“No worries.” Adam threw a quick hug around her shoulders. “It was good to see you, Savannah. I’ll leave an extra tip for Juanita at the bar,” he said as he started for the bar. “Losers always tip.”
He stopped at the register, handed a few bills over to Merle and then exited the bar. Savannah realized her pretend friends were gone, too. Merle wiped down the bar, but ignored them, and Juanita had disappeared into the back room. Leaving her alone with Collin and a jukebox playing a song about a battered woman killing her husband. Savannah wanted to leave, but wasn’t sure how to excuse herself.
“Looks like we have the place to ourselves,” Savannah said.
“Slippery Rock closes down around ten, remember?”
“Surely not every place in town is closed down.” She sat across the table from him.
Collin looked at her, really looked, for the first time since she’d come over to the table. Savannah swallowed again, but this time not in anticipation. He looked at her as if...as if he didn’t like what he saw. His sharp blue gaze studied her face for a long moment and then traveled down her neck, hesitating slightly when it reached her breasts. The table hid her long legs, but still she curled them back toward the booth bottom.
“I’m not sure what kind of game you’re playing, Savannah, but whatever it is, I’m not in the mood.”
“I’m...I’m not playing games.”
Except she was, and she hated it.
He smiled but the expression wasn’t friendly. This smile didn’t make butterflies flap in her belly. This smile turned those sweet, sweet butterflies into roving vultures intent on eating her alive.
“Sure you are.”
Maybe direct was the better way to go where Collin was concerned. Maybe it was time she stopped playing games altogether.
“Okay, I am. But I’m a big girl and I know the rules.” She ran her hand over Collin’s, and the flash of heat at the contact seemed to spike the temperature around them. Despite the dim light, she saw his pupils dilate, his nostrils flare. He didn’t pull his hand away. She brushed her fingertips over his once more. The heat didn’t intensify but it didn’t disappear, either. “Would you like to dance?”
THIS WAS A MISTAKE. A big, huge, lose-the-game-in-overtime mistake.
Collin drew his hand away from Savannah’s. “That isn’t a good idea.”
She tilted her head to the left and widened her eyes a little, but he knew she wasn’t confused. “Why not?”
Because the last thing he wanted to do with Savannah Walters was dance. An image of their bodies moving in time to some beat he couldn’t place formed in his mind. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the last thing he wanted.
In his imagination, though, they were dancing without clothes and Savannah getting naked with him was very definitely off-limits.
The last thing Savannah Walters had ever wanted was to live in a small town.
Whereas he wanted small town. He liked living and working in a place where he knew everyone.
Then there was Amanda to consider. He was her brother, not her father, but he was all the girl had and he needed to give her security. Taking Savannah back to the orchard, bringing home someone who wouldn’t stick around, was a disaster waiting to happen.
Savannah slid from the booth and sashayed across the dimly lit bar, stopping next to the jukebox. She slipped a quarter through the slot, and Collin heard it ping down the chute. Then she tapped a couple of keys and music filled the empty bar.
When had everyone left?
Merle still stood behind the bar, but his attention was on the money from the till, not his patrons. Juanita was nowhere to be seen and everyone else had gone, including Savannah’s old cheerleader friends.
Definitely not a good idea.
Collin slid from the booth and tossed a few dollars on the table. Adam may have left a few bills at the register, but Juanita lived on her tips. Besides, taking bills from his wallet gave Collin something to do with his hands.
A crooning male voice filled the bar, and Savannah began swaying to the music.
He couldn’t move.
Collin ordered his feet to walk to the door and out into the warm spring night.
His feet ignored him and remained firmly planted on the worn hardwood floors of the Slope.
Savannah turned, crooked her finger at him and continued swaying in time to the music on the dance floor. She should look ridiculous. The way she’d looked when she’d worn her mother’s too-high heels to the homecoming dance that time.
Only she didn’t really look ridiculous. She looked...damn good.
Too good. Like she’d done this a million times in a million bars and with a million other men.
Collin was no prude, but he didn’t want to fall under some spell Savannah had been perfecting during her time in Los Angeles and Nashville. If they were going to do this, it was going to be his way.
Not that they were going to do this. He was not, repeat not, taking Savannah Walters back to the orchard. That wasn’t the kind of example his baby sister needed.
His feet moved him across the wide dance floor that was so seldom used Merle didn’t bother keeping it waxed anymore. Savannah seemed to melt into his arms. She lay her head against his shoulder and linked her arms around his neck as he swayed them to the music.
Collin fastened his arms around her waist, feeling her heat through the thin material of her dress. Savannah sighed. The rhinestones beneath his hands were warm beneath his touch, adding to the burn he’d felt earlier when Savannah had brushed her hand over his. This was crazy.
He wasn’t some impulsive kid any longer. He wasn’t the same teenager that followed along with his friends’ reckless plans. He had a job, a family to support.
God, but she smelled good, though. Some kind of flowery scent seemed to envelop them on the dance floor. It started at Savannah’s hair, but it seemed to be everywhere. Like it was a part of the atmosphere. Her soft hands began playing with the longish hairs at the nape of his neck.
“Should I start another song or should we...” She let the words trail off.
Start another song, he wanted to say, but didn’t.
He had the orchard to continue building.
He had Gran and Amanda to support and, despite her reluctance to return to Slippery Rock, their other sister, Mara.
He wasn’t about to mess up the future plans he had for a night with Savannah Walters, no matter how tempted his hands were to continue caressing her curves.
Reluctantly, Collin loosened Savannah’s hands from his neck and stepped back.
“Thanks for the dance. I’ll see you around,” he said and quickly left the bar, calling himself all kinds of a coward for doing so.
It shouldn’t matter who she was. It should only matter that she was a willing woman, he was a willing man and it had been nearly a full year since he’d...
But it did matter.
Savannah Walters was not the kind of woman he needed to be messing around with.
* * *
SAVANNAH BLINKED. LOOKED around the empty bar.
He’d left.
She ran her hands up and down her arms, suddenly feeling as if all the warmth in the bar had gone out the door as Collin closed it behind