When Kurstin gave her a blank look, Hayley snorted and said, "How soon we forget." She leaned closer to elaborate in a low voice, "To get laid? Wasn't it just—what?—Monday we had that conversation? Now, granted, your Ty isn’t a construction worker, but still, not a bad night's work for someone who thought she knew every man in town."
Kurstin laughed but then confessed in equally low tones, "It wouldn’t have been a bad night's work…if I had had that particular wish granted. But it hasn’t happened yet. The chemistry is definitely right. But for some reason he is being depressingly gentlemanly about the whole thing."
Hayley's head went back. "That rat bastard!" she said in faux shocked undertones. Slapping the bar with the flat of her hand, she leaned closer to her friend. "Where have all the bad boys gone? There are sure as hell none to be found when you really need one. I tell you, this never would have happened to the heroine in a Ranch Romance."
"I know. Reality bites."
"Whoa.” She blinked. “You must be distressed if you're reduced to using vulgar slang. Still and all," she offered as she straightened up and busied herself neatening items both on and below the bar. "If the way he watches you is anything to go by, it is only a matter of time. At least you have strong probability on your side. That's nothing to sneeze at." She shot Kurstin a hopeful look from beneath her lashes. "I don’t suppose he has a brother, does he? One with a yen for adventuresome sex?"
"Is that what you're into, adventuresome sex?"
“I’m sure I could be, given half a chance. Problem is, no one has ever offered me the opportunity to find out."
Ty returned from the men's room as the band was breaking for their second intermission. Jon-Michael joined them and Hayley watched through narrowed eyes as he draped himself over the corner of the bar and managed to carry on a conversation with his sister and her date while ignoring her presence entirely, except for a curt order for a club soda. She slammed it down in front of him and took herself off to attend to the break rush.
The two barmaids had borne their loaded trays off to their respective tables and the crowd around the bar had thinned when Hayley was hailed by a masculine voice. She looked up to see Joe Beal standing on the other side of the bar. His hands thrust in his pant's pockets and his dark eyebrows drawn together in a frown, he regarded her soberly across the space separating them.
"Hey," she said with guarded congeniality. She actually liked the guy but was scrupulously careful not to encourage what was surely a temporary infatuation on his part. "Want your usual?"
"Please."
She felt his gaze on her as she poured a jigger of rum over ice and filled the glass to the top with Coke from the soda gun. Wiping off the bottom of the glass, she handed him his drink and accepted his money.
Joe crowded close to the bar as she turned back from the cash register and leaned in to eliminate even more distance between them. "Hayley," he said in a low, earnest voice. "I heard something tonight I think I should pass on to you."
"Yeah? And what is that, Joe?" Since he often hung around initiating conversations, Hayley only attended to this one with half an ear. She gave him a vague, distracted smile as she restocked her supply of cocktail napkins.
"The night clerk over at the Inn told me the day clerk took eight new reservations this afternoon within the space of an hour and a half."
"Uh huh. That's good, isn't it?" She wondered if her supply of limes would last through the evening or if she should cut another one.
"No, it's not good at all. Hayley, pay attention."
She looked up. "I am paying attention," she insisted and gave him another polite smile. "You said the motel took a good number of reservations today. It’s their peak season and they are the only game in town. What is so unusual about that?" Yes, one more. She picked a lime from the fruit basket.
"The clerk said two of the reservations were for a Senator Jarvis from New Hampshire and staff. Three more were from journalists from different east coast newspapers. Another three were reserved in the name of eastern seaboard television stations."
The lime dropped from her suddenly nerveless fingers to roll silently across the floor.
If Ty had not happened to have Jon-Michael in his sights the moment the other man's head suddenly snapped up and his entire body tautened like a hunting dog on point, he never would have known something was up. Almost as quickly as Kurstin's brother went on alert, he relaxed back into his sprawl across the bar's countertop, leaving Ty to question the validity of his own instincts. All the same, he casually turned his head to follow the sight-line Jon-Michael's gaze had taken.
And saw Hayley down at the far end of the bar. Staring at the man across from her as if she might puke her guts up at any minute.
Ty glanced back at Jon-Michael, but the sax player had propped his head in the palm of his hand and was teasing his sister with lazy good humor as if nothing out of the ordinary had just taken place. Hell. For all Ty knew, nothing had.
Except...he didn't believe it. Something was in the wind.
And if he wanted to be in a position to find out exactly what it was, he had better quit messing around and step up his plans for Kurstin McAlvey.
Jesus, she had turned white as a sheet. Jon-Michael took the curve too fast then eased up slightly on the throttle as he leaned into the turn. The Harley's headlight cut a swath through the star-studded darkness and wind roared in his ears.
It was as if every drop of blood had left her face. One minute she had been paying a distracted sort of attention as Joe Beal leaned forward to yammer something in her ear, and the next her head had snapped up while every bit of her natural color drained from her cheeks.
He cut the bike's engine and coasted down the drive to the old man's estate. He gave Hayley's window in the darkened mansion little more than a passing glance. He was pretty sure he knew where he would find her.
And, sure enough, she was sitting on the dock right where he thought she would be. Knees drawn up to her chest, ankles crossed, she hugged her shins as she stared out into the darkness shrouding the peripheries of the lake. The invisible chorus of frogs and crickets went abruptly silent at his approach, making the creak of the dock as he stepped onto it sharp as a gunshot.
"Go away," she ordered without turning around.
"No."
"Dammit, Jon." She sighed wearily, staring out into the night. "I am in no mood for your motherless-chile-don't-know-right-from-wrong routine right now."
"You’re in luck, then—I didn't plan on running it by you."
"Go. Away."
"Not gonna happen, petunia." He listened to the soft slap of water against the pilings for several seconds, then sat down behind her. Sliding his legs along either side of her hips, he crowded his chest up against her back. When she leaned forward, holding herself stiffly away from him; his upper body followed.
He did not push his luck, however, by trying to wrap his arms around her as well; he would probably just gain himself a sharp elbow in the gut for his trouble. Forcing his fingers to relax, he rested his wrists atop his bent knees and let his hands dangle.
"You okay?" he asked quietly when the silence had stretched on awhile. One by one, the crickets resumed their nocturnal chorus, joined occasionally by the amphibian rhythm and bass section.