Theo and Cole's conversation ended just before the ball game.
Brenna expected Cole to leave. When he didn't, she had no choice but to wait on him again. "Another beer?"
He shook his head. "Coffee." When she returned to his table with a steaming cup, he asked, "Do you like working here?"
"It's okay."
"I never pictured you as a barmaid."
Given Harvey Bates's opinion of her, she didn't want to know how Cole thought she earned a living. "It's honest work. It pays the bills." Almost.
Cole grinned and brushed his finger across the back of her hand. Warmth lingered on the trail from his finger.
"I did it again, didn't I?" he said.
"What?" His smile was stunning. Her resolve to continue disliking him slipped another notch.
"Put my foot in my mouth." He stuck out one of his feet, covered in a size-twelve black wingtip. "It sure tastes awful. I wasn't casting aspersions about your job. Maybe we can start over."
"Start over?" She shook her head, lost in the direction his conversation had taken.
"Hi," he said, extending his hand toward her, a smile creasing the corners around his eyes. "I'm Cole
Cassidy."
She stared at him.
He took her hand in his and in a stage whisper, said, "You're supposed to tell me your name. This is the
first time we've met." She was unable to say a word, aware of his hand on her arm, his eyes on her face. Somehow, in the last five minutes, reality had shifted subtly. The attorney who had been Harvey Bates's tool in her destruction became a man she found alluring.
Never in her life had she felt so off balance. She had spent years trusting her instincts. Which did she believe now? Instincts that were drawn to the caress of his hands and eyes, promising compassion and understanding? Or instincts that warned her of danger and urged her to ran?
"Brenna James," he said as though she had just told him her name. "I like your name. Brenna is Irish, isn't it?"
"You're nuts. Certifiable."
He laughed and released her hand.
"That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
She resisted smiling. "I thought we had just met."
"Then it's true, because it's also the first thing you've said to me."
The corner of her mouth lifted. "Okay."
He took a sip of his coffee. "Nice outfit," he said, indicating her uniform. "Makes you look about fifteen."
His tone echoed her sentiments exactly. She glanced down at the green and white uniform, bobby socks and tennis shoes. "Makes me feel about fifteen."
"That can't be all bad." His voice became light and teasing.
"The worst year of my life was when I was fifteen." The confession fell from her lips without conscious thought and was followed by an instant of disbelief that she had spoken aloud. Blindly, she picked up glasses and debris from the adjoining table. "I've got to get back to work."
She never slipped. Not ever. Her defenses were bone-deep and governed by a simple rule. She never talked about herself. She couldn't afford to. This time, her anger was directed at herself.
By rote, she moved through the bar, doing her job. Unwanted memories interrupted her concentration.
Two deaths and Brenna's entrance into adulthood had marked her fifteenth year. First her mother, then Nonna.
Her mother had been powerless to defuse the growing resentment between father and daughter. When Brenna had decided to leave home, her mother did the one thing she could-let go. At the time, Brenna hadn't understood or appreciated how difficult that choice had been for her mother.
And her grandmother. Nonna had been the one person who cared enough to reach out to an angry adolescent and love her unconditionally. Even now, when Brenna felt herself slipping into an abyss of hopelessness, all she had to do was close her eyes and think of her grandmother. Within moments, Brenna would feel better.
She didn't think anything would ever be as devastating as being fifteen and discovering she had just one person she could depend on-herself. Eleven years should have been long enough for the shattering desolation to be gone. It might as well have been yesterday.
Chewing the inside of her lip and lost in her thoughts, she waited on her customers without responding to their banter, straightened chairs and wiped down tables. Other customers left the bar, but Cole remained, nursing coffee that Theo refilled several times.
Brenna wanted to ran from his attention, and she wanted to rant at him for stirring long-dead, painful memories. She wanted to sit with him to find out how he got calluses and scraped knuckles, and she wanted time alone to absorb his subtle flirting.
Months ago, that first day in his office giving the deposition, she had been intensely aware of him. He dominated her memories of that day, and he dominated her awareness now. What was it about the man? The night dragged by at a snail's pace, and she knew exactly when Cole left. Fifteen minutes before the bar closed. The tip he left her was average, but a note left for her on a napkin was not. She stared at the words, unable to make sense of the bold strokes of his handwriting. She set it on the tray with his empty coffee cup.
Behind the bar, she set the tray next to the sink. "Theo, can you decipher this?"
Theo glanced at the napkin. "See you soon."
"See you soon," she repeated, staring at the three words, then putting the napkin in her pocket.
"You knew him before tonight, didn't you?" Theo asked.
"Yes."
"Are you two good friends?"
"No. Not friends. We met last year, but I haven't seen him in a while," she said. Two months and three
weeks exactly, she thought, remembering that last day at his office.
"Might as well pack it in," Theo said, glancing at his watch. "When is your bus due?"
"It comes by at five of."
"Get going then. I don't want you to have to wait another half hour for the next one."
