Chapter Seven
“Sometimes ‘No’ really is the correct answer.”
—Blu Johnson, life lesson #52
The smell of a blooming onion hit his senses first—it was one of the appetizers the Buffalo Nickel was known for—with the aroma of beer following at a close second. Waylon stepped inside the back door of the establishment, sidestepping a man headed down the hall to the restroom, then nodded at Callie, one of the servers he’d seen there several times before. He wasn’t supposed to come in through the back, and he was hopeful Callie wouldn’t rat him out. But he’d been running late and preferred to slip in unobtrusively. The viewing party was already in full swing, and from the sound of things, happy hour had been extended.
“Hey, good-looking. Was wondering if you were going to be here tonight.”
Waylon looked down into the eyes of a woman who’d offered to show him her “special tattoo” the first night he’d met her.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” he told her. “Just had an errand that ran late.”
Laughter cackled out from her. “I hope she was a good errand.”
The woman patted him on the chest as she moved on past, and Waylon made himself step fully into the room. The place was packed. The appointment with his lawyer had run late, so he’d already missed the first thirty minutes of the show, and as he scanned the crowd, even though plenty of chatter was happening all around, he noted that most everyone had their eyes on one of the many TVs.
Additionally, he noticed the cameras, which struck him as odd—having cameras there to record the crowd watching what had previously been recorded by cameras. But hey, who was he to complain? He would pull in an extra few thousand by agreeing to be part of Building a Life, and until he got his daughter back, every little bit counted.
And then his eyes landed on the woman he was searching for. The woman who’d apparently been avoiding him for the last seventy-two hours.
Heather sat with a couple of other women at a small table not far from the bar, and like the rest of the crowd, her gaze was directed toward a TV. But she did glance at the front door when it opened. A man and a woman came in, and Heather’s attention returned to the show. Meanwhile, Waylon’s gaze remained on Heather. Though work on the ranch’s backyard project hadn’t slowed over the last two days, Waylon hadn’t caught a single glimpse of the auburn-haired beauty. And though it had taken everything he had not to seek her out, he’d known his patience would pay off. No way would she miss tonight.
Chances were good, though, that she counted on the crowd being too heavy for them to have any real kind of conversation, and she might be right. But he absolutely intended to try. Because the woman had shown up at his house wearing a trench coat—and he suspected little else had been on underneath. And he wasn’t about to let that go.
Plus, she’d been nice to his kid. She could have turned tail and run the second Rose had answered the door, but instead she’d come in to see Rose’s room. And she’d oohed and aahed over her toy rings.
The entire crowd gasped as one, sitting back in their seats as if in shock, and in the next instant their eyes went wide. So Waylon found a television. Whatever was going on . . .
His thoughts came to a screeching halt as he watched Jill Sadler on the screen, demolishing a kitchen with a sledgehammer. And she wasn’t just poking at the walls, either.
Hell. No wonder Cal had fallen for the woman.
Waylon cut a glance at Heather and saw her smiling broadly. She watched the TV as if she might not have seen the footage before, yet she grinned with the kind of confidence that he recognized easily. Confidence that said she knew how the scene unfolded, and that the underdog had come out on top.
“I mean, I know how the contest ended and all,” someone to the left of him said, “but I’ll tell ya, I totally had my money on the girls the whole time.”
“The girls definitely should have won,” another person replied.
“Nah, Cal had it in the bag from the get-go.”
As the conversations continued around him, Waylon watched as Cal appeared on-screen with Jill, taunting her as she took a break from swinging the sledgehammer, and he saw what the producers must have picked up on between those two. Chemistry. Combustible.
Whatever it was, they certainly had it. And Waylon wanted it.
He turned his attention back to Heather. He had an idea it would be like that with her.
The show cut to a commercial, and he began weaving his way through the crowd. He spoke with a handful of men and women he’d met before tonight, was introduced to several others, and generally felt good about being part of things. This was one of the things that had been missing from his life. The camaraderie in this town. It came across as genuine, and he found himself anxious to introduce his daughter to it. He’d been hesitant to share her existence at first. He’d wanted to make sure the job with Cal worked out, and then had decided to hold off on introducing her until after he’d closed on the house. The last thing he’d wanted was to be seen as an inadequate father, and bringing Rose out to the barn for his weekend visitations hadn’t provided the optimum way to present himself. But he had a house now. He could officially start being a part of things.
