Just Friends?

Chapter Three

“Does your daddy know you still play pool?”

Bent over her borrowed pool cue and the side of one of the pool tables situated inside Colbys Bar & Grill, Leandra’s stroke hesitated. When had Evan arrived at the bar? She angled her chin, looking beside her. “Does your daddy know you’ve taken up drinking beer?”

The corner of Evan’s lips twitched. “I’d have to say he did since he’s the one who bought it.” His fingers were looped around the slender neck of the bottle and he tilted the bottom of it, gesturing. “He’s at the bar over there.”

Leandra followed the gesturing beer bottle. Sure enough, Drew Taggart was standing at the bar.

From Leandra’s vantage point, it looked as if the only thing that had changed about Evan’s father were the strands of silver threading through his black hair. He was talking with one of her uncles. Tristan Clay was as golden blond as he’d ever been, and standing there, the two men—one dark haired and one light—made a striking image.

“I thought you were going to Braden this evening.” She distinctly remembered him saying as much that afternoon.

“Plans change.” He shifted beside her.

“You said your parents have been to Florida?” She focused again on lining up her shot, instead of on his well-worn jeans.

“Got back yesterday.”

The cue ball struck the racked balls with a satisfying thwack, scattering them nicely. “Were they gone long?”

“Two weeks.” Evan set his bottle on the wide ledge of the pool table and pulled a stick from the selection hanging on the wall rack. Colbys might serve the best steak in town, but it was still a bar, complete with jukebox, wood floors, a very long, gleaming wood bar and a half-dozen pool tables. “They came back early. Because of the show being on television.” His voice sounded disgruntled.

“I’ll have to catch up with them and say hello,” Leandra murmured, stepping around the table and lining up her next shot. She hoped Evan didn’t get any grumpier about the shoot. She truly didn’t like the idea of making someone miserable just so she could achieve her own goals. “Where’s your sister been staying while they were gone?”

“Tris and Hope’s. Though she’s eighteen now. She could have stayed by herself at the house. Jake doesn’t know anything about Ed-wa-ahrd.”

Her shot went wide, the ball banking uselessly off the side cushion. She straightened, propping the end of the stick on the toe of her tennis shoe. “What did you do? Ask him about it when he called?”

“Yes.”

An invisible band seemed to tighten around her skull. “I told you it didn’t concern Jake. It doesn’t concern you, for that matter.”

“Sounding a little defensive there, Leandra.” Evan leaned over and sank two balls in the corner pocket.

So much for her sympathy. She had an intense urge to smack him over the shoulders with her own pool cue. “And you are sounding pretty interfering there, Evan. What does it matter, anyway? Why do you care?”

He was studying the table, his head slowly tilting to one side, then the other. “Jake’s one of my best friends.”

“So out of loyalty to him you figure he needs to know about Eduard?”

He leaned over again, his movements with the pool cue infuriatingly confident. “Does he?”

Despite her intense concentration on them, the infernal balls didn’t have the sense to thwart his rapid shots. They went sailing exactly where he wanted. At the rate he was going, he’d have the table cleared in minutes. “I’ve already said there’s nothing for him to know. Why are you making a deal about this?”

“You’re the one being closemouthed.” Only the eight ball remained. He lined it up. A second later, it rolled neatly into the pocket. Looking smugly superior, he straightened.

“Bet you can’t do that a second time.”

His lips quirked, amused. “Bet I can. Don’t forget, sport, I’ve been hanging out here at Colbys since before you moved away.”

“Maybe I hit the billiard circuit in California.”

“You’re a rotten liar. Have been ever since you tried to convince Mr. Pope that you didn’t cheat on that junior high math test.”

“I didn’t cheat!”

“Have you convinced yourself of that in the years since?”

“I don’t have to convince myself of anything. I know what happened with that test whether Pope—or you—believed me or not.” She walked around the table to the other side, facing him. “If you must know, it was Tammy Browning who was cheating off my test. I’ve never cheated on anything. And you’re trying to sidestep the bet. What’s the matter, Evan?” She leaned over, propping her forearms on the side of the table. “You afraid of losing to a girl?”

“Wouldn’t matter if you weren’t a girl. How much?”

She rolled her eyes in thought. “Twenty.”

“Sissy bet.”

“Forty.”

He waited.

“Fine.” She pulled some of the cash from the front pocket of her blue jeans, counted through it. Slapped several bills down on the rail. “Fifty.”

Of course, now the man smiled. Slow and easy. As if he’d been the one baiting her all along.

It annoyed her to no end.

“Rack ’em up, sport.”

She made quite a production out of it. “What’s with the ‘sport’ thing?”

