Kristina Knight - Famous In A Small Town

“You guys are wusses,” Adam said and then asked Juanita for another draft. “Time was we’d drink in here until Merle shut it down and still get up at the butt crack of dawn for work or...whatever.”

“Time was we didn’t all have responsibilities,” James reminded his friend and then added, with a pointed gaze, “like a lovely wife and two great kids waiting at home.”

Adam rolled his eyes at that. “Jenny gets the guys’ night out thing, and the kids have school, which means an eight o’clock bedtime.”

“If Jenny was my wife, I’d be taking advantage of kids’ early bedtimes with an early bedtime of my own,” James said, a sly smile on his face. Of all of them, James had changed the most since high school. Back then he’d been the geek—the football-playing geek, but still the geek. Now he had half the single women in Slippery Rock panting after him, wanting to be Mrs. Sheriff James Calhoun. That was, if James’s father ever left his post as sheriff. “See you guys next week,” he said, grabbing his water bottle from the table.

“James has the right idea. See you guys next week,” Levi said. He picked up his ball cap from the table and slipped it over his head. He looked back. “No more trying to maim each other with darts,” he said, waving a finger between Collin and Adam. “Never mind the coffee, Juanita,” he called as he pushed through the doorway.

Adam lifted his hands as if he were innocent. “You gonna go talk to her?”

“You’re an ass.” Collin shook his head. “No, I’m not talking to Savannah Walters. We don’t have anything to talk about.”

“Who said you needed something to talk about?”

Collin blinked. Was he missing something here?

“She’s back in town.” Adam said the words slowly as if Collin might not understand simple English.

“And?”

“You’re currently available.”

“And?”

“She’s currently available, at least if you go by the tabloids.”

“Again, I say ‘so’?”

Adam blew out a breath. “So, she’s always been cute, but you heard James. That girl—” he motioned toward her with his hands “—has turned into one hot—”

“Don’t. Say. It.” He needed to get his brain off Savannah’s assets.

“What?”

“Stop acting like you’re my wingman for cripe’s sake. I don’t need help in the female department.”

“I’m just saying—”

“Well, don’t just say. I’m not hitting on Savannah. I’m not dating Savannah and I’m not sleeping with Savannah.”

“You’re not sleeping with anyone.” Adam held up his hands. “Just trying to get you off this celibacy shtick you’ve been on since last summer.”

“It’s not a celibacy shtick, A. I’m running a business that, until recently, was on very shaky ground. I’ve got a seventeen-year-old sister to raise.”

Savannah sipped from her glass again and Collin swallowed. It was more than not having time for recreational sex. Women hit on him all the time, but he didn’t have time for the dating thing, and random hookups had never been his thing. Until tonight, anyway. Somehow, since Savannah had walked through the door, all he’d had on his mind was meaningless, hot sex.

Which was ridiculous. He wasn’t a twenty-year-old kid any longer. He’d grown up. Had responsibilities. He didn’t need a woman like Savannah Walters screwing any of that up.

* * *

SAVANNAH SIPPED FROM the plastic cup made to look like a high-end wineglass. It was boxed wine. When she convinced Merle to add wine to his twenty brands of beer, and the staples of Jim Beam, Johnny Walker and Jose Cuervo, she’d intended for him to add wines from one of the regional vineyards. Only Merle, stubborn, beer-drinking, wine-hating Merle, would buy wine for his bar from the local grocery store, insisting that people came to the Slope for conversation and “real drinking.” She supposed he was right, she was the only one drinking it. And she hated boxed wine.

She also hated that the women she was drinking with—the women who used to be barely civil to her—were pretending to be her best friends because she was a minor Nashville star. Or at least, she had been.

More than either of those things, she hated that spending another night cooped up at the ranch might have caused a meltdown that could have ended with her spilling everything to Bennett and Mama Hazel. So she’d made one phone call and two hours later here she was on a girls’ night out with strangers she had to pretend were her friends.

She glanced to the left as Marcy Nagle started another story about her eight-year-old son, the football prodigy. God, she hated football more than she hated Slippery Rock.

Scratch that. She didn’t hate the little town. She just felt...surrounded by it. Watched by it.

Collin was still there. In the corner booth that her brother, Levi and the sheriff’s son had vacated a few minutes before.

Sitting with...who was that? His dad owned the cabinet shop in town and re-did Mama Hazel’s pantry a few years ago. Buchanan. Aiden Buchanan. Aiden had been so much fun back in the day. Carefree. A little restless. Always up for a good time. He’d been the ringleader of Levi’s motley group of football buddies. The five boys who put Slippery Rock, Missouri, on the map all those years ago. The Sailor Five.

Aiden turned his head and she caught a glimpse of the scar along his jaw and neck. Her mind flashed to a car accident when she’d been a sophomore and the tangled wreckage she, Levi and Bennett had come upon on a Sunday morning on their way to church.

That’s not Aiden. It’s his twin, Adam.

The boy whose car slid on black ice. He’d missed most of a year of school from his injuries and, although he’d recovered, had never regained full mobility of his left shoulder. Adam had gone from one of the stars of their football team to the equipment manager.

Adam Buchanan. The sweet boy who’d danced with her at the homecoming dance. Unlike his table mate who had never paid any attention to the younger sister of his best friend.

Just like he hadn’t noticed her tonight, despite the stage-worthy outfit and killer heels.

Damn it, why couldn’t Collin have gotten fat or bald or something while she’d been following her dreams to Nashville? But he hadn’t. Collin was as handsome as ever and every time she looked in his direction those stupid butterflies started dancing around in her stomach again. As if she was hung up on her brother’s best friend.

Well, she wasn’t.

She was an adult who had learned the hard way what kind of man to stay away from.

Savannah sighed. Collin would be the perfect guy to have a little rebound, short-term relationship with while she was in town. He would be a harmless distraction and...who was she kidding? If Collin were either harmless or just a distraction she wouldn’t still be obsessing over him a week after he’d rescued her on the side of the road. She’d been thinking practically nonstop about the orchard owner for the past five days.

One more reason to stay far, far away from him. Adam, on the other hand, would be fun and sweet and totally, amazingly forgettable.

“Excuse me, ladies, I think I see something a little more interesting than football mom stories and boxed wine,” she said, nodding toward the corner booth. “No offense.”

A chorus of “Go, girl” rang out at the bar, and Savannah used the enthusiasm to bolster her confidence as she started across the long space between the bar and the booth. In the fantasy that just popped into her mind, Adam fell instantly under her spell, led her to the dance floor—which was currently uninhabited—and danced with her to a Dierks Bentley song while Collin sat alone in the booth, wondering what he’d done so wrong that the fabulous, beautiful Savannah Walters didn’t want to dance with him.