Pitch Imperfect (7 page)

“It’s spring.”

Ash waggled her eyebrows. “He’s got the salt-and-pepper ménage á deux down pat.”

“Salt and pepper whatta?”

“His—” Ash broke off to stare at the man who’d just walked in. So did a lot of other women, gazes fixed on the blond’s lean, athletic body as he approached the bar. Dressed casually, in a dark green T-shirt and jeans that moulded to his bulge, it wasn’t hard to guess exactly what had drawn their attention.

“Dr. Mitchell, the vet I told you about,” Ash whispered. “He likes ’em juicy so you’re in with a chance. From what I hear he’s insatiable.”

Well, he could be starving for all she cared, she was in no danger of feeding his appetite with her extra padding. Nevertheless, she sucked in her gut. One should never slouch at work. It’s lazy, not to mention bad for your posture.

“Damien,” Ash said, accepting his kiss on the cheek. She gave Anjuli an innocent look. “This is my sister, Anjuli, and she’s in
dire
need.”

What would the villagers say if she strangled their publican? “I have a stray dog.”

He leaned into the bar. “And where have
you
been, gorgeous?” he said, Irish lilt teasing.

“All your life?”

“No, but the rest of it will do fine.”

Well, he was definitely Irish Cheddar, but with a self-mocking smile that said he was laughing at himself more than hitting on her.

Anjuli tried to look stern. “If you’re Dr. Damien Mitchell, I’ve been warned you become dangerous after prolonged contact.”

“We could keep it short and fast if you prefer, but I’d rather not, with you.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re an incorrigible flirt?”

“Ah lass, you’re splicing my heart. All I want is a pint of the black stuff and a kiss from a beautiful woman. Those are the last two things on my list for a perfect St. Paddy’s Day.”

She pointed at the wall calendar. “It’s the seventh, not the seventeenth.”

He took her hand. “An Irishman always prepares in advance.”

“So I’ve heard.”

A dimple came out on his chin and his eyes gleamed. She’d never seen eyes that colour before, like a lion’s. No wonder he’d enthralled half the women in the village. His charm was cheeky and he seemed harmless. Unless, of course, you fell into his den.

His clasp on her hand was firm, but he let her go as soon as she tugged free. “I never kiss men who rank me as the last thing on their to-do list.”

“Then kissing you will be my top priority, Anjuli Carver.”

Rob’s steel-edged voice cut across the bar. “A double Glenmorangie and a glass of Chardonnay, if it’s no’ too much trouble.”

Startled, Anjuli straightened, feeling absurdly guilty. That is, until she noticed the statuesque blonde next to Rob. “I’ll get us a table,” the woman said.

It was Sarah bloody Brunel, looking at him with a possessive glint to her eyes, just as she had done the day before. Anjuli stared at her sleek figure as she moved away, hating its slender lines. When she pulled her attention back, Rob was talking to Damien but staring at
her
. Unwaveringly, watching her every move.

Why the hell was his face so stony? In he’d sauntered wearing a navy blue Scotland jersey and his informal kilt, destroying her peace of mind. Flaunting his masculinity and accompanied by his...whatever she was, and yet he was angry?

Anjuli gave him her back and searched for a wine glass at the opposite end of the bar. Where had she put them? Ash offered her a glass, her voice chirpy. “Give it to her, Babes.”

Anjuli grabbed the wine glass. “Where do you keep the arsenic?” Though she didn’t know whose glass it was for—the reporter who’d written the article, or Rob, for not seeming to care
.

Ash grinned. “No killing my customers. Besides, I gave the last of it to Angus Buchanan, the old sod, but he’s as hard to get rid of as Foot and Mouth.”

With a barely suppressed sigh, Anjuli poured out a 250 ml measure. Maybe the arsenic should be for herself. Rob’s brogue contrasted with Damien’s lilt, and as the two men discussed the Scottish and Irish teams, memories of other games, other sporting events at Rob’s side threatened her outward calm.

She glanced at Rob and wished she hadn’t. Leaning against the bar, black hair tousled from the wind he looked relaxed and rugged. Ready for action. She remembered how he liked to celebrate a Scotland win. Exactly how he wanted her to console him when they lost.

