Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 73664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
“Dude,” Miles says, “you can’t even look at us.”
“Maybe not”—Chance takes a swig of his beer—“but I can sure look at the fillies over at the Dusty Rose. It might even be ladies’ night.”
“Ladies’ night?” I lift my eyebrows. “Sounds like the perfect time for our first brotherly outing.”
6
CARLY
* * *
“I think I like ladies’ night,” I say with a grin.
Lexie and her friend Amanda laugh. Apparently their other friend Gracie bailed because her mom had issues with her dishwasher.
“It’s the Long Island Iced Tea talking.” Amanda points to my mostly empty glass. “Free drinks and eye candy everywhere you look.”
I glance around, agreeing. Ladies’ night may bring in the women, but there isn’t a shortage of men. They fill the bar and I’m enjoying the scenery. I’m not used to the crowd or the noise level, but it’s so…normal in here. Easy to relax. No doubt the drink helps.
I’ve been back in town a year and I haven’t done anything like this. It makes me realize how boring I’ve been. How sheltered. How…scared.
No one here has the same not-normal experience as I do. No one here has been taken. Lost three years to…
No!
My thoughts need to stay on the snug Wranglers and chiseled jaws.
“Alan hates when I come to these things.” Amanda waggles her eyebrows as a very attractive cowboy walks up.
He tips his hat to us and grins. “Buy you ladies a drink?”
My tongue is a knot in my mouth. Before… I only casually dated and rarely went to bars. I was barely twenty-two when…
Stop it!
“Drinks are free, cowboy,” Lexie says, her smile softening the blow.
“I can offer you other things,” he adds with a wink.
I warm, surprised by his boldness.
“It’s a girls’ night,” Lexie replies, “but if we change our minds, we’ll wave you down.”
He gives us a tip of his hat and he’s off.
He didn’t push. Didn’t get angry. He’s a decent guy.
“God, Alan would lose his mind if he knew someone tried to pick us up,” Amanda says, taking a sip of her drink.
“Makes Alan appreciate what he’s got in a fiancée,” Lexie reminds her. “You can look, but not touch. Me? I may want to touch. I’m keeping that guy on standby.”
Amanda laughs and I do, too. Since Lexie is the designated driver, she’s drinking a soda while Amanda and I are enjoying the free and discounted alcohol.
Lexie picked me up right at eight as she promised, and then we went to get Amanda from her house in town. After the blowup with my parents this morning, they were remarkably quiet about me going out. They never commented before I was taken and today it seems they’re picking their battles. Going out with two other women to ladies’ night at a bar is more acceptable than a job. Go figure.
“I might want to touch too,” I say softly.
They whip their gazes to mine.
I warm under their surprise. “What? I can’t pick up a guy?”
Amanda claps her hands and squeals, making heads turn in her direction. She’s pretty with chin length blond hair and blue eyes. She told me in the car she was a nurse at the local pediatrician’s office and that she was getting married in the fall.
“You can,” she says. “You so can.”
Lexie sets her hand on mine. “You’re sure?”
“Because of what happened?” My voice is soft. That liquid courage is evaporating like a creek in the summer heat.
She shakes her head, her hair sliding over her shoulders. “No, because you’re gorgeous and amazing and whoever you pick’s going to turn into your slave.”
The word makes me blanch and my stomach sour.
“Shit.” Lexie grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze. “That was thoughtless of me to say.”
“It’s true,” Amanda says. “You’re so pretty. I’d kill for your thick hair. And your curves. I can’t fill a B cup if I stuff it with toilet paper.”
She’s tall and willowy and confident. She’s attractive, but it’s the way she’s content in being herself that has me envious. She doesn’t second guess everything like I do.
She clearly doesn’t know what happened to me. This is a small town and everyone knows everything about everybody else. Or so I thought. Maybe what happened to me isn’t that big of a deal to anyone else.
And it shouldn’t be.
Maybe I’ve been with my parents too much since my return. They’ve been so protective, overbearing, and while I understand their feelings, I have to break free if I’m going to truly heal.
This is good, coming here. A word can’t set me off. I can’t let it.
I climb off my stool. “I’m going to run to the ladies’ room.”
Lexie snags my wrist. “I’m so sorry.”
Because I was held captive on Derek Wolfe’s island for three years? Lexie knows about what happened, at least that I was taken and finally set free, but not the details. It’s easy for anyone to make a mental leap as to what I endured.