Susan Mallery - Completely Smitten

“We didn’t mean nothin’. Just thought the lady would like some company.”

His two friends nodded. They were big. Bigger than her rescuer. A couple of their tattoos had interesting swearwords woven into the designs. She’d been trying to read them when Mr. Rabbit Teeth had grabbed her.

The three of them threw some bills on their table and left. Haley breathed a sigh of relief.

“That was something,” she said earnestly. “I didn’t know what to do. I mean, when he wouldn’t let go. I thought about screaming, but it’s kind of embarrassing to have to do that. I didn’t want to make a fuss.”

The man who had come to her assistance didn’t say anything. Instead, he headed back toward the bar and slid onto his stool. She followed.

“Thank you for rescuing me,” she said.

“Make a fuss,” he said, reaching for his beer.

She sat next to him. “What?”

He took a long swallow, then stared at her over the mug. “Next time you get in trouble, make a fuss. Better yet, next time stay out of bars.”

Haley reached out to tug on a strand of her hair, only to remember too late that she’d cut it all off the previous afternoon. Instead of a long braid nearly to her waist, she had short bits of fluff flying around her head.

She smoothed what was left of her bangs, then nodded. Stay out of bars. It was probably good advice. “I just can’t,” she said with a sigh. “Not yet.”

The man stared at her. “You have a death wish?”

She laughed. “I’m not going to get killed. I just need to handle things better.” She scooted a little closer and lowered her voice. “Can you believe that until two days ago I’d never been in a bar before?”

Her rescuer stared at her in shock.

“I know,” she said. “I’ve led a very sheltered life. It’s pathetic. I mean, I’m twenty-five years old and I’ve been living like a nun.” She shrugged. “Not that I’m Catholic. We’re Baptists. My dad’s a minister at our church.”

The man didn’t say anything. He turned his attention to the baseball game on the television. Haley studied his strong profile. He was handsome, in a rugged, cigarette-advertisement sort of way. There was an air of strength about him. He looked people in the eye when he spoke and she liked that. He wore his dark hair short.

She reached over and picked up his U.S. Marshals cap, then ran her fingers along the stitching. “So you’re like a cop?”

“Sort of.”

“I’ll bet you’re a good one.”

He turned his attention back to her. She noticed he had brown eyes the color of chocolate, and while he’d yet to smile at her, she liked the shape of his mouth.

“How the hell would you know that?” he asked, sounding gruff and annoyed.

His tone made her spine stiffen just a little, while the swearword startled her. He’d said the H-word. Just like that. She would bet that he hadn’t even planned it. The word had just come out.

One day she was going to swear, too. She would casually drop the H-word or the D-word into conversation. But that was all. Swearing was one thing, but really bad words were just ugly.

He waved a hand in front of her face. “Are you still in there?”

“Oh. Sorry. What was the question?”

“Never mind.”

She put his hat back on the bar. “I’m Haley Foster.” She held out her hand.

He stared at it for a long time before taking it in his and shaking. “Kevin Harmon.”

“Nice to meet you, Kevin.”

He grunted and turned back to the television.

Haley shifted slightly on her stool and took in the ambience of the location. There were several posters of various sports, some advertisements for alcoholic beverages. The floor was dirty, and some of the tables looked as if they hadn’t been wiped off in a while. Except for a woman with an incredibly large bosom in the corner, she seemed to be the only female in the place.

She glanced at her watch. It was nearly eight. “Why aren’t there more women here?” she asked.

Kevin never took his gaze off the game. “It’s not that kind of place.”

“What kind of place?”

“This isn’t the kind of bar where you bring a date.”

There were different kinds of bars? “How do you know that?”

“I just know.”

A not very helpful answer.

The bartender walked over. “What can I get you?”

Haley eyed Kevin’s beer. Yesterday she’d had her first glass of white wine ever. To be honest, she hadn’t really liked it.

“A margarita,” she said.

“Frozen or on the rocks?”

The only liquor question she knew the answer to was James Bond’s, “Shaken, not stirred.” Okay, rocks were ice. On the rocks would mean over ice, which wasn’t how she pictured margaritas.

“Frozen,” she said. “Oh. Do you have any of those little umbrellas to put in the glass?”

The bartender stared at her. “No.”

“Too bad.” She’d always wanted a drink with a little umbrella.

She watched as the man poured various liquids into a blender. He added a scoop of ice, then set the whole thing to whirling and crunching. When he finally put a glass in front of her, the light green concoction looked more like a slushy drink than anything else.

“Thanks.”

She took a sip from the tiny straw the bartender had dropped into her glass.

The first thing she noticed was the cold. The second was the flavor. Not sweet, but not bitter, either. Kind of lime, kind of something else.

“It’s good,” she said in surprise. It was sure better than that wine she’d had the previous night. She turned her attention back to Kevin.

“So why are you here?”

He turned slowly until his dark gaze rested on her face. He was really very handsome. She found herself wishing she hadn’t been quite so quick to cut off all her hair. Allan had always said it was her best feature.

Allan. She took a long drink of her margarita. She did not want to think about him. Not now. Not ever.

“Are you asking my spiritual purpose in the universe?” Kevin asked.

“Only if you want to tell me. I was thinking more of, do you live around here? What are you doing in the bar? That sort of thing.”

He finished his beer and pushed the glass across the bar. “Another,” he called before turning his attention back to her. “What are you doing here? In this bar. Today.”

“Well…” She took another long sip. “I’m driving to Hawaii.”

Kevin wished he’d changed the order of his wants back when life had still been sane. If he’d wanted a bed, a beer and a burger, he would now be in some hotel, ordering room service and watching the game in peace. Instead, he was having a conversation with a woman who had left the functioning part of her brain back in her car.

“Hawaii?”

Haley beamed at him. “Okay, so I know you can’t really drive to Hawaii, but I’m going to get as close as possible.”

“That would be California.”

“Right. I’ll figure out the rest of it when I get there.”

“Where are you driving from?”

“Western Ohio. I’m—”

But whatever she’d been about to confess was cut off by the arrival of his dinner. Haley stared at the large plate containing a burger on a bun—the top of the bun covered with lettuce, tomatoes and onion—along with a mound of fries that threatened to fall onto the counter.

“You can get food in a bar?” she asked, incredulous. “For real?”

He remembered walking to school years ago and seeing a starving dog. The dirty brown-and-white fur ball had been hiding in an alley. Kevin had taken one look at its shivering, skinny self, then he’d handed over his sandwich. He’d gone without lunch for two days before finally taking the dog home.

“You’re broke,” he said flatly, wondering when his luck had gotten so bad. He pushed the plate toward her. “Eat up.”