Hot Spot (17 page)

It was all about Fate.

It was all about being in the right place at the right time.

Like now.

Ummm… she moved her hips faintly.

Just… like… now…

DOMINIC'S WINE BAR WASN'T PACKED AT MID-night on Sunday. But several tables still had customers, and the bar was busy with the tail-end-of-the-weekend crowd. People who had been on the river for a couple days and weren't ready to drive back to the Cities yet were drinking wine and eating tapas: a few large boat owners conspicuous for their tans and expensive watches—some with their wives… others with women too young to be their wives—or at least their first wives; the houseboat contingent who drove SUVs instead of Beemers and talked golf instead of racketball; a shop owner or two from the stores on the main street who needed to wind down after dealing with ten thousand tourists since Friday; and the boat bunnies with exposed cleavage and styled hair that never saw river water.

Stella wouldn't have been able to ignore the leggy women even if she'd tried, because they swiveled around on their bar stools when she and Danny walked in and waved and shouted his name—the Pam Anderson-like bartender included.

Danny smiled and waved back while Stella tried to look poised—although she wasn't going to be able to maintain her poise for long with the level of competition at the bar. Why hadn't she put on makeup or worn something more fashionable than jeans and a super-hero T-shirt?

"Everyone knows me because I come in here a lot," Danny murmured, hoping his explanation for the obvious warmth with which he'd been greeted would fly.

"I figured."

"They're just friends."

"Right."

Not a good tone. "Would you rather go somewhere else?" He wasn't being polite; he was trying to avoid trouble. He'd slept with some of the ladies at the bar.

While Stella was debating the immaturity of answering "Goddamn right," the blond bartender slid a glass across the bar and called out, "Here's your favorite, Rees! It's on the house!"

"One drink?" A query, wary in the extreme. Bolting was still an option.

If Stella had known Danny Rees for more than a two-night stand, she might have had reason to sulk. As it was, she was probably in the same boat, friendship-wise, as those ladies at the bar. So she went for maturity. Sort of. "The bartender knows your
favorite
?" she said, only half-bitchy.

Ignoring the innuendo, Danny stuck to the facts. "I mostly drink one kind of wine."

She'd bet her Barry Smith-signed
Conan
comic that he didn't restrict himself to one woman though. Those boat bunnies were really
thrilled
to see him, which pretty much extinguished the warm, cuddly afterglow from her evening of prime sex. "I suppose one drink can't hurt." Other than flounce off or throw a hissy fit, what could she say?

"Thanks." A modicum of relief. "We won't stay long." Taking her hand, he approached the bar, being sure he placed himself between Stella and the other women as they sat down. Not that his strategic placement did much good with the general tenor of the conversation that was decidedly flirtatious and filled with allusions to shared experiences. The ladies and Danny knew the same people, had spent considerable time together on the river, and apparently had participated in some fund-raiser for the city park this spring that, wouldn't you know it, had a raffle for a date with a local bachelor. Guess who was one of the bachelors?

These ladies weren't casual acquaintances, Stella realized. No one had to hit her over the head with a two by four. Drinking the glass of wine that had been sharply plunked down before her, Stella prepared to take in the newest installment of the local reality show,
Who's Going to Sleep with Danny Rees
? Each of the women were clearly intent on playing that role.

She could have been invisible for all the notice the women took of her as they teased and flirted with Danny. She could have been run over by a bulldozer and none of them would have batted an eyelash. Most irritating, they all seemed to know their way around his swimming pool and knew his sister's decorating taste down to the towels in the bathroom.

Perhaps they'd been to his house for a party, she told herself, trying to be nonjudgmental. Then again, they might have had the same personal tour she'd had, which was more likely.

While they were all laughing about some picnic on the sandbar near Hudson, she cautioned herself to reason. The women were apparently friends of much longer standing than she. She also reminded herself that the notion of jealousy was completely outrageous when she'd known Danny for a grand total of two days. She was not a crazy person. She was a rational adult and she would act like one. Smile, look interested, be polite.

Okay, that tight-lipped smile gave him about thirty seconds to get out of this place without an explosion. Coming here had been a major mistake. Gulping down the rest of his Le Pergole red, he set down his empty glass. "Ready?" he said, not waiting for Stella to answer, coming to his feet.

"Leaving so soon?" A redhead twirled one of her bright red curls around a perfectly manicured finger and pouted prettily.

