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Seven
“My heart just did a legit double-beat.”
Sarah ripped her attention from Dean, still approaching, to Ally and her hazy stare on him. “I never understood how a person would call anyone anything as sappy as ‘dreamy’, but I get it now. That guy is dreamy, like, he can’t possibly be real.”
“Look at me.” Sarah ground her words through gritted teeth, her no-strings-attached sex drawing closer and at her workplace of all places. “Don’t even think about talking to that guy. Do you understand?”
He’d promised to leave. He’d promised not to be a problem. And here he was all the same.
Ally’s brows bunched with a sudden frown. “Why the heck not? Did you see the way he winked at me when he first pushed through the door? Like I said, dreamy!”
Sarah growled. As naïve as Ally could be, on this front, Sarah had been no better. “I’m sure he has one of those winks for every woman who crosses his path.”
Among other things…
Ally leaned back and pitched a skeptical scowl. “And how would you know?”
Sarah gave a casual shrug, mostly because Dean could see her and she didn’t want him to take any hint that she might be talking about him as encouragement. “I’m good at reading people, remember? And… I might have seen him around.”
Ally peered up at Sarah through a row of thick black lashes, her cropped locks kissing her jawline. “I would have heard something the second a man that sexy showed up in town.”
Sarah sank back on her heels and ripped the nearest washcloth off the counter, attempting to look too busy to talk before Dean reached her.
Like most people in this town, Ally lived a sheltered existence, and her younger age and upbeat personality didn’t help. Her foolhardiness often aligned better with a sixteen-year-old girl than a twenty-three-year-old woman. Honestly, Sarah loved that about her friend—that Ally was a dreamer, while she was a stark realist—and still, the two extremes had their pit falls.
Ally’s innocent flirtations with danger came with consequences. She cared for love and romance, and a guy like Dean would stomp all over her starry-eyed heart. He would leave nothing but a trail of shattered pieces. And Sarah couldn’t stay quiet while that happened.
She leaned over the bar, addressing Ally while glaring at Dean, who thankfully took a seat some distance away. “Listen, I met the guy at the soiree, all right? You didn’t see him because he didn’t make a point of mingling. Believe me. I know his type, and he’s nothing but trouble.”
Liar. Terrible, terrible liar!
Ally’s eyes glinted and her smile grew. “Trouble, huh? Sounds perfect.”
“Ally...”
“What?” Ally slid from her seat. “Why do you get to meet him, and I don’t?”
Sarah rubbed the heel of her palm between her brows. “Oh. Trust me, I’m starting to wish I hadn’t.”
Ally turned toward the man in question, her hand resting on the bar as though she’d humor this conversation at least a little longer. “From the looks of him, I don’t think so.”
Sarah pressed her hand over Ally’s. “I know he looks perfect, but he’s not. Please, I don’t want you to get hurt here.”
“Who says I’ll let him?” Ally’s eyes glittered. A wicked sort of glitter that came from not really knowing what she was about to do. “Besides, how much could you possibly know from one meeting?”
Sarah snorted a short laugh, all while rolling her eyes to the heavens. If there was anyone useful up there, they certainly weren’t listening or helping her now. “It was a very long meeting.”
Ally snatched her hand back and started to walk away. “Well, I’m not leaving him to sit there by himself, anyway. Someone around here has to show that man a bit of Minnesota nice.”
“Ally…” Sarah clawed her fingers into the bar’s glossy woodgrain, but clawing at the bar was about as useless as her warning.
She turned her attention to Dean and his smug grin fixed her way. What was he doing here, and what did he want? She shook her head. Another useless warning, as she ignored the fiery sensation taking up space in her chest.
Ally took the empty seat beside Dean. Sarah couldn’t watch, so she decided to disappear into the kitchen behind the bar for her overdue dinner break.
The kitchen’s swinging double doors clanged in her wake, that familiar din filling her with gratitude for the sudden distance between herself and what would otherwise have been an awkward exchange. Besides, Ally was old enough to absorb the consequences of her silly decisions, and Sarah refused to give Dean the satisfaction of thinking she was jealous.
He could do whatever he liked. So could Ally. All Sarah wanted to know was why he hadn’t left town like he’d promised, when she could count on never seeing him again.