A small thrill worked its way between her thighs. How many times had Rob barely waited until the end of a game to be inside her? And after a match where he’d been playing, well, he’d forego the post-game, male camaraderie at the pub and take her home, sweaty and full of rampant testosterone. Perhaps a soapy shower, with her up against the wall...Anjuli’s hands trembled around his tumbler and she put it down and wiped her palms on her hips. No more shattering glass or staring at Rob or giving fodder for that bitch—err, Sarah—to write about.

She put the drinks in front of Rob. “Whisky for you and wine for your date.”

“Friend,” he said, and turned to Damien. “Why don’t you join us?”

Damien winked at Anjuli. “I’ve got a kiss to collect first.”

Rob looked between them, then settled his gaze on Anjuli. “Of course.”

And what did he mean by that, exactly? Nothing good, by the congealed tone of his voice. Did he think she went around kissing any man who asked?
Duh
,
of course he does
,
and whose fault is that?
Still, he had no right to judge her. He was here with the woman who’d slated her in the paper, a woman who’d no doubt targeted him to be her next “anything in a kilt” conquest. Didn’t Rob care what Sarah had said about her?

Then again, why should he? So she could kiss whoever she wanted, right here in the pub if she so desired. Not that she was planning to kiss anybody. But would Rob be jealous if she did? Oh, hell, what was she, fourteen? He hadn’t left though, taking his sweet time to pocket his change.

Anjuli gave Damien the warm smile she used to bestow on fans who brought her flowers after a performance. “The stout is on the house since you didn’t get the last thing on your list,” she said, watching Rob walk over to Sarah. The reporter was in a clingy green dress that showed plenty of cleavage.
The slut.

Damien flirted with Anjuli when he came back for a refill and then again when he bought a round, taking her mind off the man whose every movement she was tracking out of the corner of her eye.

“Tradition dictates that if the beautiful woman refuses to kiss the suffering Irishman she must grant him a wish,” he declared, drawing the attention of surrounding punters. “Come with me to the Town Hall ceilidh or doom me to an evening of loneliness.”

Anjuli fixed him with a direct, open look. “Please don’t take this the wrong way,
gorgeous
, but I’ve heard you’re a frank sort and I think you can take it. I’m not interested in romance or sex, or any combination of the two.”

Damien sighed theatrically. “If you won’t make me the happiest man in Heaverlock then I offer you my friendship.”

Anjuli watched Sarah scoot her chair closer to Rob’s.
Is she desperate or something?
Oh
,
they’re being joined by a few more people
. Of course she would want to sit closer to him than the bloke staring at her cleavage.

“Friendship accepted,” she said.

“Just tell me one thing,” Damien said, surprising her with his sudden seriousness. “You’re a beautiful, single woman. What happened to turn you away from a good time? Life as a nun is damned boring. Two of my aunts married Christ so I know what I’m talking about.”

Anjuli stepped back. “If we’re going to be friends then talking about the past is strictly off limits. No deep and meaningfuls about my former relationships or emotional traumas. I’ll extend you the same courtesy, since I could ask what made you up sticks from Ireland to tiny Heaverlock.”

Damien’s expression drew inwards and he toasted her with his pint glass. “To angels and demons.”

“So we have a deal, Irishman?”

“I can’t promise I won’t forget myself and steal a kiss or two, but then you can put me in my place. I’m a sucker for a dominatrix.”

Anjuli laughed and shook her head. “Don’t you ever give up?”

“Find out next Tuesday. I don’t normally hold a pet clinic in the morning but I’ll make an exception for...?”

“Reiver.”

“Reiver Carver it is, 11:30, and then I’ll take you to lunch. Don’t shake your head at me, gorgeous. My mother taught me never to take strangers to a ceilidh and that means I have to get to know you.”

Well, why not? It would be fun to spend time with a man who didn’t throw her into hopeless turmoil. Someone she was in no danger of loving or being loved by, someone she was not going to spend the next half of the game staring at from behind the bar, she promised herself.

A spate of happy, thirsty customers at the end of the game—Scotland 21, Ireland 9 result—allowed her to keep her promise. When she finally had a chance to glance towards Rob’s table, he and Sarah were gone.

“They left together,” Ash said, coming out of the back office. “Rob’s taking her home.”

“How can you possibly know that? You were in the kitchen the entire game.”

Ash adjusted her green
shalwar kameez
. “I was in the bathroom and I overheard Lesley Harris tell her sister that Sarah was using the damsel-in-distress card. She told Rob her car—” Ash stopped to make quotation marks with her fingers, “—’broke down’.”