Heather appeared on the screen, and he stopped in the middle of a throng of people to watch. She wasn’t the focus of the scene, yet she was the only thing that captured his attention. It was the way she tilted her head when she was thinking. And how the tips of her hair always curled in as if they wanted to tickle her neck. He could look at her for days.
“Got to watch out for that one,” a man beside him said, and Waylon looked over to find a guy half a head taller than himself, several inches wider, and with as much hair on his face as on his head.
“You mean Heather?” Waylon asked. He didn’t know how he knew that’s who the other man was talking about, but he instinctively tuned in to the fact.
“She’ll drive you to drink, if you let her.”
“How so?”
The man’s mouth curved inside the copper-colored beard. “It’s her damned dimples. They’ll bring a man to his knees.”
Waylon smiled, aware that his own dimples flashed, and watched the guy notice. “I’ve already had a drink or two thanks to that particular attribute of hers,” Waylon confessed, and the big man laughed. “But I’m also not above giving her a taste of her own medicine.”
A meaty palm thrust out toward him. “I think I’m going to like you. I’m Len.”
Heather had laid eyes on Waylon thirty minutes earlier while he was standing on the other side of the bar, but he’d disappeared in the crowd soon after, and she hadn’t seen a hint of him since. Nor did she know how or when he’d come into the bar. She’d been watching the door all night, and she’d lay money on the fact that he had not walked through the front door. Yet he was definitely in the building. Even if she hadn’t seen him, she would have known. Her Waylon radar had been on full alert all evening, and the hair on the back of her neck had stood on end several minutes before she’d finally spotted him.
“Say no to Waylon,” she murmured softly. It was the same mantra she’d been repeating to herself for three days now.
“Say no to Waylon.”
Only, she knew that her defenses were down. Because no matter how many times she’d gone over it in her head, no matter how embarrassed she remained over how it had all gone down . . . she still wanted Waylon.
Sarah and Josie, who’d been sitting with her earlier, had been pulled away into other conversations, and not wanting to occupy a table where multiple people could sit, Heather moved to a vacated stool at the bar. Once there, she ordered a lemon drop martini and kept her gaze on the TV hanging on the opposite side of the bar. She also did her best to pretend that she wasn’t waiting for Waylon. But she was totally waiting for Waylon.
Her decision to work off-site for the last couple of days had backfired, and now she was even more worked up than she would have been had she just faced him straight on Monday morning. She’d gone to the man’s house to have sex. In a trench coat. And she couldn’t hide from that fact.
Nor was there any chance he’d let her hide from it.
Yet now she not only had to face her humiliation, but she somehow had to convince Waylon that she’d changed her mind and no longer wanted to have the sex she’d shown up at his house to have. Because she couldn’t have that sex. He had a daughter, and no matter what she told herself, if she slept with him, it would only be a matter of time before she started imagining playing house with him and Rose.
So no sex. And probably it would be best to have no flirting, too.
No Waylon at all.
Say no to Waylon.
Jimmy, the bartender, set her martini in front of her, and as Heather smiled her thanks, a male hand slid into her peripheral vision, two fingers extended to get Jimmy’s attention.
Heather’s shoulders tensed.
“I’ll have a Jim Beam, neat.”
She didn’t have to look to know the owner of the hand—or the voice. She downed half her martini.
Then the hand inched forward . . . a forearm appeared and rested on the bar top . . . a brick-hard chest pressed firmly against her shoulder . . . and finally, Waylon leaned down and put his lips next to her ear.
“You’ve been avoiding me, Heather.”
She took another gulp and stared at the TV. “I’m still avoiding you, Waylon.”
“Any particular reason why?”
She ignored both him and his stupid question.
“Ah, come on,” he said after several seconds of silence. “Don’t be like that. It was a really great move.”
He kept his voice low enough not to be overheard, and she appreciated the fact. She didn’t need every person there to know that she’d gotten in line to board the Waylon train just like all the rest of the women in town. However, the problem with him talking that low was that in order to speak quietly and still be heard, he had to get right up in her space.
“In fact,” he went on, his lips so close that his breath stirred the hair covering her ear, “it was the best move I’ve seen in a while.”
Heat engulfed her, and she finally looked at him. The area where they were sitting was so crowded that he could barely squeeze his arm between her and the guy sitting next to her, and he was leaning in so close that along with his cologne, she got a hefty whiff of his minty toothpaste.
It was the same kind she used.
“You thought that move was great, did you?” From what she’d gathered, people made moves on him all the time. No way was hers the best he’d seen. “I call bullshit. What it was, was clichéd and tacky.” She turned her attention back to the TV and muttered, “And one I clearly didn’t plan well.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t try it again.”
