One Night in Weaver...

“You heard nothing of the sort,” Jane countered blithely. “The brightness of your neon orange shirt has affected your hearing. Speaking of... Your sister wants me to do something about your shirts.”

“Admit it.” Casey leaned over his fiancée and kissed her before pulling her to her feet. “The only thing you want to do about my shirts is get me out of them.”

“Save it for the honeymoon,” Hayley told them. “My innocent ears can’t take any more.”

“Please.” Jane rolled her eyes and ducked under Casey’s arm to come around the bar. “Are you sure you don’t want—?”

“Get out of here.” Hayley gave her a hug and a push. “The party is over, so go home. I’ll make sure everything’s locked up.”

“I know. I just—” Jane closed her mouth when Hayley pointedly looked at Casey for help. “Fine. Fine!” Her friend tossed up her hands and went back around the bar. She took the costume tiara that Sam had mockingly insisted she wear during the party and fit it back on her head before joining Casey.

“Think it suits me?”

“Well, you’re already the queen of my heart,” he drawled, nearly frog-stepping her to the door.

“Oh, brother.” Jane sent Hayley a look as they left, but Hayley knew just how deeply in love the two were and once the door finally closed behind them, she couldn’t help but sigh a little.

Not with envy. She wasn’t envious of her friend’s happiness.

But she couldn’t help being even more acutely aware of her own solitary life in the face of all of that happiness.

Blowing out a breath, she peeled off her high-heeled boots and wiggled her stocking-clad toes as she went around to each of the tables, picking up paper plates and crumpled napkins and dumping them in a trash bag.

“Looks like you got left holding the bag.”

She startled, jerking around at the sound of the deep voice, and somehow managed to spill the trash she’d just collected. She spotted Seth standing in the doorway to the grill. “What are you doing here?”

He held up his plate and fork as if it should have been obvious. “Jerry’s got good pecan pie. And I was hungry after working a double.”

She hadn’t seen him since she’d tried to chase after him at the wedding shower the week before, and she felt as foolish now as she always seemed to feel around him. “Well, the restaurant might have stayed open to serve you, but the bar’s closed.”

“I gathered that from the girly-looking Closed for Private Function sign taped on the wall.” He took a few steps closer anyway. “Didn’t know that Colbys was fancy enough for privatefunctions.”

She crouched to scoop the plates and napkins back into the bag again. “I threw Jane’s bachelorette party here.” She grimaced when her fingers sank into an unfinished piece of cake but scooped as much as she could into the bag. She wasn’t about to tell him that she was the one who’d fashioned the pretty signs. “There’s more room for a party here than at my place.” Particularly with her grandmother still in residence. And Jane had insisted that if she had to have another party in her honor, she wanted it held someplace where she was extremely comfortable.

Hayley rose and wiped her sticky fingers on another paper napkin that she added to the bag. “What did you mean last week—” she pushed the words out before she lost her nerve “—about being a gentleman?”

He forked another bite of pie into his mouth, not seeming surprised by her abruptness. “I said I wasn’t.”

She finally looked right at him and felt the usual lurch inside her when she did. He was wearing blue jeans and a snug black T-shirt with SECURITY printed in white block letters across the front. “What you said before you left the Clays’ party last week. I had the sense you were implying something. I just don’t know what.”

His vivid blue eyes narrowed slightly. “Afraid you’ll have to clue me in, Dr. Templeton.”

She frowned at him. “Don’t call me that.”

“It’s what you are.” As if he were perfectly at home doing so, he went behind the bar and grabbed a towel and a bottle of spray cleaner. Then he came back around to where she’d dropped the trash and smoothly knelt to wipe up the bits of cake that had landed on the floor.

Feeling stymied, she stared down at the back of his head as he worked. His hair was starting to curl around his nape and the T-shirt tightened across his muscular shoulders every time he moved his arm.

