The silence settles over us. I pick up my fork but put it down again before blowing out a breath. “There’s a bar in town, right?”
That gets his attention. Luke’s gaze sharpens, and his posture shifts. “Why do you ask?”
I ignore the question. “Tessa mentioned it.”
He was standing right there when Tessa and I were talking, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he wasn’t paying any attention. It was pretty obvious he was only tolerating my existence in his house until the month was up. Why would he care about anything I was talking about?
“What’s it called?” I press when he still doesn’t say anything.
“You don’t want to go there.” He looks down at his plate and continues eating, but I don’t look away.
“I do,” I say with a certainty I didn’t feel a minute ago. Maybe it’s childish, but the best way to get me to do something is to tell me I can’t. Or in this case, that I don’twant to go.
He looks up then, and sets his fork down, picking up his napkin and wiping his mouth slowly before he speaks. “It’s called the Rusty Nail,” he says slowly. “But like I said, you don’t want to go there.”
The change in him is subtle, but it sends a ripple of awareness through me.
Somehow, it’s heavier. Even more controlled than usual.
“Why?” I ask, holding his gaze. “Becauseit’s loud? Or all the way down the mountain? I don’t mind. It might be nice to have a little change of scenery around?—”
“It’s not a place for a girl like you.”
My spine stiffens. His words are too similar to the things Barrett would say when he was trying to convince me not to join the corporate world after graduation and stay home like agood wife.“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means the men who drink there don’t always understand the word no.” He pushes his chair back and crosses his arms over his massive chest, his eyes pinning me.
“And yet, you know the place well enough to warn me about it. How’s that?”
“I know enough.”
“That’s not an answer.”
His jaw tightens, and for a second, I don’t think he’s going to give me one. “Cal still spends time down there.”
“Cal?”
“One of mine.”
He says it like those three words will explain everything. They don’t.
“What exactly does Cal have to do with anything?”
“Enough that when he says the Rusty Nail is getting worse and rougher, I listen.”
A chill crawls over my arms. “So just because your friend thinks the bar is rough, I’m supposed to stay locked up on the mountain?”
“You’re supposed to be smart enough not to walk into a place full of men who’ll take one look at you and see easy prey.”
My face heats. “Prey?”
“You know damn well what I mean.”
“No,” I snap. “I don’t think I do.”
His mouth flattens, and he blows a breath out his nose. “Then let me make it clear. Cal can handle himself in that place. I can handle myself in that place. You can’t.”
The certainty in his voice pisses me off.