She choked out a laugh. “Not a chance, cowboy. I burned the coat.”
Disappointment filled his voice. “That’s a real shame.”
It was also a real lie. It was a Burberry trench. No freaking way would she burn it, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. Waylon’s drink arrived, and Heather found herself sneaking another peek at him.
He’d donned another of his customary plaid button-downs for the evening—rolled up to the elbows, as usual—and had brought out what looked to be his “good” cowboy hat. It also appeared that he’d taken the trimmers to his beard. His entire look implied he’d spiffed himself up for going out for the evening, but what Heather wanted to know was whether he’d spiffed up because he’d been hoping to see her. Or whether this was just part of his regular maintenance routine.
Didn’t matter, she reminded herself. Because she was saying no to Waylon.
He took a sip of his bourbon before staring forlornly into the amber liquid. “I really did like that coat.”
A smile threatened at his dejected tone, but in the next second, she watched as he recovered quite nicely. He maneuvered more space for himself by leaning into the guy sitting next to her until the man was forced to choose between scooting over or sitting tilted at an angle, and after the guy shifted on his seat, Waylon propped both elbows on the bar. He then gave a nod to two women sitting across from him.
Both women giggled, and Waylon winked. And Heather wanted to elbow the man in the ribs. She couldn’t believe he’d sit right there beside her while flirting with two other women!
He turned his attention to the TV she’d been watching, being so casual about it that if anyone were to glance his way, they’d assume he was focused on whatever was happening on the screen instead of on her. Which, in a better frame of mind, she would appreciate. She didn’t need his attention on her. Nor did she want others thinking it was. Yet tonight, his avoidance irritated her. So she stared at the TV herself.
She ignored Trenton, who was making no bones about firing a what-the-hell-are-you-doing look her way from the other side of the room, and engrossed herself in the show. And when a commercial came on again, she held her breath. But she didn’t have to hold it for long.
“Any chance you’ll at least wear the shoes again?” Waylon asked. He still didn’t look at her.
“The shoes burned faster than the coat.”
That brought a smile to his mouth, and as he tilted up his tumbler, she caught his murmured, “Say the word and I’ll buy out a shoe store for you.” And though she tried to stop her laugh at his comment, she failed. It simply bubbled up and out, as if a pressure valve had been released.
With a hand to her mouth, she chuckled at the fact that she’d tried to seduce the man in the first place—only to find his daughter at the door instead of him. At the way she’d so childishly avoided him for days—only to then look forward to seeing him tonight. And at the “game” they were now both playing.
Only to want to play another kind of game entirely.
And then Waylon was looking down at her. And she was looking at him. And damn . . but she still wanted him. But she still couldn’t have him.
“Can we just forget it happened?” Her voice had turned breathy. “Please?”
He shook his head, his eyes warm on hers. “Not in a million years.”
“Then can we at least not talk about it? I’m still waist-deep in mortification over here.”
Though his hand moved as if intending to reach for hers, he stopped before touching her. Both of his elbows remained on the bar, but the fingers of one hand now dangled within reach of hers. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about,” he said softly. He ducked his head when she lowered her gaze to the bar top. “Nothing.” His eyes burned steady on hers. “Because it was fucking hot.”
The guy on the other side of him glanced over, but Heather ignored him. “I’m sure you’ve seen better,” she muttered dismissively. She really did just want to drop the subject. She might have been brave enough in the moment to show up at Waylon’s the way she had, but after three days of tormenting herself over the stupidity of the act, as well as thinking about all the other women who’d likely come before her . . . Well, she truly did suspect he’d seen better. Likely from those who’d actually seduced a man before.
“And I’m sure I haven’t.” One of Waylon’s fingers slid over the back of her hand, its calloused skin a sharp contrast to hers. “But I will agree to let it go if you’ll answer two questions.”
When she hesitated, their faces closer together than they had been before, he hiked his brow, and she could as good as hear him say that this was the best offer she was going to get. So she conceded. “Fine,” she grumbled. She’d known he wouldn’t just let it go. “You get two questions. Ask.”
He held up one finger. “What was on underneath?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
He blinked, not saying another word for an entire minute, and her inner femme fatale smiled in triumph. Some women would probably have whipped out sexy lingerie to wear for a trench-coat seduction, but not her. She’d gone there with one thing in mind, and she hadn’t wanted to waste time with lace.
Plus, she’d tossed all her lingerie after she’d learned that Danny Shaver had been cheating on her three years before.
