Created In Fire (Art of Love Series) (20 page)

Shane sighed heavily, wishing again that he had said no as he frowned at the man walking by his side.

Joseph Ian McEldowney was the only person Shane knew who would turn a top-money engineering degree into a poorly paying contracting business just because he had decided he didn’t like working for other people.

Ironically, Joe was also the only other person outside of his family who could guilt him into doing things he didn’t want to be doing.

“Why did I let you talk me into this crazy shit again?” Shane asked, frowning at his tall, red-haired, and cocky former roommate who had transferred with him from UK to Johns Hopkins their sophomore year.

“Because you love me enough to be my back-up
man
date if Alicia doesn’t show?” Joe suggested. “Or maybe you’re starting to swing in another direction, Shane. You haven’t looked around once since we walked through the door.”

Shane snorted in derision. “Abstaining does not cause gayness, smartass,” he told him. “But if it did, you sure as hell wouldn’t be my type.”

“Thank God for that. I definitely do not swing that way. There she is. No time for analysis right now, Dr. Larson. Later, dude. Buy me a beer. I’ll be back soon and look for you. Got to lay the groundwork,” Joe said, walking off.

Shane snorted again and saw an empty table against a wall on the other side of the busy bar. It was nine-thirty, early by bar standards, but Shane still wished he was at home working.

Reaching the table, he ordered two beers and an extra handful of napkins as soon as the wait person came by. Normally, he’d have ordered three beers, but he figured he’d get his two having to drink Joe’s. He wasn’t likely going to see Joe again that evening.

Shane pulled the ink pen from his pocket and the first napkin from the pile. He drew her hair and her upper body, but just like it had been for a week now his pen hovered over the face and stopped, not knowing where to start the first line.

“Who are you?” he asked, staring at the outline.

The silhouette didn’t answer.

*** *** ***

“No. Not only no, but
hell no
. Not a suit,” Reesa Callahan said, eyeing the meticulously dressed man leaning against the bar talking to friends. He turned at her perusal and gave her a friendly once over ending in an encouraging smile.

“Why not? He’s your type,
and
he just smiled at you with the interest you’re looking for, girlfriend. I bet he’d take you up on your offer in a flat minute,” Jillian Williams said, looking at her friend in surprise.

Reesa considered the man and thought about what her best friend since high school was saying. Having been a polished professional herself until not so long ago, it was true she had been drawn to other polished professionals, and had come very close to actually marrying one. He’d dumped her shortly after she’d made the biggest and hardest decision she had ever had to make in her life.

She couldn’t really blame him for not wanting to be part of it. Sometimes she didn’t want her life either, but that’s why she was here tonight. She was finally giving something to herself that she’d been needing for a long time.

“
Mr. Preppie
is not my type any longer. He’s too much like Brent, who is
not
who I want to think about tonight,” Reesa said easily. “I want young, energetic, and someone with whom there is positively no chance of any phone calls tomorrow.”

Jillian’s chocolate gaze landed on a table against the far wall. “Young is definitely a possibility here, but just how different were you thinking?”

“
Already?
You amaze me. Point him out,” Reesa said, recognizing the hunter’s glint In Jillian’s gaze as it had locked onto potential prey.

No one trolled for men better than Jillian, even though the beautiful amber-skinned woman never had to troll for herself. It was just what she did for friends, and bless her for it, Reesa thought.

“Far wall. He’s wearing ripped jeans, has an eyebrow ring, and a tattoo running from shoulder to elbow. Hard to tell from his lack of haircut, but I’m guessing he’s in his mid to late twenties. T-shirt looks nicely stretched, and best of all, he seems to be alone.” Jillian sipped her drink and gave her friend an appraising glance. The man was so not Reesa’s type at all.

Reesa turned her head until her green cat-eyes landed on the man in question. Little jitters swept along her nerve endings.
Perfect,
she thought with a laugh. She was even a little scared of him.

He was so definitely not a guy she’d ever want to get to know better. She’d probably bore him senseless, but good conversation wasn’t high on her priority list for the evening anyway.

Now if she could just talk him into bed for the night.

“He will do just fine. In fact, he couldn’t be better. I was never into men that tall, but even that is looking okay right now. I’m a desperate woman with not much time. If I bomb, I’ll hit on the preppie guy. Thanks, Jill—you’re the best,” Reesa said, leaning into her for a perfumed hug.

“
Seriously?
You’re really going after that one?
Girl, I was teasing and trying to scare you off. You don’t want something that different,” Jillian said on a laugh. “Mr. Preppie is still checking you out. Why don’t you give him a shot? At least talk to him first before riding so low and settling for the tattoo guy.”

Reesa snorted. “No. No more professionals. I had to deal with another lecture from Zack’s jock-obsessed principle this morning about his star athlete still being too depressed to play basketball. Conway made damn sure I left feeling like it was my fault that Zack can’t forget his parents died six months ago, and the jerk
still
had the nerve to ask me to dinner again.
That guy
,” she said, flipping her head toward the tattooed wonder across the room, “looks like nothing but a good time to me.
That’s
what I want tonight.”

Jillian’s laugh was interrupted by a tap on her shoulder.

Reesa looked up and smiled at the tall, good-looking man getting ready to put some moves on her friend.

“Glad you found one for me first. Wish me luck,” Reesa said, gracing her friend with a parting smile.

“Girlfriend, you’ll be
lucky
if that boy has a place to take you. Use protection, you hear me,” Jillian said on another laugh.

“Always,” Reesa said, heading off toward the table.

*** *** ***

Shane Larson looked up to see if his friend Joe was even still in the place. The hook-up was clearly well under way, but Shane had no idea where Joe had disappeared to in the process.