After changing into jeans and a loose T-shirt, Brenna pulled her hair out of the rubber band and brushed
it out. She found it impossible not to think about Cole and gave up trying. She had seen him as an extension of Harvey Bates-a man intending to do her harm. But that wasn't the man she had seen tonight The Cole Cassidy she met tonight was charming. Nice. A man she could like, a man she found ... alluring.
"Grow up, Brenna," she told her reflection. "You and Mr. Cole-Justice-Cassidy? Not in your wildest dreams." What's so wild about wanting him to see you as an interesting woman, came the persistent voice inside her head that had once made her think almost anything was possible. What if you had met him some other way?
But I didn't.
But, what if you had? What if he liked the person you are?
Fat chance of that.
She threw her hairbrush in the bottom of the canvas tote bag that had once been beige, but that was now held together with patches in a variety of faded colors and shapes. In her mind, the tote bag symbolized their differences perfectly. Cole was cordovan leather, and she was patched canvas.
Even if they had met some other way, it was just that simple.
Hoisting the tote bag over her shoulder, she held that thought firmly in mind as she walked out of the bar and into an empty night.
The traffic was a little less than usual, even for the middle of the night. The homeless man who had slept on the bus-stop bench the last two nights was nowhere to be seen. The only pedestrian on her side of the street was a drunk sprawled against the building, his legs bent, a hat pulled over his eyes. A couple of other men stood in front of a bar at the other end of the block, their arms wrapped over the top of a parking meter, their laughter carrying to Brenna.
This neighborhood wasn't as rough as some where she had worked, a fact she had pointed out to her brother Michael when he told her no sister of his was going to sit at a bus stop in the middle of the night. The conversation seemed stupid to her, since she had been following similar patterns for years. She wasn't about to impose on her brother by having him pick her up from work at one o'clock in the morning. Michael hadn't agreed willingly, but he eventually had agreed.
Giving the block one last perusal, Brenna left the shelter of the entry and walked the block and a half to the bus stop. If she was lucky, the bus would be early tonight, instead of ten to fifteen minutes late it sometimes was.
She was halfway to the bus stop when she saw movement next to the shadowed building out of the corner of her eye. Automatically, she reached for the cylinder of pepper gas in her tote bag that she should have been carrying in her hand.
A man materialized out of the shadow, his voice and his eyes dark as the night. "Hey, baby, wanna party?"
Chapter 4.
Brenna had never seen this man before. Avoiding a direct challenge, her own gaze skittered away from his sharp eyes, her assessment quick. Baggy jeans, black T-shirt, a narrow face and the wiry muscularity of a jackal.
Dirty. Drunk. Dangerous.
A predator to whom she could show no weakness. Making sure she didn't turn her back to the man, she edged away from him.
Did she want to party? Not hardly. She didn't trust her voice to be as stern as she wanted, so she shook her head and kept walking toward the bus stop. With every step, a lurch in her stomach kept pace. She fought the urge to run. It was too far back to the bar, and she doubted she'd find any good Samaritans driving down Colfax at this time of night.
The man lengthened his stride to catch up with her. "Hurrying home to your boyfriend?" He reached for Brenna, and she sidestepped to avoid his grasp. "Hey, I'm just trying to be a nice guy," he protested. "Ain't safe around here for a pretty thing like you. Betcha your boyfriend don't know where you've been." He nodded toward a strip joint across the street. "You a stripper?"
Brenna looked down the street, hoping she would see the bus, hoping the man didn't have the money or the inclination to board the bus when she did.
"Whatchername?" he asked.
Brenna didn't answer. Instead, she walked toward the bus stop. Purposeful. Calm. Her fingers closed around the pepper spray in the bottom of her bag. Again, she looked down the street. For the moment, it was deserted as a country road.
Where was the bus?
His glance followed hers down the street. "Expecting someone?" he asked.
Brenna met his gaze. "Yes," she said, her voice crisp with the conviction of truth.
Bus or no bus, at the moment she'd be happy to see anyone. Otherwise, she might have to spray the guy.
And hope her reflexes were faster than his.
He was too close, enough so she could smell his sweat and the beer on his breath. She edged toward the curb, trying to put some distance between them. He followed, his swagger more confident. A single car drove past, its driver staring straight ahead. No help there. Where was the bus? A cop? The cavalry?
Ahead of her, a black Jeep came toward them. Brenna recognized the driver.
Cole Cassidy... An unlikely answer to her prayer.
She waved.
Cole stared hard at her, then made an illegal U-turn in the middle of the block. He pulled to a stop next to the sidewalk.
"Brenna?" His eyes swept over her then went to the man on the sidewalk next to her.
He set the emergency brake and got out, his movements as controlled as a lion stalking its prey. He had taken off his coat, revealing muscular shoulders that had been only hinted at beneath his jacket. Brenna was struck with the raw power of his presence. He had rolled up the cuffs of his dress shirt, and the muscles of his forearms bunched when he curled his hands into loose fists. He looked altogether ...
dangerous.
Next to her, Brenna felt the man shrink back a little.
"Hi," she said, her voice breathless.
"Are you all right?"