He leisurely chalked the tip of his cue, watching her. “You’re the one dressing like a Little Leaguer.”

She looked down at herself. Blue jeans and a zip-front sweatshirt. Well, okay, she was wearing a ball cap with the show’s WITS acronym sewn on it, but that was hardly a damning fashion statement. Most of the crew wore the caps. Even people around town were sporting them.

She captured all of the balls within the triangular rack and rolled it back and forth, finally positioning it at the footspot. “Knock yourself out, Doc.”

He hit a sound break, solids and stripes bursting outward in a rolling explosion. He waited until they all came to a rest, his blue gaze studying the positions.

“Getting cold feet?” Her voice was dulcet.

He snorted softly and leaned over to begin smoothly picking them off, one by one—and sometimes two—into the pockets. He didn’t miss a single shot.

“Who taught you to play, anyway?” She silently bid her money a farewell.

“My dad.”

“Figures. And I know he must have played plenty with my uncles during their misspent youth.” The Clay brothers, and Tag, had all been notoriously wild teenagers.

“And your dad. He’s one of the worst ones when it came to playing hard.”

“Worst as in best,” she muttered. Not once in her life had she been able to best her father at the pool table, whether it was the one housed in their basement or elsewhere.

“It’s all Squire’s fault.” Sarah had come up to stand beside Leandra. “He’s the one who taught his sons how to play in the first place.”

Leandra nodded. “True.” Their grandfather had raised his sons alone after the death of his first wife, Sarah, after whom Leandra’s cousin had been named. According to the stories, he’d been a hard-nosed man with little softness afforded to his boys after his wife’s death from giving birth to Tristan, their youngest. And then Leandra’s mother, orphaned before she was even ten, had gone to live with Squire and all of those boys. And all of their lives had been forever changed.

Evan sank two more balls. The table was nearly clear again, and Leandra’s hopes that Evan would make even one small misstep were dwindling.

“He’s going to keep running the table if you don’t do something,” Sarah murmured as she lifted her soda to her lips. She’d changed out of her schoolteacher clothes into jeans that were nearly identical to Leandra’s. But instead of a shapeless gray sweatshirt, Sarah wore a pretty pink crocheted top over a matching camisole, and instead of scuffed tennis shoes on her feet, she had pointy-toed black boots with killer heels that made her look even more leggy than she really was.

And Leandra was beginning to feel decidedly frumpy. She turned on her heel, looking at her cousin. “What am I supposed to do about it? I already feel stupid for putting the money down.”

Sarah shook her head slightly and her long hair rippled over her shoulders. “Distract him.”

Leandra wanted to snort. Her cousin was a distracting-type woman. Leandra was not. She was not especially tall, nor especially curvy and her last haircut had been at the courtesy of her own hands because she’d been too darned busy to keep a hair appointment. “Just what am I supposed to distract him with?”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Have you forgotten everything we used to know? You’re wearing something under that sweatshirt, aren’t you?”

“An undershirt.”

“Is it completely disgraceful?”

It was thin, white and sleeveless. “It’s clean.”

Sarah laughed softly. “What would you advise someone on your show? And you’d better hurry up. At the most, he only has three shots left.”

Frowning at the lengths she’d go to in order to save her fifty dollars, Leandra unzipped the sweatshirt and tossed it onto the nearby high-top table. Picking up her cue stick again, she sauntered around the table until she was opposite Evan once again.

She leaned the stick against the side of the table and braced her hands on the rails. “Want to go for double or nothing?”

He didn’t even glance her way. “We could just save the time and have you hand over the money, instead.”

Leandra rolled her eyes. Caught Sarah’s gaze. Her cousin nodded encouragingly.

Swallowing an oath, she slowly moved around the table, taking advantage of the time Evan was spending as he studied the table and the not-so-easy position of the remaining balls. She stopped beside him as he began to line up his next shot and murmured close to his ear. “Maybe I think three times is not going to be the charm for you.”

He jerked as if he’d been bitten. She almost chuckled at the comedy of the moment. But she managed to contain herself when he straightened again, not taking the shot after all, and she found her nose about five inches away from the soft brown shirt covering his chest.

Or, rather, the chuckle nearly turned into choking because the man was just too male for her stunted senses.

“What are you doing?” His voice was mildly curious.

She would not blush. She was a career woman, for heaven’s sake. Blushing was not supposed to be part of her repertoire.

She still felt her cheeks warming and thanked the heavens that the bar was crowded and slightly warm as a result. She’d blame it on that. Much more palatable than thinking he could reduce her to a blush so easily.

Searching desperately for an answer, she spotted Sarah, who lifted her eyebrows slightly, meaningfully.

