Obviously not, considering the way the buxom bride was making his heart slam into his ribs every time she shifted her turquoise eyes in his direction.
“I’m sor…sorry,” she said, a huge tear spilling from her spiked lashes. “I’m not supposed to cry in public.”
“Who said you can’t cry in public?” Joe asked, his gravelly voice filled with genuine sympathy as he gently patted her shoulder.
Another sniff followed a tug on a tissue from the box. She looked at Joe. “It’s a rule.”
“Who made up a dumb rule like that?” Benny asked, his puffy face filled with curiosity.
Carly shrugged, a barely perceptible lift of one satin-clad shoulder that drew Coop’s gaze like a magnet to a pair of very full breasts. “I don’t know,” she said, dabbing her eyes. “But there are thousands of them. And I’ve always adhered to them, until now.”
Coop crossed his arms over his chest and rocked back on his heels. “What do your rules say about a bride in a bar without her groom?”
Carly pulled in a deep breath.
Cooper winced and waited, wishing he’d kept to the opposite end of the bar.
She wailed again, burying her face in the already crumpled tissue.
“Aw, Coop. Now look what you did,” Benny chided him. He smacked Carly on the back with his beefy hand in another poor gesture of comfort.
“Ow,” she muttered between sobs.
“We just got her calmed down,” Joe said, shooting him a disgruntled glance. “Why’d you have to go and get her started up again?”
Coop gave them both a hard look. “Why don’t you two find out where she belongs and see about returning her?”
“She’s not a lost puppy,” Benny scolded. His pencil-thin eyebrows pinched together in a frown. “Some guy stood her up. On her wedding day.”
Carly shook her head, blond curls bouncing with the movement. “No, he didn’t.” She reached for another tissue. “I…I ran away,” she managed before issuing another ear-splitting wail.
Cooper rolled his eyes. He tried to tell himself he didn’t care. He didn’t care about her or why she’d left her groom at the altar. The firm reprimand didn’t change the fact that he was lying to himself, nor lessen the gnawing in his gut he could only describe as something a lot more interesting than curiosity.
Something he didn’t want or need. Dammit, he’d made a promise and he wasn’t about to let a voluptuous female, no matter how attractive, distract him. And Carly had diversion written all over her.
“Just keep it down,” he groused, then moved a couple of feet down the bar to serve another customer.
“I’m sure you had a very good reason for leaving like that,” Joe said, sliding her drink closer. “Here. Drink up, Carly. It’ll cure what ails ya.”
She dropped the bunched-up tissues on the bar and took the glass in both hands, downing the Scotch as if it was no stronger than a soft drink. Cooper didn’t want to be around when all that booze hit.
She hiccuped and waved her slender hand in the air. “Could I have another, please?”
“Anything you want, Carly,” Joe said, his gruff voice ridiculously saccharine. “You just tell Joe all about it, okay?”
“Aw, hell,” Cooper muttered to himself. If she wanted to get plastered, then that was her problem. What did he care if she’d have the devil to pay come morning when she woke up with a whopper of a hangover? It wasn’t as if he’d be holding her head while she bowed to the porcelain god.
He delivered another Scotch, adding more water than booze to her glass, then moved down the bar to take care of a few more customers before wandering back toward her and her mismatched caretakers.
Curiosity, he told himself. That’s the only reason he continued to take up residence at the south end of the bar. He was curious as to how she came to be in his tavern. It had nothing whatsoever to do with attraction, sexual or otherwise, even if he couldn’t seem to keep his gaze from straying to those lush curves.
She looked at him when he stopped in front of her, and his gut tightened.
Damn!
Curiosity, he attempted to convince himself again. He was not reacting to those big turquoise eyes.
She braced her elbows on the bar and hung her head, her soft white-blond curls swaying forward, brushing her cheeks. Hunched slightly over the bar like a regular, she provided him with a perfect view of her ample cleavage. Damned if he could drag his eyes away to safer territory. If he wasn’t careful, he’d start drooling any minute.
Images filtered through his mind.
Erotic images.
Cooper frowned. He didn’t have time for this, no matter how tempting or alluring.
“I tried to tell him yesterday,” she said suddenly.
“Who?” Joe asked, tipping back his beer.
“Dean,” she said, trailing her finger over the rim of her glass. “I tried to tell him when we went to meet my sisters at the country club to finish the decorations for the reception. I tried to tell him and he just wouldn’t listen to me.”
Benny shrugged. “Hey, at least you tried,” he added sympathetically.
“There are over three hundred family and friends eating chicken Kiev right now. Baked potatoes with little pats of butter molded into perfect squares with my and Dean’s initials on them. They were supposed to be celebrating the beginning of our life together.”
She reached for the glass and tossed the contents back like a shot. “He just wouldn’t listen,” she said again. “He kept insisting it was only prewedding jitters.”
Considering she was on her third drink, she hadn’t slurred a single word despite Coop’s doubts about her being an experienced drinker. Her skin looked too soft and smooth, having none of the telltale signs of someone who frequented the bottom of a bottle. His fingers itched to touch her, to see for himself if her skin was as silky as it looked.
He made a fist and turned away, moving down the bar to serve a couple of men he didn’t recognize. They’d come into The Wilde Side looking for a little relaxation, or a little action. From the sly glances they cast in Carly’s direction, Cooper had a bad feeling action would be on the menu for the night, unless he found a way to get rid of her.
For the next hour, he served customers, refilled drinks and made polite conversation. A few of the guys asked him about the lone bride, but for the most part, other than an occasional off-color joke, now that she’d finally quieted, no one paid her much attention.
During a brief lull, and against his better judgment, he found an excuse to wander down to her end of the bar again.
Benny polished off his beer and requested another. “I almost got married once,” Cooper heard him tell Carly.
Her head snapped around and she blinked a few times. “You did?”
Cooper slid a fresh beer in front of Benny, hiding his grin at her reaction. When a guy was as butt-ugly as Benny West, chasing women didn’t exactly mean he’d catch them.
“Sure did,” Benny said, a hint of melancholy in his voice. “But I didn’t like the thought of being tied down to one woman.”
Carly blinked several times, but Cooper had to give her credit when she kept a straight face. Either she was already ripped or one of the most tenderhearted creatures he’d ever met.
“Did your limbs