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Not that he’d protested, she thought, looking for the silver lining. In fact he seemed in a remarkably good mood.
“Do you want to scope out the appetizers?” she asked. “Not that you have to go with me. Adrianna was just kidding. I don’t need anyone taking care of me.”
She was on the verge of saying more when she snapped her mouth shut. Men hated women who babbled, and right now she was poised to babble with the best of them.
“I’d like to check out the food.” Her heart skipped a beat when he held out his arm. “If I remember correctly the only thing you need to avoid is anything with shrimp.”
Betsy groaned. Honest to goodness groaned. “Of all the things to remember, you had to recall that?”
“It’s not every day I get to see a person covered in hives,” he said with a little too much enthusiasm for her liking. “You even had them on your—”
“Scalp,” she said. “Yes, I remember.”
“Keenan put that pink stuff all over your skin,” he said, warming to the memory. “It looked like Pepto-Bismol.”
“Don’t remind me.” She remembered that night well. Her mother had been out running around God knew where and Betsy had been hungry. She’d eaten some old shrimp rollups they’d had in the freezer. That’s when the hives had broken out. She’d been terrified, then relieved when Keenan had come home early.
But when she saw whom he was with, her terror had turned to horror. The last person she’d wanted to see her with those big red welts covering her skin was Ryan. But he hadn’t laughed or made fun of her. Instead he’d called his parents to find out what they should do.
While Keenan had helped smear the Caladryl lotion on her hard-to-reach places, Ryan had run to the corner store and gotten an antihistamine for her to take. By the time her mother finally dragged herself through the front door at 3:00 a.m., the hives had already started to fade.
“Hey.” He leaned closer, a teasing glint in his eyes. “How many men can say they’ve seen you at your worst?”
“Ha, ha.” Betsy was thankful her voice came out all casual and offhand, which was a real feat considering her knees had gone boneless and she was having difficulty thinking with him so near.
He sat back and his gaze zeroed in on a large buffet table at the back of the great room. A pristine white linen cloth with scalloped edges covered the oak top, but it appeared to be the food which had captured Ryan’s attention.
“Is that—” he turned to her, his eyes wide and guileless “—shrimp cocktail? I could get you one. Maybe you’re not allergic anymore.”
Betsy jabbed him in the ribs, forgetting he was the man she’d loved—and lusted after—for years. “Settle down, or I’m going to tell everyone the story of when Keenan locked you out of the locker room in your boxers—”
“You’re right. Stay clear of the shrimp.”
She couldn’t help it. Betsy laughed with sheer joy. This was the Ryan she wanted. Not the perfectly behaved gentleman lawyer who hadn’t cracked one joke all week. But the Ryan who made her laugh and with whom she shared a common history.
If only she could figure out a way to capture this moment. And better yet, find a way to translate friendship into love.
In the past ninety minutes Adrianna had talked to everyone but him. Yet Ryan wasn’t discouraged. He’d already accomplished a lot for one evening. When the hostess suggested a rousing game of charades, he knew it was time to leave on a high note.
Ryan glanced at the woman by his side, delicately picking a piece of chicken meat from the bone. Her brows were pulled together and she was studying the tiny piece of meat as if it were a complex legal case she was researching. He got the feeling Betsy was bored, too.
Actually, he realized, she was what had saved this party from being a total washout. They’d roamed the room like a couple of old friends, laughing and talking to others they knew and some they’d just met. The buffet table had drawn their attention several times and they’d picked and chosen from its sumptuous bounty.
Betsy was fun, with a quick wit and a sly sense of humor in sync with his own. They talked about the old days and he’d just finished reliving his high school prom debacle when Betsy had decided she desperately needed more wings.
“It’s no wonder you had to lasso a few more,” he said to her. “There isn’t enough meat on one to feed an ant.”
A becoming shade of pink rose up her neck, but she lifted her chin. “I didn’t eat supper. So I’m not quite the porker I appear to be.”
“Porker?” He dropped his gaze and slowly surveyed her lean but curvy body. “Not hardly.”
The pink on her cheeks deepened to red. “You don’t need to make nice,” she said with a dismissive wave. “I love to eat. In fact several times during my childhood I was sorely tempted to cut the candy heart out of my Raggedy Ann.”