“Just cooling off,” she assured. “Don’t you think it’s getting warm in here?”

His lashes drooped, his gaze moving over her from her face to her toes.

And dammit, she actually shivered. Shivered!

Maybe she was coming down with the flu. Maybe she was simply off her rocker. That was far more likely.

“Yeah, it’s warm all right.” His voice dropped a notch. “A hundred bucks? You sink every striped ball and I’ll pay you a hundred bucks.”

“Interesting idea. But this wasn’t about my ability. It was about yours.”

He set the bottom of the cue stick on the floor. The tip of it stood higher than Leandra’s head. “I don’t think either one of us question my ability.” He took Leandra’s hand and wrapped it around the shaft of the stick, keeping it in place with his own hand around hers. “Do we?”

There was a knot in her throat, making it difficult to breathe. His hand felt hot against hers.

“Well?” He prompted when she failed to answer.

She shook herself, snatching the stick and her hand away from him. Ignoring the faint smile that touched his wicked, wicked mouth, she turned to the pool table only to find that at least a dozen people had joined Sarah in watching them.

She felt her face flush even hotter.

Her parents. Her cousins. Ted. They were all there. Even the players at the other pool tables had gone silent.

Great.

“One hundred dollars,” she said brusquely. “You sure you’re good for it, Taggart?”

He cocked an eyebrow.

Making a face, she pointed the cue at the table. “Rack them up, then. Striped balls, any pocket.”

While Evan gathered all of the balls in the rack, Sarah scooted next to Leandra. “You were supposed to be distracting him, remember?”

“Yeah, a fine idea you had,” she muttered. “I’m going to make an ass out of myself, right here in front of everyone. Even Ted and his little camcorder, there.”

Sarah glanced over at the cameraman. “I didn’t even realize that thing he’s been playing with all evening was a camera.”

After more than a year of working together, Leandra wasn’t the least interested in Ted and his penchant for electronics. Instead, she kept her focus on Evan’s work at the table. He removed the rack with a goading smile, and waved his hand over the table, as if inviting her to humiliate herself.

“Just take your time,” Sarah advised under her breath. “Remember everything we’ve ever been taught about pool.”

The first thing Leandra had been taught was not to place a bet that she wasn’t absolutely certain of winning.

She centered the cue ball over the headspot, settled her left hand on the felt, making a bridge for the stick and sliding it slowly back and forth, experimentally, as she focused on the leading ball of the rack.

“Gonna take all night there, sport?”

She drew back and let fly.

The racked balls exploded. Two balls, one solid, one striped, plowed into the corner pockets.

A couple of hoots followed from the peanut gallery.

Leandra closed them out.

It was not so easy to close out Evan, though, as she moved around the table, studying the position of the remaining striped balls. He leisurely moved out of her way when she pointedly stopped next to him.

“Sure you want to try that shot?” His voice was solicitous. “You’re gonna have to cut the eleven ball to get the right angle.”

Shut up, she thought. She leaned over, lining up the shot. He was right, though. She’d have to hit the cue ball into the striped ball exactly to one side of center in order to gain the forty-five-degree angle she needed for the ball to head toward the corner pocket. Narrowing her eyes, she drew in a breath, and made her stroke.

The balls clacked together and old eleven rolled right into the pocket. More slowly than she’d intended, but at least it dropped.

“That’s my girl,” she heard her father say.

“Five more to go,” Evan murmured as she slipped by him yet again.

As a distracter, he was much more effective than she’d been. “I should have let Ted tape you snoring all night long.”

“Who says I snore?”

She leaned over and sank two balls, slam bam. “Jake. You were college roommates.” She straightened for only a moment before leaning over again. “Hope you don’t need that hundred too badly, sport.”

He’d moved around the table, opposite her. “Did you know that I can see right down your shirt?”

She barely kept the tip of her stick from hitting the felt. Her skin prickled and she fought the urge to straighten. To press her hand against the scooped neckline of her T-shirt and hold it flat against her meager chest, just in case he was not merely spouting tripe.

Whether or not he could see down her shirt, she still felt her nipples tighten, and prayed that he wouldn’t notice.

Three striped balls to go, she reminded herself, and she would get out of the bar, go home and not have to see Evan again until Sunday evening.

She set her jaw, kept her grip on the stick loose and stroked.

Only when the green-striped ball toppled into the pocket did she let out her breath.

“Looking a little stressed there,” Evan murmured. “Sure you don’t need a break?”

She rounded the table, knocked into his shin with the butt of her stick and smiled sweetly. “So sorry.”

He merely lifted his beer bottle and sipped.

