Barbara Dunlop - An Intimate Bargain

Her sexy fingertips drummed lightly against the table. “So, we could do this?”

“Do what?” He found himself hoping all over again, but he sure wasn’t going to presume a second time.

“Have a casual conversation about nothing that matters. You don’t know me. I don’t know you.”

“Absolutely,” he agreed without hesitation. He could talk with her, or do absolutely anything else that she wanted.

Someone entered the bar through the archway, drawing her attention. She tracked the progress of a fiftysomething man as he headed for the bar. After a few seconds, she seemed to relax. She turned back to Zach.

“Waiting for someone?” he couldn’t help asking.

She emphatically shook her head.

His second guess would be that she was avoiding someone. He took a chance on his instincts. “You want to get out of here?”

She seemed to contemplate his words for a long, slow moment. “Yes,” she finally answered. “I believe I do.”

He gestured with a tilt of his head. “I saw an exit door at the far end of that hall. We can probably make a clean getaway.”

“What makes you think I need a getaway?”

He leaned across the table again, dramatically lowering his voice. “You’re acting like someone who needs to lie low for a while.”

She matched his posture once more. “You make me sound like a felon.”

“Are you a felon?”

She fought a grin. “Would it matter?”

“No,” he answered honestly. With her looks and sense of humor, it truly would not.

She chuckled low, drew back and rose from her chair, retrieving a small, black clutch. “Then let’s do it.”

He stood with her. She moved past him, and the exotic scent of jasmine teased his senses.

He inhaled appreciatively then affected a Chicago-gangster drawl. “Act natural, Doll-Face, and stick close to me.”

She matched his tone. “Right beside you…Lucky.”

He couldn’t help grinning to himself as they crossed the bar. He lowered his voice. “You want I should score us a getaway car?”

“We’re only half a block from Main Street,” she stage-whispered in return. “Plenty of hideouts there.”

They ducked into the hallway then hurried for the back exit. Zach pushed the heavy, steel door open, and they crossed the threshold into the late-summer night. The door clanged shut behind them.

“A clean break,” she breathed, pressing her back dramatically against the brick wall.

“Stick with me, Doll-Face,” he rumbled in return, making a show of checking both directions on the quiet street. “I don’t see any gumshoes hanging around.”

“Good to know. But I’m more worried about constituents.”

“Constituents?” He played dumb. “You mean the feds?”

She shifted away from the wall and started down the short block toward Main Street, her high heels echoing on the pavement. “I mean the good people of Lyndon. I don’t want anyone to recognize me.”

“So I’m hiding you from the entire town?” he asked with mock incredulity.

“Only from the people I know.”

“How many people do know you?”

“Several thousand.”

He fought what seemed like a natural urge to fold her hand into his. “You don’t make things easy on a guy,” he grumbled instead.

“You seem pretty good at this,” she responded, glancing up. “You sure you’re not a real criminal?”

“I’m a businessman.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized they made him sound like a character from The Godfather. “A legitimate one,” he added. But that wasn’t much better. “I don’t have so much as a parking ticket,” he finished, hoping he hadn’t scared her off.

“What kind of-” But then she determinedly shook her head. “Nope. I don’t want to know what you do.”

The wind had picked up, lifting the loose strands of her hair. He resisted an urge to reach out and smooth them back. “Can we at least trade first names?”

She hesitated, a look of consternation crossing her face. Then, just as quickly, she grinned. “Call me Doll-Face.”

He paused as they reached the curb, half turning to offer a handshake. “Call me Lucky.”

She glanced at his hand briefly, then reached out to wrap her delicate fingers over his rough skin. “Hello, Lucky.” Her sweet voice seemed to touch a place deep inside him and settled there.

He let their handshake lengthen, having absolutely no desire to let her go.

Abigail Jacobs didn’t usually flirt. She rarely had the inclination and, lately, she certainly hadn’t had the time. But tonight was different. Her life was about to take a dramatic U-turn, and she didn’t want to face the change just yet. Joking with Lucky was keeping the future at bay.

After tonight, she’d no longer be Abigail Jacobs, sister and campaign manager to mayoral candidate Seth Jacobs. She wouldn’t be running the campaign office, picking up the phone to call business owners and reporters. She wouldn’t polish speeches, organize events, manage budgets and head off crises. Tomorrow morning she’d pack away her dressy clothes, turn in her office keys, give up the leased Audi and leave Lyndon City in a dusty, ranch pickup truck.

Growing up, she’d loved her ranch life, the freedom, the fresh air and open spaces. But somewhere along the way, the city had sunk its hooks in her, making her wish for things she couldn’t have. With her sister Mandy recently engaged to their former neighbor Caleb Terrell, and similarly, her other sister Katrina engaged to Caleb’s brother, Reed, her father and mother in Houston working on his stroke recovery and her brother Seth now the mayor of Lyndon, she couldn’t abandon her other brother, Travis, to manage the ranch alone.

Like it or not, the ball was ending, and tomorrow morning Cinderella was going back to the dust and manure of the real world.

“Hungry?” asked Lucky beside her, his coffee-colored eyes warm in the glow of the streetlights.

“Sure.” It had been quite a while since Abigail had eaten. In a rush this morning, she’d skipped breakfast, and she’d been too nervous to eat all day. When the polls finally closed at dinnertime, the entire team had waited with bated breath for the vote count.

Of course, there’d been food at tonight’s victory party, but there she’d been too busy fielding congratulations and questions about her future plans to eat anything. She’d told everyone she was looking forward to going home to the family ranch. After about the hundredth lie, she’d made her escape to the hotel sports bar.

“Steak?” Lucky asked with a nod toward the glowing red sign for Calbert’s.

She shook her head. “Too many people I’ll know in there.”

“Thai?” he suggested, zeroing in on a smaller, lower-key restaurant a few doors down.

“How about a burger from the drive-through?”

Bert’s Burgers, half a block down in the other direction, catered mostly to a teenage crowd. Much as they’d tried to get out the youth vote, Abigail doubted anyone under the age of twenty-one would recognize her.

“We don’t have a car,” Lucky pointed out.

“We can walk to the drive-through and take the burgers down to the lake.”

He arched a skeptical brow. “You sure?”

She nodded.

There were some picnic tables on the lawn by the beach. The election party fireworks finale was planned for later on the waterfront. But it would take place on the wharf at the opposite end of the bay. This time of night, their only company in the picnic area would be the mallard ducks that slept in the marsh.

“Not much of a date,” he noted as they took advantage of a break in traffic to cross in the middle of the block.

She couldn’t help smiling at that. “This is a date?”