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“Thanks. Don’t mind if I do.” She took the coins and walked over to the corner. It was a vintage model from the seventies called Pin Up—a sexy name for a game with a bowling theme. This was going to be fun. By the time Todd joined her she’d studied the landscape of the machine and was ready to rock and roll.
He set their drinks on a nearby empty table and said, “Okay, let’s see how long you can go.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to go first? I’ll last a lot longer than you,” she taunted him.
He leaned in close, his breath tickling her ear. “You have no idea how long I can last.”
That hit her zing-o-meter. She made a determined effort to ignore it and turned her back on him. “Okay, you had your chance.”
She positioned herself in front of the machine, standing straight. Then she put the ball in play, waiting patiently, not overworking the flippers, nudging the machine enough to get it to work with her but not to the point where it would tilt and end her game. The play went on. And on. Oh, this was fun!
At some point she became aware of the fact that she’d gathered a crowd. And soon the crowd began whooping and clapping. It finally messed up her concentration. Her game ended, and she stepped back from the machine with a frown.
“That was something else, Cec,” Bill Will said reverently.
“Impressive,” Todd admitted.
“I thought this was broken,” one of the bikers said, glaring at Todd.
The man wasn’t much taller than Todd, but he was twice as big and he looked like a block of cement with legs. And attitude. Weren’t most bikers these days supposed to be nice, middle-aged men? Dentists who’d always wanted to own a Harley? Maybe this particular specimen hadn’t gotten the memo.
Todd wasn’t fazed by the customer’s ire. He merely shrugged and said, “I guess she fixed it.” He motioned to the game with his hand, and the big guy pushed his way up to it.
“That was convenient,” Cecily teased. “Now you don’t have to compete with me.”
He grinned. “I can think of other things I’d rather do than compete.”
Zing! So could she. Meanwhile, Jake O’Brien’s new hit song, “Hot and Bothered,” boomed from the speaker.
Todd picked up her glass from the table and handed it to her. “The darts corner is empty. Wanna give it a try?”
“Try is about all I can do,” she said.
She proved it right away. She could barely hit the dartboard, let alone the bull’s-eye, and he beat her soundly.
He was about to give her some pointers when things got noisy over at the pinball machine. The big biker was not happy, and the whole room (with the exception of the TV and the music coming through the speakers) got quiet. Cecily watched as Bill Will, his buddy and the tank top chick casually moved away to the relative safety of the bar. The men on the barstools hunched even lower over their drinks. Meanwhile the biker animal was swearing and pounding on the machine. Bad pinball etiquette.
“He’s going to break that,” Cecily predicted. If her big sister, Samantha, had been here she would’ve fearlessly strode over to the creep and let him have it. Cecily was not her sister.
Todd didn’t have a problem, though. He went to the bar and had a quiet word with his bartender, Pete, then strolled across the tavern to where the gorilla’s friends stood nonchalantly watching as he tried to beat up the pinball machine. Trying to get in touch with her inner Samantha, Cecily followed, not sure what she’d be able to do if things got ugly.
“Sorry, pal, but I’m gonna have to ask you to stop beating on that,” Todd told the man. “It can’t take that kind of abuse.”
The biker stopped, and the way he scowled was clearly a challenge. “The machine’s rigged.”
“What, to favor women?”
Now the biker gorilla loomed over Todd. “Are you trying to make me look like a dick?”
“Not at all,” Todd said easily. “It looks like you don’t need any help with that.”
A couple of the older patrons at the bar snickered. Everyone else in the room braced for the fight that was about to begin.
The biker poked Todd in the chest. “I don’t like smart-asses.”
“And I don’t like jerks. I guess we’re not gonna be friends, so you may as well leave.”
Todd’s antagonist puffed out his mammoth chest. “Yeah? Who’s gonna make me?”
“The cops. We already called them.”
“We haven’t done anything,” protested one of the biker chicks.
Todd nodded. “So far, you’re good to go. I suggest you do that.”
The big man stood for a moment, obviously torn between his desire to pummel Todd and the wiser choice, which was to leave. Finally with a snort of disgust, he smashed his beer bottle on the floor, turned around and marched out of the tavern. His companions followed him out.
Todd shook his head and went to his back room. A few minutes later he returned with a broom and dustpan and a garbage pail.
That was when Tilda Morrison and Jamal Lincoln, two of Icicle Falls’s finest, made their entrance. Cecily watched as he stood talking with them, still unfazed by his close encounter with Godzilla. The man had nerves of steel. He also wasn’t above doing his own menial labor. There was more to Todd Black than a gift for flirting.
“That little confrontation was either very brave or very dumb,” Cecily said after Tilda and Jamal had left. She took the dustpan to hold it for him.
“You can’t wimp out with guys like that. Otherwise they eat you for lunch.” He smiled. “Anyway, it’s easy to be brave when you know the cops are on the way.”
“I suppose,” she said dubiously. “Although he could have done some damage to you before they got here.”
“Could have but didn’t.” He cleaned up the last of the mess and took back the dustpan. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Where?” she asked.
“Someplace where I don’t have to stop what we’re doing to mop up beer. Let me get my stuff out of the office.”
Talk about assuming that she was up for whatever he suggested! Well, maybe she was, since she hadn’t protested.
He disappeared into the nether regions to stow away the broom and garbage, then reappeared wearing a black leather jacket and carrying two motorcycle helmets. After talking briefly with Pete, he walked over to Cecily and handed her one. “Want to take a ride?”
She’d run into Todd around town more times than she cared to count, but she’d usually seen him in a truck. Why was she not surprised to learn that he rode a motorcycle?
“So that’s why you weren’t afraid of that guy. You’re one of them,” she teased.
“Right,” he said.