Why am I even here?
Shane frowned into his beer and cursed Joe. He should be home working, drinking his own beer, not sitting in a noisy bar in a creative funk doodling on cocktail napkins.

Shane looked up and around with irritation. When Joe was still missing, he pulled the second beer over and went back to what he was doing. When he ran out of bar napkins to draw on, he was leaving—Joe or no Joe.

“Hi. Can I buy you a fresh beer?”

Shane looked up at the woman who was standing by his table and smiling. She was nicely dressed, but not seductively so, except for her breasts peeking out of her shirt, an appeal mostly lost on him.

She couldn’t know that though, which was always the problem with meeting people in bars. There was no time to get to know anyone. There was no time to be just friends first and move organically into a relationship.

His thoughts made him sigh and blink in confusion at her.

Damn it.
He was too young to be sounding so much like his father. It was bad enough he was starting to think like him more and more.

“Sure,” Shane said, his innate curiosity wanting to know why a woman who looked as normal as she did would make a move on a guy who looked like Shane knew he did tonight. He had purposely dressed in his worst clothes to scare away as many females as possible. He’d worn every piece of metal he owned. Gesturing to the chair across from him, Shane wanted to laugh when the woman smiled like she’d won the lottery. It was baffling to him for her to be so pleased.

When she turned to go around the table, Shane got a view of her nicely filled out jeans, which peeked his interest enough to surprise him. His body tightened to attention when she slid gracefully up into the bar height chair. She hooked her three inch heels over the support brace because her toes weren’t even touching the table platform where most people rested their feet. The woman couldn’t be very tall without those spikes she wore.

Not that the spike heels didn’t do nice things for that really cute rear end she had.

He laughed at his thoughts, wondering why calculating how tall the woman
wasn’t
turned him on so much. For all his studies and self-analysis for his degree, he’d never figured out what he found so damn attractive about short women.

“So—are you here alone?” she asked, smiling at him.

“Not anymore,” Shane replied with a smile, knowing his part in the game because he’d practiced it a lot over the last four years. “What’s your name?”

He watched distress and something else flicker in her gaze, and instantly realized she was going to lie to him. The doctorate in research psychology he was in the process of finishing was more than just a way to have a great day job he found interesting. It also came in useful when his instincts picked up a mystery, like the one sitting across from him now.

The woman didn’t want Shane to know who she was, which meant she was hiding something—like a husband maybe, or was scared of him, or both. Yet despite her reservations, she was still trying to pick him up. Filing it into the category of research, Shane decided he couldn’t help being interested in finding out why.

“My name is Ann,” Reesa said, forcing her gaze to soften and relax. It was partly the truth. Her middle name was Ann. “How about you?”

“Shane Larson,” he said, giving her his full name, having no reason to hide who he was. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve just got to ask—why did you choose me? You look like the kind of woman who would be more interested in those guys lined up at the bar.”

Reesa shrugged, wishing she’d borrowed some of her niece’s ripped jeans and layered tops. The guy wouldn’t be asking her so many questions if she’d taken time to think about her clothes. Definitely something to keep in mind if she did this again next month, Reesa decided.

“Once upon a time I would have gone to talk to the preppie guy who has been smiling at me since I walked in the door. You seemed like you’d be more fun to get to know,” she said, pleased when her voice was level and confident.

Yeah, he had chocolate brown eyes almost as dark as Jillian’s, very deep and dark for a man so blonde. And he had a way of listening intently that was surreal.

“Were you hoping more for the fun or the get to know part?” Shane asked, cutting to the chase.

He was a little attracted and a lot fascinated, but he wasn’t interested in being nothing but a conquest. Or worse—he didn’t want to be just some bar bet she’d made with the friend she’d been talking to earlier.

Reesa sighed. Her potential boy-toy was turning out to be a lot more discriminating than she thought he’d be at first glance.
So much for judging a man by his piercings and tattoos
, she thought, mentally rolling her eyes because she didn’t want to put him off further by really doing it.

Shane saw the truth in her eyes, but ended up surprised when “Ann” actually sighed. He could tell form her expression that she was going to be honest about this answer. He’d bet she was innately honest. It made him more interested to know why she was so concerned about hiding her identity.

“My life is too complicated for anything more than fun right now,” she said softly. “If you’re not interested, I understand. I’m not married, not attached, not even dating. I’m just interested in forgetting about the rest of my life for a few hours tonight. Like I said, if you’re not interested—I genuinely understand.”

Shane held her gaze, searching, for what—he wasn’t sure, but he was interrupted in his musings by another woman clearing her throat beside him.

“Hi, Shane,” the tall, leggy blonde purred. “You haven’t been in for awhile. Want some company tonight?”

Shane looked at the woman, trying to remember her name. Had he slept with her? He looked down at her legs and brought a sweeping gaze up until his gaze met her virtually empty one. She was attractive, but if he had slept with her, he had no memory of it—just like all the rest.

But he did finally remember the very different woman sitting at his table and realized Ann would have probably noticed him checking out the blonde. Finally daring to look and find out Ann’s reaction, he discovered she was merely smiling sardonically and shaking her head.

Not exactly pissed, not exactly happy. Shane thought she looked—well,
disappointed
, if he had to name the emotion.

When she saw Shane Larson looking at the blonde’s legs, Reesa gathered up her things to leave. She wasn’t going to hang around watching him scope out all his prospects. So it looked like the smiling preppie guy at the bar was about to get lucky after all, Reesa thought. This was the only free night she was going to have for a month. She was definitely going home with someone for sex.