The Good Chase (5 page)

None of this had anything to do with Byrne. She turned on Dan. “I don't care who Grant Whoever is. You insult me in my own bar, I tell you to leave.”

Byrne's face darkened.

Dan rounded on Byrne. “She called herself a Hooters girl and
she's
the one getting pissed off at
me
?”

She waved a hand. “No, no, no. I said I
wasn't
a Hooters girl, after you came into
my
bar and treated me as such.”

Byrne ground his teeth together. Nudging his chin toward the opposite side of the restaurant, where a group of ten or so men had pulled together a few tables, he said, “Why don't you get back to the team? Leave Shea alone.”

“Fine, fine. Whatever.”

Byrne watched Dan weave back to the other guys, but Shea looked only at Byrne. When he swiveled his head to look at her, there was soft apology in his eyes.

“What on earth are you doing here?” she asked. “In Rhode Island, at this particular restaurant, of all places?”

“Rugby.” He jutted a thumb over at the raucous tables. “Playing tomorrow at the Highland Games. Can I assume you're doing the same?”

“Not playing rugby.”

“Right. Of course not.” A flicker of a smile.

Oh no. Not the crooked grin.
Defense! Defense!

She raised an eyebrow at Dan's back. “You play with him?”

“Yeah.” Byrne sighed. “And work with him. Listen, he's not . . . he's not as bad as he comes across.”

She drew back, opening her mouth.

“I'm not defending him or anything,” Byrne added, raking fingers through the side of his hair, “but he didn't used to be like that. Some shit's happened to him recently and he's, well, he's not taking it so well. I know that doesn't excuse what he's said or done to you. But if you'll let me, I'll apologize for him.”

She relaxed a bit. “Thank you.”

“That client he mentioned, Grant, he's kind of a big deal.”

“Well, Grant is welcome back to the Amber anytime. It's Dan who'll feel my stiletto in his ass if he walks through my front door.”

The bartender slid the credit card receipt in front of her, and she signed with gusto, the
S
and
M
huge, the rest of the letters a bunch of indecipherable scribbles.

“So,” she said, tucking her card back into her wallet. “Where is it exactly you guys work?”

“At Weatherly and McTavish. I'm a private banker.”

Of course he was. She set her purse on her lap and looked up at him, expecting to see a layer of cockiness slathered across his face. Only there was none. Just that same level of focus he'd given her on Long Island. That air of ease that was so adept at trying to trick her into falling under his spell. She wondered where he kept his wand and potions. It was some powerful stuff. She was having one hell of a time fighting it. But she
was
fighting it, and she was winning.

“You must be running a whisky thing tomorrow,” he said.

“No, actually. I just like to drive up to middle-of-nowhere Rhode Island restaurants on my nights off.”

He grinned. Damn it. “Can I stop by your tent tomorrow? Have another taste?”

Have another taste indeed.

Why did he have to be so charming? It messed with her head, being drawn in by his personality but repelled by the air of money that now hovered around him. And that frustrated her, too, because she shouldn't judge every single man with a thick bank account by what Marco had been like . . . except that she'd met so few men who fit that mold and had been different. Truly, honestly different. It was so much easier to stick to her guns, to avoid dating anyone related to whisky, to keep her personal life well delineated from her professional.

When she thought of Marco and the world he was involved in—the world in which she used to live—several non-complimentary words came to mind. Smarmy. False. Self-involved. And yet, when she thought of Byrne—even though she didn't know him at all—none of those words came to mind.

“Listen.” She slid from the stool, and he backed away to give her room. It succeeded only in giving her a more comprehensive image of how he looked in those clothes. Like he'd been poured into a Jell-O mold lined with silk and linen, and popped out looking like a masturbation fantasy. “I have this thing about flirting with guys I meet through work. ‘Work' meaning when I'm either at the Amber or doing tastings off-site. It's just a rule of mine.”

“This ‘thing.'” The grin cocked so far to one side it dragged his head with it. Far,
far
too charming. “Just for clarification, that means you
like
to flirt on those occasions?”

Don't smile. Don't encourage
.

She hiked her purse onto her shoulder. “No, I mean I don't do it. Ever. I can't afford to make an exception.”

