Just Friends?

“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?”