The noise of the crowd lowered, and she glanced back at the television to see that Texas Dream Home had resumed, and it was at the part where she, Jill, and Trenton had been interviewed about moving in with Aunt Blu. “You’re actually missing a great show,” she told Waylon.
“I’m DVRing it. I’ll watch it later.”
That surprised her. He was going to watch it later?
How sweet.
Or maybe not sweet, her subconscious pointed out. He might simply be a reality TV junkie.
True. He could be that. But she didn’t think so. With little more than gut to go on, she suspected he would be watching it because of her. Which she found she liked a little too much.
Then she remembered that she was supposed to be saying no to Waylon.
“Two.” He held up two fingers, and Heather held her breath as she waited for his next question. “Coat or no coat,” he said, “do I get a second chance?”
“At what?” She played innocent.
His brow hiked again, and she forced herself to shake her head. Sadly.
“Can I ask why not?”
“That would be question number three, and I only agreed to two.”
She waited for him to argue, but the man stayed true to his word. With a slight nod, he acknowledged her point and took another drink. She finished her martini, and as they both watched the television once again, she heard herself asking if she could have two questions.
“Anything I want,” she clarified. “And you have to answer.”
“What do I get for answering?” His eyes were on her again, and try as she might, it was hard to keep the noise of the surrounding crowd in her consciousness. Somehow, just being around Waylon made her feel as if they were alone.
This was bad, and she knew it. She liked him way too much.
“What do you want?” she asked.
He finished off his bourbon as he contemplated his answer, then he looked around the bar, taking in the space as if he hadn’t seen it before. Heather scanned the room along with him. The building remained packed. Tables and chairs had been shifted around so they covered the small dance floor, every server employed at The Buffalo had been brought in for the evening and were either on the floor taking orders or at the bar picking up drinks or food, and every last TV was tuned to Texas Dream Home. But way in the back were the dartboards, and though that area had been occupied earlier in the evening, it was currently empty. There weren’t any TVs back there.
Waylon faced Heather. “You play darts?”
“It’s been a while, but”—she shrugged—“yeah.” She’d once been very good at darts.
“Can we talk while we throw?”
She liked that he put it as a question. “And you’ll answer whatever I ask?”
“Two questions.”
“Won’t take a lot of darts to get through two questions,” she pointed out. She also knew that she had far more than two questions. She wanted to know about Rose. And him. How? When? Why did no one know about his daughter?
“Then give me one game,” he said. “And we go from there.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant by “go from there,” but it wasn’t as if he was asking for that much. It was darts.
She eyed the television hanging above the bar. She had the show recording at her house as well, so she could definitely step away for a few minutes. And she did want to know about Rose. But then she saw that Trenton still had her eye on her. As did Jill. Jill had left Cal’s side to sit in the booth with Trenton, and both were watching her instead of the TV. Heather stared back, knowing they had only her best interests at heart, but she also knew that she was going to walk to the back of the bar with Waylon. There were too many things she wanted to know, and she didn’t want to find them out later through the rumor mill.
Knowing she had to do this, she gave her friends a tight smile, hoping to convey that she was fine. That this was just a conversation, and that she had not changed her mind. She would not be doing anything stupid. She would not be sleeping with Waylon.
Her smile only seemed to put more worry in their eyes. But then, Jill gave a small nod.
Heather rose before she could change her mind, and Waylon followed her. They made their way to the dartboards, not talking as they slipped through the crowd, and when they reached the back, Waylon flagged down the closest server.
He looked at Heather. “Another drink?”
“Please.”
Waylon ordered, handed Heather a dart so they could both throw to see who would go first, then he held up one finger, indicating that she should ask her first question.
She threw a dart. It hit the board, but not impressively. “So Rose lives with her mother?”
“Actually, her grandparents. Her mother passed away a couple of years ago.”
Heather’s breath caught at the unexpected words. “Waylon, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. Her chest ached at the thought. Poor Rose.
“Thanks.”
“Rose . . .”
“She’s fine,” he said without her having to ask. His threw his dart, putting it inside the triple score in the wedge for four points, easily beating out hers. “She’s a tough kid.”
Heather knew from experience that she’d have to be.
She retrieved the two darts, then handed them over to him, and as she did, she noticed lines now etching the corners of his eyes. And though he seemed sad at the loss of Rose’s mother—or maybe at the pain his daughter had to live with—he didn’t appear overwhelmingly broken. Which made Heather wonder about the woman.
“Were you two together?” she asked.
