Page 31 of You Can't Fight Lightning
“After that excitement, I went to Tombstone to see what all the fuss was about after reading about the town in my guidebook.” He laughed a little, and his entire face went even higher on the hot-n-beautiful scale.
“What did you think?” I loved Tombstone, even the cheesy bits.
“The theater is interesting. It’s haunted.” He stated the last part as fact.
I didn’t see him as someone who would even believe in ghosts. This was unexpected.
“It feels like it.” I leaned against the bar, not wanting to end the conversation. “It also feels sad every time I’ve been in there.”
“There is a great deal of sadness there. More than happiness. A lot of very high emotion.”
“What do you mean?”
“That people were very happy, or very upset. High levels of emotion.”
“Makes sense. Sorry, I have to go.” I gestured at the rest of the bar. The people down to my right were getting a little rowdy. I hadn’t been down to check them in a bit, what with the idiot and then my inability to drag myself away from Z.
As I worked my way through the rest of the people at the bar, my eyes kept returning to the tall, dark-haired man who was reading again. In a bar. On a Saturday night. He calmly drank his drink, like he wasn’t in the middle of a loud, honky-tonk biker bar with the jukebox going and people shouting and laughing.
Why was he here?
Was it because of me?
I shook my head as I counted out change at the register. I was going to end up going out with him. I could feel it.
Z sat on his barstool all night. He drank the entire pitcher of water I set out in front of him, three ambrosias, and ordered a BLAT—bacon, lettuce, avocado and tomato—on toast. He occasionally chatted with the people on either side of him, but mostly, he sat and read.
I noted that he was readingThe Devil Comes Courting, the third book in Courtney Milan’s Worth Saga. There were actually three stories in between what I’d last seen him reading, and this one. So he was plowing through them. I did the same.
The stories were so good you couldn’t put them down.
What research had him reading historical romance? That was the kind of research job I wanted. To read all the time, and get paid? It would be fantastic.
The end of the night came, and I was running my feet off, taking care of tabs, making sure that people had rides, working my way through the general chaos that happened at closing. The idiot hadn’t been back up, although his friend had, and the friend was overly polite, tipping well and not setting a toe out of line. He’d eyed Z carefully.
So the idiot’s friend wasn’t as foolhardy.
“I’ll take my check.” Z stood up.
I jumped. He’d been so still, so quiet, most of the night that I hadn’t expected him to move.
I rang him up, and he paid without saying a word.
“Maybe I’ll see you at Bathtub Coffee? I like their breakfasts.”
I had to lean in to hear him.
“Maybe.” Just one word. Just two little syllables that would shift my entire life. I didn’t know how I knew it, but I knew it.
“Really?” His face was wreathed in a smile, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. “Are you just saying that to be polite, or will you show up at say, eleven?”
“I’ll be there.”Please don’t let this be a mistake. Please don’t let this be a mistake. The words repeated themselves in my brain even as my heart was singing like a freed bird.
“Great. I’ll bring the books.” He lifted upThe Devil Comes Courting. Then he smiled, and the warmth and happiness in his eyes nearly undid me.
I watched him go.
“Oh, girl. You got it bad. What is it about this one?” Loretta came up beside me, watching Z as well.
