“Don’t bother me a bit to be your rebound.” Bold, even for her, but he kept coming back. Touching her. Kissing her. Even talking to her. Until this exact minute, anyway. “You’re forgetting I’ve been there. But I wasn’t so lucky as you—I actually married him.”
His gaze shifted to the table, where she’d laid out her tequila, a fifth of Jack Daniels,and a bottle of cheap vodka she’d confiscated from an underage student.
“Don’t leave me hanging. My cat’s holding on by a thread and I’m still facing too many hours on an airplane in less than two months.” She poured herself a shot of tequila and tossed it back.
Lance threw himself onto the couch beside her, arms crossed, still silent.
She took a guess and poured him a shot of the whiskey. “She break up with you that day we met?”
He grunted twice, then downed his whiskey.
“Was she the reason you were in the bar?”
One grunt, and he held his glass out for a refill.
Kaci topped them both off.
She didn’t remember much about him clearly from the night they’d met. He’d been handsome. Sexy in a broody kind of way,surprisingly so. Something to take her mind off that phone call about going to Germany.
What would’ve put Lance in the bar that night?
“Oh,” she whispered. “Did she leave you at the altar?”
He didn’t answer, but instead tipped his glass back and swallowed his whiskey in one gulp. His throat worked, and she was suddenly struck by how rugged he looked when he didn’t have to shave.
Weekends looked damn fine on Lance Wheeler.
She patted his thigh, which was a mistake, because his muscles were solid beneath the warm denim, and she knew firsthand that he was capable of being solid elsewhere in a matter of moments.
Not that she’d yet learned if he was proficient with his equipment, but hope sprang eternal.
She cleared her throat, and her voice came out softer than she meant it to. “Sugar, you don’t know it yet, but meeting me is the best dang thing you’ve ever done for yourself.”
He held his glass out for another refill. “Your humility is so inspiring.”
“Gotta toot my own horn. Nobody else is gonna do it. Especially in academia. But the important part is, I know exactly how to get a woman out of your life.”
“This isn’t where we light a bonfire and set her pictures on fire, is it?”
“Bless your heart. That what that little kid at your house told you to do?”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “Juice Box.”
“You need a juice box?” Weird, but okay. “I got some orange?—”
“The kid. Juice Box. He told you about Allison.”
Military men and their nicknames. “So that’s her name.”
“You went to my house.”
“I—”
“You went to my house, and you’re being nice to me,” he accused.
“Most folks would take that as an honor.”
“I’m not most folks.”