“We tried to be a long time ago.” He threw his first dart. “When Nikki first got pregnant.”
There were so many questions that could come from those two sentences. “How did she—”
“My turn,” he interrupted, and she paused at his words.
“What do you mean your turn?”
He threw another dart. Both earned a decent score. “My turn to ask questions. Your two are up.”
“But I didn’t agree to answer more questions.”
He threw his third dart. “So you just want to play without speaking?”
Their drinks arrived, and while Waylon chatted with the server, Heather contemplated his question. They didn’t have to play in silence. There were things they could talk about. The show that they weren’t watching. Ranching. Construction.
The weather.
She downed a couple of swallows of her martini as he went after the darts, then admitted to herself what she’d known when she’d led him back there. They were going to go through far more than two questions.
“Fine.” She waved a hand in the air as he returned. “Ask. But then I get two more.”
“Of course.” He handed her the darts. “Why do you call Blu ‘Aunt Blu’?”
That’s what he wanted to know? “I don’t know.” She took another drink, enjoying the tartness of the fresh lemon. “It was just easier, I think. Jill, Trenton, and I showed up, and we had to call her something. She wasn’t our mother, and Ms. Johnson was too formal. But Blu was too informal. So”—she hit a bull’s-eye—“she became Aunt Blu.”
“And how long have you had a thing for redheaded men?”
Her entire body lurched as her arm came forward for the next toss, but instead of releasing the dart, she spun to face him. “What?”
He grinned. “I met Big Red earlier tonight.”
She just stared at him.
“He said it’s a thing with you,” he went on. Then he scratched the whiskers on his cheek, simulating the sound of sandpaper, and pursed his lips. “So it’s the hair, then? And not the Prince Harry thing? Because I have to tell you, for most women it’s the Prince Harry thing.”
Again, he grinned. And she downed her drink. She was going to kill Len.
“Big Red even said—”
“Stop,” she finally interrupted him. “Just shut up. And say good-bye to your new friend, because I’m going to kill him.”
Waylon laughed at her words. “Something tells me he’d enjoy your attempts.”
She shook her head at the idea of the two of them talking about her. She’d seen Len come in earlier in the evening, but every time she’d glanced his way, he’d been busy chatting up one woman or another. She’d totally missed him talking to Waylon.
Turning back to the dartboard, she fired a missile, hoping to wow him with two bull’s-eyes in a row, but it dinged off the metal ring and bounced back.
“I’m still waiting on your answer,” Waylon pointed out, and though she was no longer looking at him, she could hear the smirk on his face.
She stared at the dart now lying at her feet, trying to figure out how to get out of the moment, and then decided “Why try?” She might as well give the man what he was looking for. So she turned back. And then she looked him over from boots to hat. “I’ve had a thing for redheaded men my whole life, okay? It’s weird, I know. But it’s my thing.” It was one of the things she’d gotten from her mother. “So there. That knowledge make you happy?”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
She rolled her eyes at him—and ignored the heat sparking in his. “Men,” she grumbled. Then she kicked at the dart. “And I didn’t even notice that you look like Prince Harry, by the way.”
“Liar.”
“I am not.”
He stooped to retrieve the dart. “You are,” he said as he stood. “And I know this because you suck at lying. Just like when you said you didn’t wait for me in the barn. But you did.”
“I didn’t.” She had trouble pulling in air.
“You also said that Big Red was nobody.”
Oh, for crying out loud. “He’s not,” she insisted.
“Yet you went out with him once.”
Waylon’s eyes glinted as he spoke, humor dancing in his dark pupils, and she suddenly realized that they were standing chest to chest. She pushed him away from her. “Stop flirting with me. We’re not doing that anymore.”
He laughed. “Since when?”
“Since we agreed to forget what happened Saturday night.”
His gleeful smile was back. “First of all, nothing actually happened Saturday night. If it had, I would remember that for sure. But if you’re talking about you and your trench coat . . .” He threw three bull’s-eyes in a row. “I already told you. I couldn’t forget that in a million years. Not even if I wanted to.”
She stared at the darts. Then at him. She was screwed in so many ways.
She motioned for the server to bring her another drink, and Waylon added a request for a plate of nachos, then she climbed onto a stool at a high-top and propped her arms on the table. “My turn. Why have you kept Rose a secret from everyone?”
He sat across from her. “Because it’s no one’s business until I decide to make it so.”
“How many rumors floating around this town are true?”
“Not nearly all of them. Why don’t I get a second chance?”
