AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Two
The man released a choppy laugh, and Sarah jolted just as his eyelids flared in seeming shared surprise, as though her joke about him being an ogre caught him off guard. The laughter stopped and he pressed his lips into a hard, flat line.
Looking to fill the oppressive silence, she thrust out her hand, offering a hand shake that, in retrospect, she figured he wouldn’t accept. He’s not a shaking hands sorta guy.
“My name’s Sarah. What’s yours?” She took her hand back, the moment even more awkward.
His gaze darted over her face, brow now stiff, his smile long gone. “Dean.”
She startled at his name, or more so his flat, monosyllabic delivery, the charming dimples on either side of his lips sadly gone.
The sounds of excited party chatter filtered into her focus. Nearby, the Mirabelle River babbled and the air held the river’s damp scent. This guy and his controlled demeanor, he stuck out as a Harlow non-local. Then again, she couldn’t say much different for herself.
Maybe I was switched at birth, and that’s why I don’t exactly fit in… maybe I’m not Harlow born and raised, after all.
Anyway, back to Dean, here. His accent held a different lilt too, none of that Minnesota heaviness on the ah, though the exact origins of his accent still escaped her.
As much as she’d lived in this small-town her entire life, as much as she too stuck out in her own way, Dean here gave her competition in the “not so quick to share secrets” department. Heck, most Harlowians tended to share their entire life’s story within two minutes of meeting a stranger. Perhaps that’s why she felt an uncanny affinity with this guy.
Frankly, the shared silence is nice for a change. Appearances being deceiving and all, maybe his caution doesn’t need my suspicion…
“It was nice to meet you, Dean.” She nodded a goodbye, deciding to give him the privacy he seemed to want. “Have a good night.”
She turned her back and took her first steps away.
“Who are you supposed to be?” His baritone rumbled across the space, and she stopped mid-stride.
“I mean,” he spoke quicker now, almost as if he didn’t want her to leave. Strange. “Your costume. Who are you supposed to be?”
Her mouth wavered, his attempt at conversation holding her frozen. He pointed to her dress, his gaze sweeping over her again, tingles exploding throughout her body. A smoky heat swept in and subdued the tingles, a warm and sedate sensation taking over. Strange again.
She didn’t know a thing about him, but the unexplainable sense of familiarity came once more. He reminded her a little of the male patrons at Maynard’s, the bar her family owned and where she worked. Those patrons who sometimes confessed a rustiness when it came to talking to women. The ones she spared some extra compassion for because, if it weren’t for being forced into running Maynard’s so many years ago, she’d be a recluse by choice and exactly the same.
“Well.” She took a few steps toward him, admitting that her engagement here wasn’t merely an act of charity. She was lonelier than usual, and this man more intriguing than usual; and unlike most people around these parts, he didn’t know her story or look at her with pity for being Harlow’s jilted bride. “The theme this year is A Midsummer Night’s Dream. So I dressed as Titania.”
He quirked a brow, his shoulders easing some. “The Queen of Fairies?”
“You know the story?”
This man, with his rough, tough, standoffish demeanor, didn’t come across as someone who cared about Shakespeare.
He shrugged, his handsome lips displaying what already seemed like a habitual mischievous curl at the corners. “Just what I remember from ninth-grade English, but this thing gave you away.”
He lifted a hand and skimmed a finger over the star-spangled crown atop her head, infiltrating her space again, her pulse dancing at the radiant blue flicker in his eyes.
Her heartbeat gave a quick stumble and her breath paused, the spicy-warm scent of his cologne, combined with his unique masculine musk, crossing the short distance between them. Broken hearts and broken engagements be damned. The gentle dip of his chin brought him closer, the air shifting around her with a crackling electricity that made her attention dance everywhere but his eyes.
His wide shoulders took up an unabashed amount of space, and his muscles bulged there beneath his tight black t-shirt. He was sheer power, and having him so close brought a weakness to her limbs—not at all usual for a woman so rarely ruffled—his small moments of contact suggesting she might enjoy his touch in other ways.
She cleared her throat and took a half-step back, giving herself the gift of extra breathing room, even as his unwavering stare seemed to read her every thought.
A brand-new dimple sank beneath the light stubble of his cheek, a sign of amusement at her expense. A sign for her to deflect.
“So. Ah. Dean.” She pulled her posture higher and hoped to God she didn’t blush. “What brings a Boston man to Harlow?”
He jerked his chin back a little, as if her observation on his accent caught him offguard. She seemed to have that effect on him, which left her wondering just how much he underestimated her. Or maybe it was that her years of managing a bar had developed a sharp skill for reading people, which in itself had the ability to take them by surprise.
Well, except for when those powers of observation mattered most, like with her once-fiancé, for example…