Once he realized that she was being completely serious, his grin slowly died. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and shook his head at the floor. She could have sworn she heard him mumble, “Beef jerky.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

“I'm sorry.” Her own words shocked her. She'd never apologized to anyone she'd turned down before. It shocked her even more to realize that she meant it.

He shrugged. “And I'm sorry I'll have to endure bagpipes tomorrow without a sip of whisky.”

She laughed. “Stop. That makes me sad to hear. I'm sure you'll be welcome in the beer tent.”

He looked right into her eyes. What happened to the volume in the bar? Did someone magically cut it off?

“For what it's worth, Shea, I think it's a pity. I have the feeling we might've surprised each other.”

With a tight-lipped smile that was a fraction of the full wattage of which he was capable, he turned and walked away, taking his fine rugby ass with him.

*   *   *

S
hea woke up the next morning to the sound of birds and a brisk wind racing through the trees. Which was completely opposite from the raucous sounds of the obnoxious party she'd fallen asleep to, coming from way on the other side of the campground. If the ranger hadn't made his quiet hour rounds and shut them up, she'd been ready to march over there and do it herself.

Normally mornings in a tent made her feel rested and rejuvenated. Not today. The solution, obviously, was oatmeal cooked over her new camp stove, dotted with sliced apples and brown sugar, and coffee dripped through a funnel percolator.

After the coffee had thawed out the chill in her fingertips, she set out on a short hike around the gentle loop through the nearby woods. A doe and her fawn were munching grass in a meadow, and by the time she got back to her campsite, she was no longer mad over the rude party.

Grabbing her clothing for the day and her small bag of toiletries, she followed the yellow signs pointing toward the shower building. Cell reception in the campground was for crap, and she spent the whole walk holding her phone out at various awkward angles, looking like an idiot, trying to find a signal. A few bars finally lit up near the cement shower house. She fired off a few quick texts to the Amber, inquiring about last night's receipts and what was on tap for today, and to see if there was anything she needed to address.

The outdoor shower experience wasn't exactly her favorite part about camping, and this one was no exception. The stalls on the women's side were frigid without heat or sunlight, and the water that came out of the showerhead was little more than a lukewarm spit that had her teeth chattering by the end.

Fastest shower known to man. Or woman.

She pulled on jeans and layered tops for when the day warmed up later, then stood in front of the mirror and put on makeup so the dark circles under her eyes wouldn't scare away tasters. Hair still damp, she left it down to dry before pulling it back into her habitual ponytail.

A few texts and emails had come through while she'd been getting ready, and as she pushed out of the chilly showers and back into blessed sunlight, she scrolled through them. Typing a response with one thumb, her old clothes and toiletries balanced precariously in the other arm, she headed up the gravel path toward the road that would take her back to campsite 46.

A distributor was lamenting a late shipment from overseas, and she was making her one-thumbed email directly to the source in Scotland when she slammed into something so hard it not only knocked the phone and her clothes from her arms but also the very train of thought from her mind.

Dear God, had she walked into a tree? Righting herself, turning around, she saw that yes, it was a tree. A tree named Bespoke Byrne.

Only he'd gone and played another switcheroo on her. In his flip-flops, baggy jeans with pale knees, and a gray hoodie with
WHARTON
barely visible underneath the drawstrings, he was closer now to Rugby Byrne. And he was here. Byrne was in a
campground
.

He, too, had been taken by clear surprise at the collision. His balance off, his body having been jounced to one side, his phone bobbled from hand to hand in his attempt not to drop it.

She stood, wide-eyed with disbelief right in the middle of the path, her stuff strewn around her feet. “Holy crap. What are you doing here?”

At last his fingers wrapped around his phone, saving it from the dusty, dirty fate hers had suffered, and he turned to her, finally realizing whom he'd run into.

“Whoa,” he murmured. “What are
you
doing here?”

She gestured dumbly to the building behind her. “Um. Taking a shower.”

One corner of his mouth twitched. Oh hell. Who looked that good the morning, and in a campground no less?

“I mean, I'm camping,” she amended. Of course she was camping. Where else were they, at the Four Seasons?

Thinking of the Four Seasons reminded her that no one but Willa and her parents knew how much she loved the outdoors. Country Shea and City Shea were two very different people, kept separate for reasons that meant her sanity. Much like Personal Shea and Professional Shea. But it seemed maybe that Byrne was revealing himself to be a man of two sides as well?