“You played with dolls?”
“I did when I was a little girl.”
“You just never seemed the doll-playing type to me,” he said. “I don’t recall seeing any lying around your house.”
“That’s because I hardly had any.” Betsy dropped the chicken wing to her plate, then wiped her fingers on a linen napkin. “Keenan bought Raggedy Ann for me with his paper-route money. She was my first and only doll. He was ten and I was five.”
“Keenan bought a doll with his paper-route money.” Ryan could barely fathom that the rough-and-tumble friend from his youth would do something like that, even if it was for his little sister.
The realization that perhaps he hadn’t known Keenan as well as he thought he did hadn’t even had time to settle in when Betsy grabbed the front of his sweater in her hand and pulled him close. “Don’t you say one word to him about it either.” Her eyes grew piercing. “Understand?”
Ryan considered teasing her a bit more, but something in her eyes made him simply nod. Growing up in the McGregor household hadn’t been easy for either Keenan or Betsy. If his friend had found a way to make it easier on his little sister, well, Ryan would give him a break on the doll thing.
Betsy’s gaze drifted to the groups already forming for the game. She wrinkled her nose. “I hate charades.”
“That makes two of us,” Ryan said. “Want to sneak out?”
A look he couldn’t quite decipher skittered across Betsy’s face. Then she sighed. “You came with Mitzi, remember?”
Mitzi? Heck, he hadn’t seen the brunette since he’d walked through the door behind her. And that was just the way they both wanted it. “We drove separately.”
Ryan thought for a minute. He hadn’t seen Betsy with anyone all night, with the exception of him, of course. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t come with someone. “What about you?”
“I’m on my own.” The words came out on a little sigh.
“Good.”
She cocked her head. “Why good?”
He smiled. “Because you and I are going to do some serious partying and now there’s nothing standing in our way.”
Chapter Three
Betsy glanced at the glass of wine in her hand. Could someone have slipped something in her drink? That was the only explanation. She had to be hallucinating. There was no way on God’s green earth that Ryan Harcourt would ask her to party with him.
She glanced up and into those eyes that reminded her of liquid silver. “Pardon?”
“Good. I knew you’d be up for it.” He disappeared into a bedroom and returned with two coats—her Eskimo-inspired parka and his stylish but rugged L.L.Bean coat.
“How did you know this one was mine?” she asked, slipping her arm into one sleeve.
“You’ve worn it to the office every day this week.”
Yes, but it had also been safely tucked into the coat closet by the time he arrived. While it was warm, Betsy was well aware it wasn’t the most fashionable of outerwear. Obviously all her stealth had been for nothing.
The man was observant. Too observant. Alarm bells began ringing in her head. He’d noticed her coat. What would be next? Would he one day look in her eyes and see what she tried so hard to hide?
He can’t know I love him. I won’t allow that to happen.
“Nothing gets past you,” she said with a halfhearted chuckle.
“Thanks for the compliment,” he said, sounding pleased.
Before Betsy knew what was happening, he’d hauled her off to the hostess, and they’d said their goodbyes to everyone, including Adrianna, who seemed oddly pleased to see her best friend leaving the party early.
Because Betsy and Ryan both lived not far from downtown Jackson, she dropped her car at her home and they took his truck from there. She wasn’t sure it was a good idea. What if she wanted to leave the bar before Ryan was ready to go? But he assured her that he would leave whenever she said the word.
It made sense, she supposed, to ride together. After all, parking was at a premium in downtown Jackson, especially on a weekend night. Luckily a big Ram 4x4 was just pulling out of a spot on the street when they drew close.
Ryan shot a smile at her and stopped to wait. “Looks like this is our lucky day.”
Our lucky day. Not his lucky day. Not her lucky day. But ours.
Even though Betsy liked the sound of that—liked it a lot—it didn’t mean she’d lost all power of rational thought. She knew she’d simply been in the right place at the right time. Ryan had wanted to ditch the party and it looked better to be leaving with her than to leave alone. Still, “our lucky day” did have a nice ring.
“I’m going to leave my coat in the car,” Betsy said as he pulled into the vacated parking spot. She unfastened her seat belt, then reached for the zipper to her parka.
