Defending Hearts. Rebecca Crowley

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ less shabby than he expected, and his sneakers barely stuck to the floor as he made his way to the bar. Only a few other people filled the large space. A couple in a booth, two men in work attire at a high table, and another couple playing pool at the far end of the room.

      “Evening.” The short, curvy, redheaded bartender was exactly his type. More so when she smiled. “What can I get you?”

      He paused, taking stock of his physical response. Any hint of attraction? Anywhere? Even a twinge?

      Nothing.

      “Whiskey. Neat,” he replied glumly.

      She arched a brow, pivoting so he could see the rows of bottles behind her. “Which label?”

      He peered past her, pointed to one on the top shelf. “Actually, make it a double.”

      She poured the drink and slid it over. “Rough night?”

      “You could say that.”

      “Should’ve swiped left.”

      He shrugged. “Not her fault.”

      “No?” She crossed her arms and leaned against the shelf at her back. “I’d swipe right.”

      He sighed inwardly. Another beautiful, available, interested woman he couldn’t be less excited about. Was this some cosmic joke? Tomorrow he’d probably fall in love with someone who hated him.

      “Hey, can I get another—Oz, hi.”

      He turned at the sound of his name, and then his night got even worse.

      “Kate. Hello.”

      “Sorry, I didn’t see you. Have you been here long?” She flicked her gaze to the bartender, pointing to her empty pint glass.

      “Just arrived.”

      “He had a bad date,” the bartender quipped, passing Kate a fresh beer.

      She looked at him expectantly. He closed his eyes for a second, hoping that when he opened them this might all have been a bad dream.

      Kate came back into focus. No, still awake.

      “It wasn’t that bad.”

      “Bad enough for a double whiskey,” the bartender added. Belatedly he realized the two women knew each other.

      “Really,” Kate mused. “But I thought—”

      “Alcohol is haram, I know.” He rolled his eyes. “I think we’ve established I’m not the poster boy for devout Islam.”

      “I thought professional athletes didn’t drink during the season,” she corrected.

      Irritation tightened his jaw. As if she knew anything about his grueling training schedule, the aches and pains and recovery periods, trying to ignore social-media onslaughts from angry fans after a loss while trying to focus and harden for the next match.

      “Call my manager if you want to make a complaint,” he retorted icily. “He’ll make sure you get your season ticket refunded.”

      “Whoa, don’t take your bad date out on me. I was merely going to suggest a way to work it off.” She raised her palms in innocence, her smile mischievous as she nodded to the pool table. “I seem to recall you had one of these in your study. Can I tempt you?”

      Without a second’s hesitation he stood and swept up his glass, briskly nodding for her to follow. “Let’s go.”

      Minutes later, as Kate finished racking the balls, he realized how expertly she’d defused him. Even stronger than his tendency toward self-righteous indignation—not his best trait, he’d be the first to admit—was his competitiveness.

      He watched her with a mix of admiration and suspicion. How did she know?

      She selected her cue. “I’ll let you break since you’re having a bad night.”

      He shook his head. “Ladies first.”

      “If you insist.” She leaned over and shot, expertly sending two solid balls into pockets. She sank another one before missing her third shot and finally giving him a turn.

      “I gather you’ve played before,” he remarked dryly, then lined up his cue and sank his first ball.

      “Lots of downtime on deployments. Not much else to do in the desert.”

      He sank one, missed one. “You mentioned. Iraq and Afghanistan. Army, right?”

      “Combat support services, in a transportation battalion. Not the most action-packed job on the ground but not bad for female enlisted.” Crack, another solid into a pocket.

      “And then Saudi Arabia.”

      She missed. “And then Saudi Arabia.”

      “What was that like?” He squinted, lining up his shot.

      “Hell.”

      He missed, put off by her frank response, but too interested to care. “Really? Why?”

      She considered the layout on the table before positioning her cue. “The money was amazing, but everything else was awful. I did personal security for the wife of an American oil executive. The company had a chemical plant in the middle of nowhere, and all the Americans and their families lived in a compound outside the local town. The houses were big, there was a pool, a community center, a school—sounds great, right? It wasn’t.”

      She missed. He picked an angle. “Why not?”

      “The whole place was creepy.” He caught her shiver of distaste in the second before he pocketed a ball. “Everyone knew everyone’s business. Half of the husbands were sleeping with the other half’s wives. I spent all my time with this one woman, who was either too smart to say anything about her husband’s blatant cheating or too dumb to notice. Women aren’t allowed to drive there so we were restricted to the compound, and if we left we had to wear hijab.”

      She raised her cue to take her turn. “After serving in the Middle East I thought the Sharia stuff wouldn’t bother me, but living like that all the time is a whole other kind of crazy. I don’t know how the women in these Muslim countries—” She stopped, looking up guiltily as she missed her shot. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like—”

      “It’s fine,” he said mildly, lining up his cue. “There are over a billion Muslims in the world. We’re not all the same.”

      “I know, I didn’t mean to suggest—”

      “I have as much in common with a Saudi Arabian Muslim as you do with a Nigerian Christian.” He sank a ball. “If you are Christian, that is.”

      “Only by default. I haven’t been to church in about fifteen years.”

      He sent his fifth ball into a pocket. “My point is, sharing a basic religious categorization with someone doesn’t make me empathetic to СКАЧАТЬ