Because she shouldn’t have given him a first.
She knew, though, that if time were rolled back, she’d likely do the same thing again. That was her MO, after all. Fall fast and fall hard.
Not that she was falling for Waylon.
“Because, like I told you last week,” she answered, “I don’t do casual.”
“Then what was Saturday night?”
She wanted to be pithy. Witty, as he’d called her. But nothing clever came to mind.
Instead, she answered with the truth. “Saturday was a mistake.”
His gaze didn’t waver, but she could read nothing of his thoughts.
It was her turn, so she forged ahead, ignoring whatever might be going through his mind. Her voice lowered. “How many women in this bar have you slept with?”
Waylon cast his gaze around the room. “None.”
He gave no other words and no explanations, and Heather wanted to believe him. Terribly. She wanted him to be the dad she’d seen Saturday night, and not the man living in Cal’s barn.
But she didn’t think she could count on that.
She turned to the crowd, unable to keep from sizing up the women and taking a guess at who he might have slept with, but at the realization that tonight’s viewing party had ended—that many of the women he may have slept with had already left the bar—her stomach bottomed out. It was easy to say “none” when there were practically none to choose from.
On to the next rumor. “Where did you learn to cheat at poker?”
“Self-taught.”
“Do you—”
He pressed a finger to her lips. It was no longer her turn. “Tell me about your parents.”
Adrenaline pumped at his words, and she was suddenly ready for the game to be over. She could tell by the trepidation in Waylon’s eyes, though, that he wasn’t looking to hurt her. He lowered his hand, and Heather went through the pros and cons of continuing their game.
Before she could make up her mind, the server arrived, and by the time she and Waylon were alone again, she’d decided to stay. At least for the moment.
She licked her lips. “That wasn’t a question.”
“Okay.” Waylon picked up a chip. “Then why don’t you talk about your parents?”
“Who says I don’t?” Hadn’t she told him about riding horses with her mom just last week?
“Gut feeling,” he answered. “Why don’t you?”
“Because I just don’t.” Her voice went thin.
Waylon nodded as if absorbing her words, and put away a couple more chips. When he spoke again, she had to lean forward to hear him. “You still miss them?”
Her eyes felt too dry. “Terribly.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
She took a drink, her head swimming a little as she tipped the glass back, and she moved on to her turn. She thought about what else she wanted to ask. There were so many things that she could ask. That she had a desire to know about. But she had a sense the evening wouldn’t provide too many more chances. The game seemed to be wrapping up.
She reached over and helped herself to a bite of nachos, piling on plenty of beans and pico, and thought through the remaining rumors about him. One in particular seemed to be all over the place, and she nodded to herself. She had her next questions.
She looked up at him. “What caused your limp?”
“Broken femur.”
She waited, expecting more, but he simply stared back at her. Finally, she graced him with a pointed look. “You’ve got to give me something other than that.”
“You asking another question?”
“No. But I’m saying your answer isn’t exactly enlightening.” Broken femur had been the one part of the rumors that had remained consistent. Clearly, he’d already shared that fact with others.
“Ask your next question,” Waylon said by way of reply, and Heather growled in frustration.
“Fine. But I’ll be revisiting the limp one again next time.”
Interest lit his eyes. “We get a next time?”
“It’s not your turn to ask a question.”
She ate another bite of his nachos. Did she want a next time?
She thought she might.
“Why don’t you have custody?”
Trenton appeared the instant the words left Heather’s mouth, and though Heather glanced up at her friend, she immediately turned back to Waylon. But the man had shut down. The genuineness that had filled his features only seconds before was gone, and in its place was the flirtatious charm she’d seen—and heard about—so many times.
“Ah.” He stood from his chair. “The friend, come to rescue the damsel.” He stuck out his hand. “Hi. I’m Waylon.”
Instead of shaking his hand, Trenton dipped her chin and locked her gaze on his. “And I’m your worst nightmare. The damsel is finished here.”
He dropped his arm back to his side. “I’d heard you were the tough one.”
Heather snickered at the outraged look that crossed Trenton’s face, then quickly straightened when Trenton’s brown gaze snapped to hers. “You’ve had too much to drink,” Trenton announced. “And the party is over. I’m taking you home.”
Heather looked at her drink, realizing she’d finished it yet again, and acknowledged that she likely was a wee bit tipsier than she’d realized. She hopped down and stuck out her hand. “Nice chatting with you . . . Mr. Peterson.”
His eyes darkened at her formality, and Trenton pulled her away. The night was over.