“It’s ridiculous to call me that after we’ve slept together,” she said, wishing she didn’t feel as uptight about that fact as she did. She was a therapist, for heaven’s sake. She was supposed to understand human nature.

“Ah. I get it now.”

She wished she did.

He gave the now-clean floor a last buff with the towel and stood. “We didn’t. Sleep together. Have sex. Whatever you’re thinking that’s got your panties in a twist.” He left the bottle and towel on the table, tugged the trash bag out of her hand and headed for the uncleared tables. “Not that I didn’t have that in mind when we left here that night.”

Her face was hot. She knew she ought to tell him to stop cleaning up. She’d hosted the party and cleaning up afterward was her responsibility. “I woke up in your bed!”

“Yep.” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “That’s where I put you after you passed out. I spent a very uncomfortable night on a couch that’s too damn short.”

She pulled out a chair and sat. There was no real reason for her knees to feel weak, but they did. “But I thought we—”

“Nope.” He gave her a longer look. “Believe me, sweetheart. I’d remember if we had. Call me conceited, but I’d like to think you would, too.”

A shiver slid down her spine. “But when I woke up that morning, I wasn’t dressed.”

He came back to her and placed the half-full bag on the center of the table in front of her. “Unless you managed to strip yourself off while you were dead to the world, you still had on your undies when I put you to bed. I’m sure you weren’t naked when you decided to bolt at 4 a.m. either.”

Considering how hot her cheeks felt, she probably resembled a summer tomato. And she had been wearing her bra and panties when she’d crawled out of his bed. “I didn’t bolt.”

He deftly twisted the ends of the bag into a knot. “That’s what it looked like to me.”

“I didn’t even know you were there.”

His lips twisted. “Yeah, I got that loud and clear when you nearly face-planted on my living room rug in the middle of me kissing you.”

“I meant when I left.”

“Bolted.”

She ignored that. “You weren’t in bed with me. You weren’t anywhere in your apartment at all.” She lifted her shoulder as if it was of no consequence. As if his absence that morning hadn’t heavily factored into her many reasons for regretting her behavior that night. “I figured you’d left.”

“I was sitting on the patio.”

She studied him for a moment. “My recall of that night is admittedly limited. But I certainly haven’t forgotten that it was the beginning of January. There was at least a foot of snow on the ground. The average high that time of year is below 30 degrees. And you want me to believe you were out on your patio. At four in the morning.”

“It happens to be the truth. But if you don’t want to believe me, you can always talk to my neighbor, Mrs. Carson. Old woman’s always looking out her windows watching what’s going on.” He shrugged. “I was awake. I wanted a cigarette. I was outside. Sitting in a chair, freezing my ass off, smoking said cigarette, when what to my wondering eyes did appear but one doctor skidding her sweet way across the icy parking lot below me like the hounds of hell were on her heels.”

He tilted his head slightly. “Convenient to have a friend in the sheriff’s department. After I saw you make a call on your cell phone, it took less than three minutes for that cruiser to arrive.” His lips kicked up in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You stood under the streetlight, stomping your feet to keep warm, but you kept stealing looks back at the apartment building and shaking your head. Face it, Dr. Templeton. You bolted. And ever since then, you’ve avoided me. I haven’t even seen you running in the park lately.”

She flinched. His description of that night—that morning—was too detailed. Too accurate. “I told you already. I was embarrassed.” She lifted her hand quickly when he began to smile again. “Not because you’re a security guard at Cee-Vid.”

His expression didn’t change. “Say whatever it is that helps you sleep at night.”

Irritation was building inside her. “I’d make a pretty poor therapist if I judged people by their career choices.”

“I didn’t take you home that night because I wanted to have my head examined. And that’s not why you went with me, either.” He planted his hands on the top of the table and leaned closer. His blue eyes were laser-sharp and uncomfortably shrewd. “You were drunk. We both wanted to get laid. Whether it worked out or not is beside the point. I would still be the guy you want to pretend you never went home with.”