"It's getting late," Danny said, helping Stella down from the bar stool and sliding his arm around her waist.

"I left a message for you at your house," the redhead said, her voice all sultry and friendly. "Call me."

Stella eased away, thin-skinned and edgy. "Call me," meant something else entirely, like so much of the conversation that had just transpired between Danny and these ladies who knew him so well.

"Will do," he said, bland as oatmeal, pulling Stella back, counting on her not making a scene.

The redhead sat up a little straighter, bringing her near-perfect boobs into greater prominence, her halter top showing some major cleavage. "I mean it, Danny. It's important."

"Yeah, right, Marisa," the bartender interposed, giving the redhead a dubious look. "But speaking of important, Danny, don't forget Grady's party next week. His brother's rockin' band is gonna play."

"And I need my bikini back sometime if you think of it," a pretty brunette said with a warm smile. "It's a silver one."

As if there were fifty bikinis that had been left behind at Danny's, Stella disgustedly thought, feeling put upon when she had no right. But jeez—these chicks were really working it. And they were all pretty or beautiful, depending on your taste, with excellent cosmetic dental work and glowing smiles for the man they obviously knew up close and personal.

Two of them wore real jewelry with their casual clothes.

The bring-over-my-swimsuit lady for one.

As a working girl, Stella noticed multiple chunky gold bracelets and diamonds that could be used for wine bottle stoppers. As a hard working girl, she always viewed women like that— Stillwater in the summer had its share—with a mixture of envy and anarchist disapproval. Some were Minnesota's equivalent of Hollywood bimbos; others, divorcees with good settlements—all of them on the make for a rich husband in the bars and on the boats where yacht-owning men with money gathered.

And tonight, the boat bunnies who could afford it were dressed for success in expensive linen sports clothes, little custom-made sandals in colorful matching colors, and the inevitable watch with a pastel leather band that looked sporty and cost six months salary for a normal person. Why couldn't she have been born rich?

At that moment of existential dissatisfaction, Danny said, "Good night ladies," like he was leaving a church supper and didn't have a care in the world and gently guided Stella toward the door.

What the hell was that
, she thought as they moved toward the exit. How often was he party to public displays of way too much affection that he could deal with it so unemotionally? Don't answer that. And don't even consider getting involved with a man who could look at all those fawning females with total indifference.

Short moments later, as they stood on the sidewalk outside, Danny said, "Sorry about that. Everyone's had a few too many drinks this time of night."

Stella bit back a rude remark. Her mother would have been proud. "They all seem to be good friends of yours." How was that? Pithy, but equivocal. Like a diplomat.

What could he say? He could lie, but under the circumstances, even the best lie would look pretty lame. "Yeah," he said. "They are. If you're still hungry we could go somewhere else." Because the pizza had gone cold at Stella's house while they had better things to do, food might be a priority for her. "I didn't feel like staying there to eat."

He probably could have eaten just about anything he wanted in there, she thought, but censured the vulgarity. "I'm not really hungry," she said. "And look, it's been great, but it's getting late and I have to open the store early. I'll just walk home from here. It's only a few blocks. Go on back in and visit with your friends." She hadn't intended to sound so bitchy. But if he wanted to be with those women, he could fucking go.

"I'll give you a ride home." He could have apologized again, but he didn't feel like it. So he dated other women. She dated other guys—her rogues gallery of a sketchbook evidence of that he was guessing.

"No thanks. Really, I'm fine." That was better. Almost polite. He could date whom he wished.

"Suit yourself." His voice couldn't have been more tactful.

She smiled. "I usually do."

"I know."

She gave him a look. "What does that mean?"

"Nothing."

"Do you have some problem?"

"You're being childish. Let me give you a ride home."

The last thing she needed after witnessing such undisguised adulation for the benefit of one male ego, was that self-centered man telling her she was childish. "Fuck you," she said really, really softly. She wouldn't want him to think she was immature enough to scream at him.

"No thanks," he said even more softly. "I'm not in the mood."

"I thought you were always in the mood." It was a contest on who could speak more quietly.

"You're thinking of yourself. I like to take a breather once in a while."

"You could have fooled me."

"I was being polite."

"Like hell." And then she walked away before she did something really childish and called him all the expletives that were piling up in her brain. Damn him. As if he was doing her a favor, the smug bastard.