“Why are you here,” she said, “and not at a hotel or something?”

“Ah, well, that's the funny part. George, the manager of our team, dragged us all up here from the city but had no place for us to stay. So he rented this huge RV, and we're crammed in there like sardines. Smells fantastic, by the way.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You weren't the ones partying last night, were you?”

He winced and said nothing.

She tapped below one eye. “These bags are from you guys.”

His head tilted. “What bags? You look great. We got a spanking from the ranger, if that helps.”

“Kind of.”

“The guys, most of them are city people and they've never been camping, never slept outdoors. I tried to get them to quiet down.”

Did she read him right? Did Bespoke Byrne not consider himself a “city guy”?

Doesn't matter, Shea. You already turned him down.

“Wow. So weird to see you here,” he said. “Speaking of city people . . .”

“I'm not entirely city.”

“I see that.” In the forest, in the morning, his eyes held a nearly impossible glint. Like something out of a cartoon.

Something buzzed around her feet. Oh, the phone. She looked down and saw it lying in the gravel. Next to the sweatpants she'd worn to bed. And the little black cotton underwear with the lace edges.

She snatched it all up, but the underwear somehow made it on top of the pile, and she had to stuff it deeper into the folds of the gray sweats. Not that that was obvious or anything.

Looking anywhere but at him, she still knew he was smiling and really wished he'd stop.

“Well, I'm going to take a shower now,” he said. “First match is at ten thirty. Have to get clean before I get dirty.”

Her eyes snapped back to him and she gulped. “I have to set up” was her lame response.

Neither one of them took a step to separate.

“I'd let the water run awhile before getting in,” she offered. “Like, say, a half hour.”

“Ouch. Thought your lips looked a little blue. I'll keep that in mind.” He started to back away. For a few steps he held her eyes with his, then he turned around and disappeared behind the divider that blocked off the men's half of the shower house.

She stood there on the path lit with broken sunlight as it came down through the trees. The high windows of the shower house were cracked open, and in the quiet forest she could hear the squeak of knobs as Byrne turned on the water, the splash as it hit the concrete floor.

And then the high, hilarious shriek pealing through the trees as he stepped under the liquid ice.

4

G
eorge ripped open another case of light beer and tossed Byrne a new can. He accepted it but didn't crack it open, just held it to make it look like he was still going strong with the rest of them. Truth was, he'd stopped drinking two hours ago, and even then he'd only had a couple.

He was saving himself for something special and, glancing at the time on his phone, he'd give himself a few more minutes before he went after it.

The team had filed back to the campsite for dinner, high on a rare tournament victory that had quickly translated to an actual beer high. They'd each taken their turns in the glacial showers, grilled about eighty thousand pounds of various kinds of meat, and now sat around a fire talking about nothing, though they thought they were solving the problems of the world.

The games shut down at eight. It was now eight thirty. An hour and a half until quiet hours in the campground—until then, the guys would probably do their best to annoy all the families and couples within a mile radius.

He wondered if Shea was back at her site yet.

There were two things Byrne was fairly certain about: One, that Shea had very firmly shot him down last year in Gleann and once again out on Long Island. And two, something wonderful had shifted between them that morning outside the shower house. He had to believe that his seeking her out tonight wouldn't freak her out. And if it did, he'd backpedal so fast she'd forget he was ever there.

Disappearing into the RV, he pulled on his favorite Wharton sweatshirt, the one he'd keep together with duct tape or mismatched thread or magic if he had to. Late-spring nights in the forest weren't exactly balmy.

He reached between two seat cushions and pulled out what he hoped would be his ace card, the key to unlocking the ever-growing mystery of Shea Montgomery.

By the fire, Dan was telling some overblown story about a recent business trip to Singapore, complete with full-body movement, and Byrne slipped unnoticed around the back of the picnic table, heading for the one-way road that looped around the whole campground.

He didn't know Shea's site number, but the road swerved past all the sites and sooner or later he'd find it. Away from his team, the campground turned strangely homey, like he'd been invited into a collection of warm, open-air living rooms. Fires crackled in every site. Pockets of near and distant laughter sprung up here and there, the sounds of people enjoying the pleasantly cool evening. Kids ran around with glow sticks, getting leaves all over their pj's. The raucous vibe of his own site faded, and then . . . there she was.