She envied him a bit. Her mouth felt parched. And when she leaned over for the next shot, she couldn’t help but glance down to see how, exactly, her T-shirt behaved.

It was as snug against her torso as ever and when she looked up, the glint of laughter in Evan’s expression was unmistakable.

He’d caught her looking.

She slammed the sixth ball into a corner pocket. Only one striped ball remained. But it had a nightmare position, nearly blocked by two solids and frozen against the side cushion.

She could hear the murmur from the peanut gallery and didn’t dare look their way. Knowing the family as she did, she was afraid they might well be placing side bets.

“Feeling the pressure?” Evan leaned down on his forearms beside her, acting for all the world as if they were bosom buddies. “Not even sure I could make that shot, truth be told.”

For as long as Leandra could remember, there had always been a haze of smoke clinging to the interior of Colbys. Now was no different.

Yet despite the smoke, she could still smell the fresh, clean scent that she was beginning to identify with Evan and only Evan.

“I can make the shot,” she assured, lying right through her teeth.

He shrugged. “Maybe. Or you could just fess up about Ed-wa-ahrd, and we’ll call it even.”

She narrowed her eyes, ostensibly studying the table. “A person might think that your curiosity where Eduard is concerned has nothing to do with Jake, and everything to do with you.”

“Maybe it does.”

She bit down on her tongue, not at all expecting that admission. She’d just been tossing out the accusation to goad him.

“You going to give up, Leandra?” Ted’s voice drew her attention. He had moved closer to the pool table from the high-top where she’d last seen him, and was holding up his palm-size video recorder.

Evan was still watching her.

And she had an unbidden vision of him lowering his head toward hers, brushing his lips across hers.

Feeling thoroughly unsettled, she shook her head in answer to Ted, but just as much to shake the image of Evan kissing her from her head, and lined up the shot.

The stripe missed the pocket by a good six inches. Smiling wryly, she turned to face the gallery, shrugging. “Them’s the breaks,” she said lightly as she extended the cue stick toward Evan.

What was she doing, thinking about Evan kissing her? The only time he’d ever kissed her had been on the cheek at their high school graduation.

She pulled her cash out of her pocket again and counted out another fifty, picked up the cash that was still sitting on the rail, and folded it all together. “There you go, Doc. Add that to your lunch fund.”

Evan eyed the woman and the cash she was holding out. He didn’t want Leandra’s damn money. He wanted to know who the hell the French guy was and what he’d meant—or still meant—to Leandra. Loyalty to Jake was only an excuse.

A poor excuse, since Evan’s feelings where Leandra Clay were concerned weren’t exactly loyal.

But Evan knew what Leandra didn’t—that Jake was engaged to be married again and he didn’t have the huevos to tell his ex-wife about it for fear of hurting her even more than she’d been hurt. But if Leandra had been involved with some other guy, then maybe Jake could take off that particular hair shirt of thinking that Leandra was so damn fragile, and get on with his life.

And Evan could maybe get on with his.

When he didn’t take the cash, though, Leandra finally stepped toward him. The top of her tousled blond head didn’t even reach his shoulder, but he still swore he could smell the enticing scent of her shampoo.

Then she reached out and tucked the money into the front of his leather belt. “Enjoy the dough,” she said smoothly, and turned away.

It was all he could do not to grab her by the shoulders and haul her up against him.

The fact that half the patrons of Colbys—including Ted and that toy-size camera of his—were watching, kept his hands firmly at his sides.

Then Leandra lifted her hands and addressed the crowd. “Don’t anyone forget. Sunday evening at seven right here at Colbys to watch Evan’s television debut!”

Evan endured the hoots and hollers and reminded himself that six weeks wasn’t really all that long of a time.

He could survive it.

Maybe.

Chapter Four

“You know what I like about Saturdays?” Leandra was stretched out on the couch in Sarah’s living room. Her cousin was sitting on the floor, surrounded by school materials as she made lesson plans.

“Hmm?”

“The possibility of endless sleeping.”

“Having Snow White fantasies again? Like the idea of those seven short guys?”

“As long as they’re catering to my every whim?” Leandra smiled lazily. “Sounds okay to me.”

“Sort of boring, though, laying there in the glass case, waiting for your prince to come and lay some lip on you.”

What would Evan’s kiss be like?

Leandra threw her arm over her closed eyes, mentally brushing at the thought, but it kept circling like some pesky mosquito buzzing around her head. “Well, note that I said the possibility of sleeping. It’s nice to just ponder the whole idea of it. Not that I’ll be doing it or anything. Too much work to do.” Which reminded her that she’d forgotten all about her cell phone again.