Honky-Tonk Cinderella. Karen Templeton

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СКАЧАТЬ musings. The waitress had a smile and hair ruffle for Jeff…and a cool, cautious head-nod and “Hope you enjoy your dinner” for Alek. She didn’t seem angry or hurt, though, as much as…disappointed.

      She moved off to another table a few feet away, chatting and joking with the patrons as if she’d known them all her life. Which she undoubtedly had.

      Alek suppressed a sigh. Granted, he was used to getting what he wanted. In fact, most people would probably consider him spoiled. With good reason. Even so, he found no pleasure in using people or in taking undue advantage of his position.

      Or in hurting feelings, if he could help it. That a woman working in a bar should be more thick-skinned was beside the point. Perhaps she had little choice in her place of employment. Perhaps she dreaded coming to work, night after night, fearing that, just because she was pretty and friendly, some moron might misinterpret her natural ebullience as a come-on.

      Well, the least this moron could do was to attempt to remedy the situation.

      She jerked, a little, when he caught up to her at the bar a little later. Although her lips curved into a smile as she deftly loaded drinks onto her tray, a certain guardedness immediately settled into those bright blue eyes—eyes that, nevertheless, had no compunction about meeting his.

      “Everything okay?” she asked over the barrage of conversation cocooning them. “C’n I get you boys anything else?”

      “I just wanted to apologize,” he said, and the eyes went saucer wide.

      “For what?”

      “For offending you earlier.”

      She stared at him for a long moment, clearly having no earthly idea what to do with his comment. Then she yanked the tray off the bar, averting her gaze. “No offense taken,” she said softly.

      Only she turned back, the beginnings of a smile tweaking at one corner of her mouth. “But I appreciate you taking the trouble to apologize. That was real sweet of you. Most men… Well, it was just real nice, is all. Thanks.”

      And that should have been that. Except, for the rest of the evening Alek found his attention straying to the vivacious young woman with a laugh or smile or friendly word for everyone. If life had been less than kind to her, she certainly didn’t seem to be holding it against anyone. And he acknowledged to himself that, in those few seconds between his apology and her acceptance, something in Luanne Evans’s honest blue eyes had shot straight through to the cynicism knotted inside him, loosening it just a bit.

      Edging aside the despair just enough to let in the barest trickle of something he couldn’t quite define. An alien feeling, to be sure, but pleasant enough to make him think, More, please, to inexplicably draw him to whatever it was that kept Luanne Evans’s smile so naturally, so constantly, in place.

      To make him take the kind of chance he rarely did.

      Jeff and he left together, around eleven. But at one in the morning—closing time—Alek returned, the parking lot now empty save for three or four pickups and a motorcycle the size of Poland close to the building. A storm had begun to brew: wind slapped at his hair and shirt as the tang of imminent rain filled his nostrils. Thunder trembled in the distance, accompanied by lightning that pounced across the relentlessly flat landscape in an eerily beautiful dance. He put up the top, then cut the engine and waited, realizing the odds of his making a complete ass of himself were about as high as they could get.

      The first enormous drops began to pound the dirt when Luanne and another waitress emerged a few minutes later. He saw the other woman poke Luanne in the arm, point toward him; Luanne glanced over, enough light spilling from the bar for him to see her hesitate, then shake her head and swat in his direction, before the two of them took off in a blur of raindrops and giggles across the lot to their vehicles, their purses held over their heads. In an almost comical synchronization, two doors opened, two women jumped into their trucks, two doors slammed shut. The other woman took off first, tires spitting gravel as she gunned the truck out of the lot. Then, on a teeth-rattling bellow of thunder, the skies split open.

      Well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Alek thought on a bemused sigh as he reached for the ignition….

      He squinted through the deluge at the sight of a figure clumsily hauling itself out of another pickup some twenty feet from Luanne’s. Obviously drunk and yelling something indecipherable, the man lurched unsteadily in her direction. Alek froze, barely having time to wonder why Luanne hadn’t left yet before the man jerked open her door.

      Alek shot from the Porsche, reaching the old Ford just as the huge man lunged inside, groping like a bear for the obviously terrified waitress now huddled against the passenger-side door. Between the din from the storm and the other waitress’s departure, she must not have heard the man’s approach.

      The walrus might have bested him in sheer mass, but at six foot one and nearly solid muscle—not to mention having sobriety and adrenaline on his side—Alek had the clear advantage. Greasy ponytail viced in one hand, the other twisting a massive, flabby arm into a tight hammerlock, Alek yanked the sputtering, cursing oaf out of the truck, keeping his grip iron tight as torrents of surprisingly frigid, blinding rain pelted them both.

      “I take it,” Alek shouted to Luanne over the downpour, “this man’s attentions were unwelcome?”

      A crack of thunder made her jump, but in the yellow glow from her truck’s ceiling light, he saw her wide-eyed nod.

      “Just checking.” Alek then spun the drunk around, fully intending to connect fist to flabby jaw. Except, before he got the chance, the cretin let out a truly hideous belch, then splatted into the mud like a harpooned whale.

      “What the hell?”

      Alek’s gaze shot to another man in a white T-shirt and jeans—middle-aged, balding, big-bellied—bending over the fallen one. Hands on knees, completely oblivious to the rain, the man let out a short, pithy expletive before he glanced up—still bent over—and stuck out a hand. “Hey. Ed Torres. The owner.”

      Alek returned the shake, blinking against the rain slamming into his face. “Alek Hastings—”

      “Yeah. I know.” Ed grabbed the downed man’s chin, torqued his face from side to side. “One of those damn Simmons boys, looks like. Probably here for Earl’s third girl’s wedding, figured a little celebratin’ was in order. Worthless piece of…” Shaking his head in disgust, Ed straightened, pointlessly hitched up his jeans, then glanced into Luanne’s truck, rain sluicing off a face folded into a frown of genuine, fatherly concern. “Luanne, honey? You okay?”

      She nodded, even though she clearly was anything but.

      “Thirty-two years I’ve had this bar, and this is the first time one of my waitresses has been out-and-out accosted. I was just coming out, y’know, saw dogturd here headed toward Luanne’s truck. Lucky you got here when you did.” Worn features perked up into a grin; Alek thought he might have heard a chuckle over the next roll of thunder. “Yeah. Damn lucky. Hey—you mind gettin’ his feet, helping me drag his sorry ass inside? Last thing anybody needs is this idiot back behind the wheel. He can just wait inside until the sheriff shows up. So you might as well…you know…”

      Ed nodded in Luanne’s direction. Offered a sodden, conspiratorial wink.

      Alek wasn’t sure quite how to take that. However, he leaned into the truck where Luanne was still hunkered by the far door, still obviously СКАЧАТЬ