“Sure you were.” Diesel winked at Ria, making her laugh.
Behind them, the front door opened and another tall, familiar man dressed in a uniform entered the bar. He lifted a hand in greeting to the three of them as he approached.
Wyatt whistled. “Wow. This is the girl you were hiding behind a helmet on your bike earlier? I can see why.”
Cam rolled his eyes. “Ria, you remember Sheriff Wyatt Campbell from earlier.”
They shook hands. The sheriff was a pretty big guy, like an Alpha, but she could read his mind. He was definitely an earthling. Wyatt thought she was pretty and he liked the exotic blue streaks in her hair, wondered if it was really her hair or fake hair that she fastened into her locks. But the sheriff didn’t have a romantic interest in her. He had another girl on his mind.
Ria thought it was sweet that he was here to talk to Diesel about the girl he thought about…a lot.
“Great to meet you,” Wyatt said, his thoughts refocused on the color of her hair…and how the style might look on the girl he loved.
“Thanks. Nice to meet you, too.” She pointed to her hair and said, “The blue color is really my hair, not fake stuff fastened in.”
Wyatt sucked in a sharp breath. “How did you know that’s what I was thinking?”
Drat. She shouldn’t have answered his mental questions.
Chapter Nine
Cam would hate to shoot Wyatt with his Defender, but might not have a choice. He put a hand on his belt where his Defender typically was, but it was gone. Heaving a mental sigh that his best tool to keep earthlings from discovering aliens was back at home, Cam relaxed and dropped his hand to one side. He’d taken off his Defender along with his regular duties in lieu of spending the day out and about with Ria.
Diesel had a small version on his hip, so that might be an option. Cam glanced around at the seated patrons. Seven other earthlings would be impacted if he yanked Diesel’s Defender from him and fired it off in the room. That would leave him with Diesel and Ria staring at each other. Bad idea. That would create even more questions he didn’t want to answer.
Better to defuse the situation rather than create chaos in this small bar.
“Everyone asks about her hair,” he said quickly. “She just throws that out to everyone she meets when they stare at her head.”
Wyatt relaxed and nodded as if it was a perfectly logical explanation for how she’d just basically read his mind. It seemed to come naturally to her.
Diesel and Wyatt excused themselves to a table in the corner well away from the pool table. Cam should have tried to read Wyatt’s mind. He didn’t often make the effort, not wanting to know things he shouldn’t.
Cam and Ria finished their game of pool and listened to music as Wyatt and Diesel talked, heads bent in serious discussion for a few minutes. Cam gave up on trying to read their lips. He didn’t have the skill for it. They were either talking about Valkyries or possibly Velveeta and that’s where Cam gave up on his nonexistent skills of lip-reading. The two men finished their conversation fairly quickly and left the bar with a waved farewell to Cam and Ria, not giving him a chance to read Wyatt’s mind for information on the meeting.
Whatever it was put an interesting expression on Diesel’s face. It must not be about Alienn or anything to do with the secrets they were hiding or Diesel would have given Cam a signal. Wouldn’t he? Maybe. Maybe not. Diesel wasn’t always as forthcoming as Cam wanted him to be, but maybe only in regard to dating Juliana.
Cam made a mental note to ask what this conversation had been about when he returned from his vacation. He glanced at Ria. She beamed with joy and that was enough to distract him from any further thoughts about whatever Diesel and Wyatt had talked about. He put his focus where it belonged, on the dwindling time he had to spend with an incredible woman he wished could be his. He watched her line up her next shot.
She was so beautiful, so fun to hang out with…and so going back to Alpha-Prime to marry someone else.
Was she so intriguing because deep down he knew she was unavailable? That question rolled around in his head for several moments before he drew an interesting conclusion. No, her unavailability was not the reason he thought she was fascinating. Cam would be captivated by Ria regardless of any possible future for them. And maybe that was where he should direct his attention, on finding a way to keep her.
Ria came close to beating him in their next round of pool. By then, a rougher crowd started arriving, a few at a time. The newcomers stared possessively at Cam and Ria’s pool table like dogs eyeing a rival’s chew toy. Cam made the last two shots and won their final game. He relinquished the table with a nod to a biker dressed in black. The dude was completely bald, but had a bushy gray beard that hung nearly to his elaborately detailed motorcycle-shaped belt buckle.
Ria had also taken note of the bearded man, but seemed more interested in taking in his authentic biker look than being intimidated. Perhaps it was something else she could cross off her list. Get a good look at a real biker.
Mostly Cam was grateful she didn’t read the guy’s mind and blurt out what he was thinking.
As they went outside, Ria looked wistfully over one shoulder. They walked a few steps to his motorcycle. He smiled at the glee evident in her eyes. She reached out and hugged him tight. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair.
“Thank you so much, Cam. That was so amazing and so much fun and I’ll never ever forget it. Not in my whole life.”
“Me either,” Cam said. He meant it. He’d never been a biker bar kind of guy, but the experience had been incredible and he knew he’d remember it on his deathbed, even with the annoyance of the drunken dude hitting on her. He liked coming to her rescue.
Cam had studied her at the jukebox, making her selections, but pretended to eye the lay of the balls on the pool table when she turned to rejoin him. When he next looked up, it was to see her attempting to get free of the drunken guy’s grasp. He instantly wanted to leap over tables and chairs to get to her.
