Page 34 of All Mine

Adrian walked to the back of the room and peered into the offices.

“And behind here is the breakroom.” I opened the door to the backroom with its L shaped kitchenette with cheap green Formica countertops in the corner. The floors in the back were concrete.

He paced the room, opening the cabinets. “She doesn’t hate you.”

“Sure,” I said. There might be a part of Lauren that doesn’t hate me, but my job was the ultimate cock block with her. The irony was that I wouldn’t have ever come to Hart Valley without my client being motivated to get the land. “You’re not going to warn me off of her again?”

“It didn’t do any good.” Adrian followed me to the door. “We’re having trivia night at the bar tonight at seven. You should come,” he said.

He probably knew all about how Sloane and that other girl caught Lauren and me in the bakery the other day. I’d been ten seconds from kissing Lauren senseless and tossing her on the island and doing things that were against health department regulations for a commercial kitchen.

“Why is the place called Lou’s?”

“Lou’s my dad. He started the place and ran it until he had a heart attack three years ago.”

“Sorry to hear that. Is he okay?”

“Oh yeah,” Adrian ran a hand over his scruffy beard. “He’s fit as a fiddle now without the stress of running the joint.”

“So, trivia night, huh?” That was one thing I never did in places that I was working, attend social functions. Then again, I always worked. So, all I did was travel and never socialize. And it was a bad idea to get friendly with these people.

“Yep, it can get pretty competitive.”

“I’ve never shied away from competition.”

Adrian paused at the door, looking like he had more to say.

“Does Eden look familiar to you?” he asked.

“Who?”

“Sloane’s friend. The redhead. She just got to town for a visit the other day.”

Oh, the other girl who’d caught them. “I met her at the bakery a few days ago. She said little…” Then the recesses of my mind kicked back a memory of the red hair. “Wait… was she the one in the photograph that those two idiots were looking for?”

He shrugged. “Hell if I know, but Eden shows up two days after those guys try to pull apart my bar looking for a woman with very distinctive red hair.”

“Shit. If that’s the same woman, she’s in some kind of trouble.”

“Yeah, so if you see those guys roaming town again, let me know.”

“Why would she come back here?”

Voices and laughter floated out of Lou’s before I’d even crossed the bridge to the door. Some humidity had crept into the air, and it wouldn’t be long before it was miserably sticky. At this time of year, the sun didn’t set until almost eight o’clock, and it was still clear and bright as I entered the bar, practically late for trivia. The meeting with Lewis had run long, but we were on the cusp of an agreement.

I located a group assembled past the bar on the far left of the room, watching Adrian on a small stage talking into a microphone. His bulk filled most of the stage. Lauren sat up front, her back to me, wearing a loose, flowy light pink tank top and something pink and lacy up her back, peeking out from underneath. My mouth went dry. I imagined running my hands under that shirt and over her soft skin. Her hair released from its bun and cascaded around her shoulders. There was something about her.

Sloane, Eden, and Jonah surrounded her at the table. The rest of the people I didn’t recognize.

“Oh, hey Camden, glad you could join us,” Adrian said into the microphone. “Come on over.”

While her companions turned to glance at me, Lauren stilled and didn’t move.

“You can join group three,” Adrian said, motioning to a table of people who weren’t where I wanted to be. Which meant I’d be competing against Lauren and would make the most of it. It could serve as the perfect opportunity to make her scowl. Mission accomplished before I even sat. She’d fixed Adrian in a death glare. How much more could I irritate her throughout the evening? She was cute when angry.

I took in my new team sitting around the table, mostly twenty-somethings, mostly average-looking people. But, one woman with big blonde hair had to be well over her forty-something. Her cleavage spilled out and onto the table. She smiled and batted her eyes at me when I approached. Bingo.

“Is this taken?” I asked.

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