me.”

      There was that itch, the one that bloomed beneath her skin whenever he was close. That felt like a cross between having a match struck against her flesh and stepping on a star thistle.

      “I don’t do stupid things,” she said.

      “Except for maybe break up with the boyfriend you claim you don’t want to be broken up with?”

      “I don’t want to be broken up with him.” She tapped the side of her glass. “I want to get back together with him.”

      “So you say. I don’t buy it.”

      “I didn’t ask you to buy it. I’m not trying to sell it to you.”

      “True enough. But, maybe we can try to sell something to him.” He reached out and that hand she had just been pondering made contact with her skin. He squeezed her chin between his thumb and the curve of the knuckle on his forefinger. And it was rough. Just like she had thought it might be. Then he winked. “I’ll see you around, kiddo.”

      Then he knocked back the rest of his whiskey and reached into his wallet, putting a twenty on the counter and walking back to where the Dodges were sitting.

      She just sat there, staring at him like she had been clubbed in the head.

      He had touched her.

      And he had winked at her.

      And he had called her kiddo, which for some reason felt a million times more offensive and slightly more disconcerting than honey or sweet thing had.

      He was an annoyance. A constant annoyance.

      She looked back into her Diet Coke, feeling flushed and prickly and isolated. Because nobody was sitting at the bar with her. She wasn’t welcome at the table over there. Or anywhere the Dodges were. That hurt in a variety of strange and sharp ways. She had been friends with that family for most of her life and now she just wasn’t welcome.

      She had to believe it was because the breakup had hurt Bennett. And as much as she didn’t want him hurt, she did want to know that he cared.

      She sneaked another glance back toward the table, and saw that Bennett was looking at her again. Then she looked at Luke. At his broad back. Broad shoulders. He was not looking at her. And she could still feel the impression of his touch against her chin.

      Her gaze darted back to Bennett and she noticed that his expression was speculative. So she offered him that enigmatic smile she had been practicing earlier. Because she was working on being an enigma rather than a broadcast system.

      Then she finished the rest of her Diet Coke and started to fish in her purse for some money.

      Laz walked over to the bar and picked up the twenty Luke had left behind. “That actually covers everything, Olivia,” he said.

      And all she could do was stand there and stare, feeling light-headed. Because somehow, Luke Hollister had ended up buying her a drink, and that had not been the plan.

      Olivia didn’t like it when things didn’t go to plan. But unfortunately, that seemed to be the story of her life at the moment.

      She got up off the stool and walked slowly across the scarred-up wooden floor, looking down and shoving her hands in her coat pockets, careful not to look at anyone in the saloon. She edged the door open with her shoulder and walked out onto the street. It was dark out, and chilly.

      The kind of cold that efficiently sliced through nice, sleek wool coats and penetrated down beneath the skin. But apparently not the kind of cold that could eradicate the heat left behind by Luke Hollister’s hand.

      She focused on putting one foot in front of the other as she walked down the uneven sidewalk, her each and every step bathed by the golden glow of the old-fashioned streetlights that lined the street.

      Today had been weird. And it had contained far too much Luke for her liking.

      Tomorrow would be different. It would be better. It would not begin with a flat tire. And it would not end with Luke Hollister’s thumb pressed against her chin.

      At this point in her life she was certain of very few things. But that was one of them.

       CHAPTER

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