Colton's Surprise Family. Karen Whiddon

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СКАЧАТЬ is.” Without being asked, Jake, the bartender, brought him a tall Coors Light.

      “Business slow during the holidays?” Damien asked, taking a long drink, enjoying the light foamy head.

      “Yeah, you’re my only drinking customer,” Jake said, wiping at the bar counter with a rag that once might have been white and now was a cross between gray and yellow. “Except for her, and all she’s drinking is a Shirley Temple.”

      He pointed and for the first time Damien realized he wasn’t entirely alone in the place as he’d first supposed. Eve Kelley, her skin glowing softly in the dim light, occupied the corner booth, which sat mostly in shadows. With her head bent over a notebook, her long blond hair hung in silky curtains on each side of her face.

      “Eve Kelley,” he mused, wondering why the girl who’d been the most popular in town was all alone.

      “Yeah.” Leaning forward, the other man groused. “She’s been here an hour and she’s not even drinking alcohol. That’s her second Shirley Temple.”

      Intrigued, Damien studied her, wondering why she’d come to a bar yet didn’t drink? A problem with alcohol? She’d certainly been a party girl back in the day. Back when he’d been a senior in high school, he and she had heated up the front seat of his Ford F150. She’d been pretty and popular and since she was a few years ahead of him in school, way out of his league.

      Eve had been the only one in town who’d written him a letter while he’d been in prison. Though he’d never acknowledged it, he’d always wondered why.

      “I’m going to join her,” Damien told the bartender.

      Though the other man didn’t comment, he shook his head in disapproval. He probably thought, as did most of the people in Honey Creek, Montana, that Damien was tainted.

      Crossing the room to where she sat, he willed her to look up and smile, or stare or something. Anything other than recoil in horror and disgust. Though he’d been back home almost three months, he could count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who didn’t act as though he was a leper.

      He made it all the way to her table without her noticing.

      “Enjoying your Shirley Temple?”

      When she did raise her head and meet his gaze, he saw her eyes were still the same long-lashed, sapphire blue he remembered.

      “It’s a seven and seven,” she said, making him wonder why she bothered to lie. What did she care what he thought?

      “Mind if I join you?”

      A flash of surprise crossed her face, and then she lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Suit yourself.”

      He slid into the booth across from her, taking another long drink of his beer. “Good. I missed that while I was in prison.”

      Stirring her drink absently, she nodded. “I imagine there are quite a few things you missed, aren’t there?”

      Since she asked the question with a very real curiosity, he felt himself beginning to relax for the first time in what felt like ages. When he’d been in prison, he would have slugged anyone who tried to tell him it’d be a hundred times more tense back home than in the joint, but in reality he thought more about running away than anything else. Except sex. He thought about that a lot. Especially now. Eve Kelley, with her long blond hair and T-shirt, instantly made him think of sex.

      No doubt she wouldn’t appreciate knowing that, so he kept his mouth shut, giving her a nod for an answer.

      Leaning forward, she studied him. Her full lips parted, making him want to groan out loud. “What did you miss the most?”

      A flash of anger passed and he answered truthfully. “The feel of a woman, soft and warm, under me, wrapped around me.”

      Her face flamed, amusing him. But to give her credit, she didn’t look away. “I guess I sort of asked for that, didn’t I?”

      “No, actually you didn’t.” Chagrined, he offered her a conciliatory smile. “I’m sorry. I think sometimes I’ve forgotten how to act in public.”

      “I guess that’s understandable.”

      Finishing his beer, he signaled for another one. The bartender brought it instantly, setting it on the table without comment and removing the empty glass.

      “My turn.” He leaned forward. “Tell me, Eve Kelley. What are you doing all alone in a bar, nursing a Shirley Temple, with a snowstorm threatening?”

      “I needed to get away.” For a moment, stark desperation flashed in her expressive eyes, an emotion he could definitely relate to.

      “Holidays aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, are they?”

      She shook her head, sending her large hoop earrings swinging in that mass of long straight hair.

      Glancing at her left hand and seeing no ring, he took another drink. “I’m guessing you’re not married?”

      “Nope.”

      “Divorced, then?”

      “Never married. I guess I just didn’t meet the right person.” She sighed. “I’ve never really minded before, but the holidays can be tough on anyone, and it’s worse when you’re nearly forty and still alone. My mother is now on a matchmaker tangent. She’s determined to marry me off or die trying.”

      Her voice contained such disgust, he had to laugh.

      Watching him, her lovely blue eyes widened. “You should do that more often,” she said softly. “It suits you.”

      “Makes me look less frightening,” he replied, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. “Isn’t that what you mean?”

      Now she was the one who laughed and when she did, her face went from pretty to drop-dead stunningly beautiful. He watched as the flickering light danced over her creamy skin, the hollows of her cheeks, the slender line of her throat, and ached. Damn, he’d been too long without a woman.

      Talking to her had been a mistake.

      Yet he couldn’t make himself leave this train wreck.

      “You aren’t frightening. Not to me,” she said softly. “I forgot how funny you are. At least you kept your sense of humor.”

      “Maybe,” he allowed, studying her. Time had been kind to her. He remembered her as a tall, elegant athletic girl, one of the popular ones that every guy lusted after. She’d been a few years out of school, but that hadn’t stopped them for getting together one hot August night at a party in someone’s newly harvested field. Maybe because his life had all but stopped when he’d been sent to prison, but he remembered that like it was yesterday.

      Hell, for him it was yesterday. Sometimes he felt like a twenty-year-old kid walking around in the body of a thirty-five-year-old man. Other times he felt like he was a hundred.

      Tonight, it was refreshing to be with someone who didn’t act as though he were fragile or dangerous, or СКАЧАТЬ