“Let me help you with that.” Ryan leaned over and assisted her with slipping the jacket from her shoulders.
She looked up and their eyes met. Electricity filled the air. Betsy held her breath.
But when he stepped from the truck without saying another word, she decided it must have been only her own overactive imagination conjuring up something that wasn’t there.
“I’m glad we found a close spot,” Betsy said over her shoulder. She’d started hurrying along the sidewalk the second her boots hit the pavement. Although she knew it would be toasty warm inside the crowded bar, outside the wind held a bone-chilling bite.
Despite her rush, Ryan still reached the door to the bar first. Like a proper gentleman, he pulled it open, then stepped aside, motioning her inside.
Betsy slipped past him, taking one deep breath of his spicy cologne before the pleasing scent was lost in the smell of sawdust, French fried potatoes and peanuts.
Ryan leaned close, shouting in her ear, “It’s packed tonight.”
She nodded, unable to keep the smile from her face. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so happy. Okay, it had been Tuesday when Ryan had told her the job was hers. And again that day, when she’d learned that the salary was considerably higher than what she’d been making at her previous position.
But this, well, this was different. This was a fantasy come to life. A night out with Ryan. She felt as if she was at a craps table in Vegas rolling sevens.
“Ryan, ohmigod, someone said you weren’t coming tonight.”
The sexy, breathless voice belonged to one of the blondes Betsy had seen him with last week. Her hair was tousled around her pretty face, but it wasn’t her bright smile that seemed to capture Ryan’s attention. It was her chambray shirt with pearl buttons hanging open, showing an amazing amount of cleavage. Even Betsy was impressed.
Snake eyes, she could almost hear the craps dealer call out. Her luck had come to an end.
“Who’s she?” The young blonde’s brows furrowed as she finally noticed the former bull rider wasn’t alone.
“This is Betsy,” Ryan crooked a companionable arm around her shoulders. “She’s an old friend.”
Old friend. Hmm. Better than saying she was his employee.
The blonde looked her up and down, clearly not liking where Ryan’s arm was positioned. “I bet you don’t play darts.”
Before Betsy could answer, the woman jerked a thumb toward Ryan. “Me and him are a winning combination.”
“Actually I’ve tossed quite a few in my time.” Quite a few may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but Keenan had taught her how to hold and toss a dart. At one time she’d been pretty good at it, too, but that had been years ago.
“I don’t think so.” The girl sniffed.
Betsy felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She narrowed her gaze. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“Ladies, ladies.” Ryan may have spoken to both of them, but it was Betsy who found herself on the end of his conciliatory smile. “There’s no shame in not playing.”
He thought she was lying, too. Betsy pressed her lips together and counted to ten. When she finally found her voice, she pinned the young blonde with her gaze. “Let’s play a game. Then you can offer me an apology.”
A momentary indecision filled the girl’s gaze. She shot a glance in Ryan’s direction.
Someone handed him a beer and he smiled benignly at the two women. “Sounds like a good solution to me,” he said, taking a sip.
Suspicion filled the blonde’s eyes. She glanced from Ryan to Betsy. “Is this some kind of setup?”
“A setup?” Betsy asked, puzzled.
Ryan simply grinned and took another drink.
“It is.” The blonde tossed her head, sending her hair cascading down her back. “Well, you can forget it. I’m not playing along.”
She turned abruptly and sashayed her way across the bar, her head held high.
“What’s up with her?” Betsy asked.
“Heidi doesn’t—”
“Her name is Heidi?” Betsy bit back a giggle, the name conjuring up an image of a mountain girl frolicking with goats.
Ryan began to nod, then paused. “At least I think that’s her name.”
“She looks more like a Bambi to me.” The second the words left her mouth, Betsy wished she could pull them back. Even though the girl’s attitude rubbed her wrong, there was no need to stoop to her level.
“Maybe that is her name,” Ryan said, her comment appearing to have gone straight over his head. “I don’t remember.”
The fact that he wasn’t really on a first-name basis with the curvaceous blonde buoyed Betsy’s spirits. She couldn’t keep a smile from her lips.
“Can I get you something to drink?” he asked.
“Club soda with a twist of lime, please.”
“Ah, so you’ve decided to be a little wild and crazy tonight,” he said teasingly. “I like it.”