Anjuli sniffed.
She
would never lie to get Rob into bed for the night.

No
,
you’d have sex with him first
,
and then lie to get him
out of
your bed.

“Don’t worry, Babes, I’m sure it’s just a pit stop on Rob’s part. He’ll get her engine oiled and that’ll be it.”

Anjuli gritted her teeth. “I. Am. Not. Worried. I’ve got more serious problems to think about than Rob’s mechanical prowess.”

“Oh?”

“Brendan is in concert at the SECC next week and I’m seeing him the morning after in Glasgow. It’s time to remind him he promised to pay me back.”

“Like he promised to give up gambling?”

Anjuli’s teeth worried at her bottom lip. “He knows I’m desperate, Ash. I told him about the house and about applying for a loan.”

“What makes you think he’ll turn up?”

Anjuli looked down guiltily. “I threatened to tell his new wife we were married. And about Chloe.”

Ash patted her on the back. “Blackmail, huh? I like it. It’s what he deserves.”

Anjuli puffed her cheeks and let the air out slowly. She hated forcing Brendan to meet her like this. He wasn’t a bad person, but he was an irresponsible shirker, and if she didn’t pressure him she would never see her money again.

“Can I borrow your car tomorrow morning? We’re meeting in a seedy café on the wrong side of town, to avoid the paparazzi.”

“You want my cloak and dagger too?”

“I have a feeling I may need the dagger.”

* * *

“Come in and wash that off,” Sarah said, glancing at the oil on Rob’s hands. “I feel awful for taking you away from the pub like that.”

Rob followed her into the cottage. “I’m glad I could help.”

In fact, driving Sarah to Halton Petrol Station, changing her oil and making sure she got home safely had helped to clear his head. If he’d stayed and watched Damien flirt with Anjuli another second he might not have held his cool.

Washing the grease from his knuckles was like trying to wash Anjuli from his mind. No matter how hard he scrubbed, the silage of their past together clung to him. The way she’d looked at him at the pub, as if he owed her explanations for being with Sarah, filled him with a conflicting mixture of pleasure and anger. Seeing her hand in Damien’s had almost made him behave true to the kilt he was wearing and revert to less civilised times. Warn the vet away and if he ignored him, then spear him through the heart if he so much as looked at Anjuli again. No other woman had ever possessed the power to provoke his most basic instincts.

Why had he told her Sarah was his friend and not let her wonder about their relationship? Kept her guessing about his love life instead of revealing he had no romantic interest in Sarah.
Because you don’t play games or lie to get what you want.

Sarah offered him a whisky and he shook his head. “If I have another I’ll risk going over the limit, and I’d hate for Ben to pull me over,” Rob said. “He’s on the graveyard shift.”

“Coffee it is, then.”

“It’s late.”

“So it is, but we could finish the interview we started the other day. I still don’t know your opinion about the Scottish referendum result. Then there’s the prize you won for that new hospital wing in London. I want to hear all about it. We’ll be done and dusted in as long as it takes to drink my special blend, promise.”

Sarah was nothing if not persistent, one of the personality traits he admired about her. They’d been out to dinner a few times and he’d found her witty and driven, with a sense of humour that matched his. One kiss, a brief touch before he’d left on his London trip, and he’d known they would never be lovers. Seeing Anjuli again, being inside her body and feeling her lips on his skin had convinced him that friendship was the only relationship he’d ever have with Sarah.

Thankfully, she hadn’t seemed to mind, and had promptly started dating her editor, Thomas Gray, a man he’d gone to school with. That relationship was over, or so she’d said at the pub. She wanted commitment and a family, and domesticity wasn’t Tom’s idea of a good time.

A sip of coffee scalded his tongue and left an acrid aftertaste in his mouth. Having a son or daughter would probably never be in the cards for him either. Not anymore.

What woman would want to marry him if she knew it was unlikely he’d father bairns of his own, much as he wished it were otherwise? Certainly not Sarah. Her biological clock was ticking and she’d as much as said she wanted babies, marriage optional. He wanted both, but not with her. It wouldn’t be right to give her false hopes, no matter what Ben said about playing the field. Unlike some, he’d never strung anyone along for a good time, and he wasn’t about to start now. Thankfully, Sarah seemed happy with friendship.