AllFreeNovel
Share Us
There was no room in the plan for a man like Brad, delicious though he may be. But he had a point. It was tough celebrating alone.
“Can I ask what brings you here from Boston?” The cowboy, officially the sexiest man she’d ever seen in real life, nodded at her as though he agreed implicitly that whatever reason had brought her to this bar tonight was a good one.
“You can ask.” Try as she might, she couldn’t stop antagonizing him. Maybe it was because she knew nothing would happen between them. She didn’t have to play hard to get, shewashard to get—an unfamiliar feeling she quite liked.
“All right. You’ve got me. I’m asking.”
Another insipid woman, half-drunk, bumped into him. “Brad, you were phenomenal today.” In a move that lacked all subtlety, the blonde held up a scrap of paper.My number, she mouthed, tucking the slip into his front pocket. She pressed her elbows together with a hyperbolic emphasis on her cleavage then winked.
That was one way to go about it, Hannah noted.
“Much obliged.” He dismissed her politely.
So, he’s a gentleman indeed.
“A plus for subtlety, that one.” Hannah swallowed the memory of trying a similar move only a few months ago, hoping she hadn’t looked half as desperate in her execution. “Phenomenal were you?” She couldn’t help herself. She pushed her elbows together in an exaggerated lean, offering up a brief giggle as she mimicked the blonde’s move.
“Everybody’s got an opinion.” He smirked, fishing the paper out of his pocket and balling it up. “Can we get another round?” He smiled at the bartender and winked at Hannah.
Brad chucked the balled-up paper into his spent glass, sending the unsolicited phone number to swim amid the ice cubes.
“I came for the interview. Here, I mean. Not the bar, I mean Montana.” She surprised herself with the answer. She hadn’t been intending on honesty, but watching him brush off the second woman in a row made her feel that he’d somehow earned a little truth from her. The attention was throwing her game, and she was babbling.
“Ah, yes, the elusive interview.” He was too close to her, under the guise of needing to lean in to hear her over the bass of the Keith Urban music, but she liked it. So she leaned in, too, in an entirely different way.
“I need to earn a little money. Set aside some savings before I start my residency this fall.”
That got his attention. The line of muscle along his jaw tightened and the cleft chin bobbed as he nodded. “Residency? You’re a doctor?”
“A resident,” she corrected before he could ask again what a girl like her was doing in a place like this. The last thing she wanted was not to fit into her dad’s world. She cleared her throat. “Basically, I have my learner’s permit for medicine. The pay’s pretty bad, though, so I’m here for the summer. I start in September. Bozeman Health.”
She wouldn’t have seen it had she not been looking. The flicker of dislike that crossed his face. “Something wrong with Bozeman Health?” The drinks arrived, offering a welcome distraction from the interrogation.
“Wrong? No, of course not. I grew up around those parts. Pretty far from Boston, aren’t you?” He was steering the conversation away from him. Away from Bozeman.Odd.
“Hey, I took the residency that was offered. It’s a little competitive in the medical world, in case you haven’t heard.” Admittedly, that was only half of the truth, but she’d just met the man and wasn’t likely to see him again. She didn’t need to get deep. Didn’t need to tell him that after a decade of searching, she’d found the man her mom had confessed was her real father, and he’d been living in Montana ever since leaving them both. Truth be told, getting any honesty out of her mom was only possible in the brief sober stints between embarrassing drunken episodes. That didn’t matter now. She’d looked after her mom her whole life, and now she was close to finding her father. Maybe, just maybe, she’d find someone who wanted to look after her for a change, or at least get to know her. Be proud of her, not just intermittently sober enough to ask for money. Now she had a plan to meet dear old dad. Twenty-eight years of waiting had come to a glorious conclusion and a job offer.
“Thus the interview. For the gig that pays well.” Brad nodded again, smiling as he took another deep sip of Scotch.
“Exactly.”Well, kinda.
The server was back, reaching for her now-empty glass. It was so hot in the bar, she’d sipped it too fast. Or was she just nervous?
“Another round?” Brad asked, pulling another twenty from his wallet. She acquiesced, mostly because she wasn’t ready to go home yet.
Maybe the third round was a bad idea. But she was there. In the moment of not wanting the evening to end. Not wanting to stop being the woman who held his attention. She nodded, first to him then to the waitress, and sipped the final dregs of her second mint julep.
In no time, three drinks turned into four and, while the bar emptied, Brad made no move to leave. Instead he asked her more questions, a heady inquisition she fielded comfortably. The cowboy, on the other hand, offered up very little about himself. The phenomenal display of athleticism referenced by a few other “buckle bunnies,” as he’d referred to them, was brushed off in an air of natural nonchalance. He’d won the grand title that evening, that much she’d sorted out.
“Truth is,” she admitted aloud, “I don’t know much about the rodeo.”
“Seems to me, a medical resident could get a way better gig than anything hiring around here.”
Better employment opportunities? Sure there were. Truth was truth. She couldn’t very well deny it, nor could she admit it. So she did the only thing she could think of to change the subject. Placing her empty glass on the bar top, ice cubes rattling, she leaned toward Brad, looping her arms around his neck and pulling herself up to the tips of her toes. The move got his attention.
“Well, Hannah, what’s this? I thought you didn’t kiss cowboys?”
“You never asked why.”