Next thing she knew she was seated behind him on the bike, holding on for dear life as they rumbled off down the road. No wonder men loved motorcycles. Feeling that power under you as you sped down the highway—it was like an aphrodisiac.
Just what she didn’t need. He hadn’t told her where he wanted to take her, but she had her suspicions.
Sure enough, partway down River Street he stopped the bike in front of a two-story house with a neglected patch of lawn. The porch light was on, spotlighting the fact that the place was obviously in bad shape. Thirsty for paint, it was an eyesore in a popular old neighborhood of Victorian and Craftsman-style homes, some of which had been around since the thirties, most of them restored. Fixed up, it could be really cute, Cecily thought. A fresh coat of white paint, some green trim, a rocker on that front porch...
To her surprise, the inside of the house looked good, with photographs of mountain scenery on cream-colored walls, area rugs scattered over hardwood floors and expensive leather furniture. Funky ceramic art topped the mantelpiece—a raccoon holding a beer bottle and a biker elephant and his lady wearing Harley jackets, sitting astride a motorcycle with two flat tires.
“This is nice,” she said, taking it all in.
“I can guess what you were expecting,” he said. “I’ll get to the outside of the place this summer. How about another Coke?”
“Sure.”
He walked around the corner into the kitchen, then reappeared carrying a couple of glasses and a can of pop. “The big-girl version this time?” He went to a liquor cabinet in the small dining area and pulled out a bottle of rum and held it up, the expression on his face a dare.
“Okay,” she agreed. “But if you’re thinking it’ll help you seduce me, you’re wrong.”
He poured their drinks and returned to where she stood checking out one of the photographs. “You really think I need help?” he asked, his voice a purr as he handed her a glass.
He was standing so close she could smell his aftershave, feel the heat coming off his body. Her heart rate picked up.
Part of her wanted to grab him and wrap her legs around him, but caution made her step away and position herself in front of another picture. Like the one she’d just been studying, it was a masterpiece of camera special effects, this one showing a mountain flower in sharp full bloom with Sleeping Lady Mountain a soft blur in the background. “Did you take all these?”
Now there he was, right next to her again. “Yeah.”
“They’re really good.”
“Don’t sound so shocked. I have other interests besides my business.”
She cocked her head. “Yeah?”
He went to the couch, sat down and patted the cushion beside his. “Yeah.”
She joined him—at the other end, simply to prove she wasn’t going to be some easy lay. “You have quite an eye.”
He shrugged. “I was an art major in college.”
“How could an art major...” She stopped midsentence, realizing it would be insulting to ask how someone with real talent could end up owning a seedy tavern.
He’d seen where she was going, though, and finished the sentence for her. “...wind up owning a tavern? It’s a sound business investment. Anyway, I get a kick out of the place. And I still dabble in photography and painting.”
“The Neanderthal in lederhosen on the side of the building,” she said.
“Self-portrait,” he joked.
“An art major,” she mused. “I never would have guessed.”
“You probably never would have guessed a lot of things about me. But then, that’s because you’ve been too busy running away from me.”
“So, if a woman doesn’t fall all over you, she’s running away from you?”
“We’re not talking about a woman. We’re talking about one woman. You.” He set his drink on the coffee table and scooted over, closing the distance between them.
She cast her gaze around the room, looking for something else to comment on. Of course, that would only postpone the inevitable. What was she doing here?
He rested an arm on the back of the couch and began playing with her hair, stirring up her nerve endings.
She took a long drink of her rum and Coke to settle them down. It didn’t work.
He removed the glass from her hand and gently nudged her chin in his direction. “I’ve wanted to kiss you ever since I first saw you. Are you gonna let me?”
And then, assuming the answer would be yes, he did just that, and her nerve endings went from stirred to shaken. Oh, she was in trouble. Against her better judgment, she was falling hard for this man. She felt his hand drifting along her midriff, moving upward, and her nerve endings went into delirium. If she didn’t stop this right now, she never would. And she wasn’t ready to make that leap yet. She had to be sure.
She pulled away. “That was quite a kiss.”
“You’re quite a woman,” he said and started to move in for more.
She placed a hand on his chest. “I think I’ve had enough fun for one night.”
“Don’t like to kiss on the first date?” he teased.
“I’m not sure playing pinball at your tavern and then coming over here for a grope fest counts as a date.”
“Who groped? You never let me get that far.”
“It’s time for me to go home,” she said and stood.
He stood, too. Now they were just a breath away from each other. He reached up and began playing with her hair again. “Have I mentioned that I’m a sucker for blondes?”
And she was a sucker for having someone play with her hair. But she wasn’t about to be suckered by Todd Black—at least not tonight. “Thanks for sharing,” she said and removed his fingers from her hair.
“And you are truly the most beautiful blonde I’ve ever seen.”
Men had been telling her she was beautiful since puberty, and she wanted more than someone who was turned on by her appearance. She wasn’t interested in a relationship where sex was the driving force. Although, if that kiss was any indication, sex with Todd Black would be amazing.
Stop it! she scolded herself. To him she said, “I’ve heard that before.” And it didn’t move her. She needed to be with a man who wanted more.
“I bet you have. I bet men have been telling you you’re beautiful since the day you got your first training bra.”
She frowned at him. “That was poetic.”
“I try.”
“Try harder. I’m not looking for someone to sleep with.”
“Aw, and I put clean sheets on the bed and everything.”
Cecily frowned at him again. “Can’t you ever be serious?”
“Yeah, actually, I can. You’ll have to go out with me, so I can show you my serious side.”
“It’s a little hard to date when I work days and you work nights, doncha think?”
“I own the place. I can take a night off. I can take tomorrow night off. Let’s go out to dinner. Zelda’s, and a movie after.”