The
zzzrrrrt
of a tent zipper preceded her appearance. Shea crawled out of a low, beige dome tent, wearing a sleek green sweatshirt and tight jeans tucked into brown hiking boots. He stopped, right there in the middle of the road, and watched her go to the picnic table where a pot of water boiled on a small portable stove. A gas lamp buzzed and burned brightly in the center of the table, and a low fire danced in the pit just beyond. Her hair was down—pale and long and straight down her back—and the mixture of low light made it shine.

She squirted dish soap into a bucket, filled the bucket with the hot water, and washed out the dishes that apparently had held her dinner. The whole scene was so innocent, so surprising, so completely unlike the Shea he'd merely pegged as “hot” a year ago back in Gleann.

Unable to wipe the smile from his face, he ventured closer, but went only as far as the brown post with her site number painted in yellow. “Hey,” he said.

Her head whipped up. A clean pot slipped from her hands and landed with a clunk on the dish towel she'd spread out over one picnic bench. He thought of how she'd dropped the whisky bottle in Long Island, and her black underwear lying on the ground outside the shower house. Seemed he tended to make her drop things.

Her expression softened. “Hey yourself.”

He pointed to the dirt on the other side of the numbered post. “Can I come in? If you say no, I promise I'll walk away and you'll never have to see me again. At least until the next Highland Games.”

Her eyebrows pinched as she glanced down the road. “What about your team?”

“They won't know I left until morning. Liquid ignorance. And none of them know you're staying here, if you're worried.”

Her shoulders relaxed. “Okay.”

“Okay about my team? Or okay that I can come in?” He pulled out the bottle he'd snagged from the RV and set it on top of the post. “I brought this.”

“What is it?” She squinted at the bottle, then waved him closer.

Hallelujah
.

He set the half-full bottle of whisky on the table and turned the label to face her. She blinked at it, then looked up at him, not moving.

“Now, you have made it perfectly clear,” he said, “that you want nothing to do with men when you're working or whatnot, so let me just make this argument. You're not working this very minute, there's not a bar within a fifteen-minute drive of here, and this here is
my
bottle of whisky, dragged here all the way from New York City. I was thinking that maybe you could tell me something about it, but if that's like a schoolteacher being asked to babysit on the weekends, I totally understand. I'll just go back to my animal friends.”

She smiled with her eyes. Score.

Drying her hands on her jeans, she reached out and grabbed the bottle. Holding it in one palm, she read the label, her head bobbing from side to side in a
meh
gesture.

“It was a gift,” he amended. “You can't insult me if it's crap.”

“It's not crap.” She shrugged as she set it back on the table. “Just not remarkable. Marketing did an excellent job on it once the big conglomerate bought the distillery. Fairly widespread, easy to come by. A lot of people love it.”

“You're just not one of them?”

“Perhaps I'm biased. I knew someone who once worked in that distillery over in Scotland, and the experience when the small place was bought out wasn't the best.”

Interesting.

“You know,” she said, “I would've given you something better, a little more unique, if you'd come by my station today.”

“You told me not to.”

“No, I didn't. I not-so-subtly, nonverbally told you that flirting with me in my place of business would get you nowhere.”

“Ah.” He leaned a knee on the picnic bench. Closer to her. “We won the tournament, and the guys voted to come back to the campground to drink to victory instead of hanging out at the fest. I have to say I'm glad for that. We were surrounded by hundreds of bagpipes the whole day. It was awful. But it made me play better so I could get out of there faster.”

She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Where on earth did this hatred of bagpipes come from?”

“Undergrad at Boston College. I think they pass those things out to the locals at Starbucks or something.”

“Well, I love them, and if you keep making fun of them I'm going to put you in a kilt and make you march around with the bands.”

“
No
. Please no.”

Her smile was incredible. Really, really incredible. And the way she tilted her head, the long stream of white-gold hair falling to one side, left him a little speechless.

“You ever wear a kilt?” she asked.

“No. No plans to, either. Ever.”

Her eyes flicked down to his legs and she murmured, “Shame.”

The hard part was making sure he didn't look too smug or too excited. Then she seemed to realize that she'd spoken aloud, and bit the inside of her cheek before moving to the end of the table to close the little stove and unscrew the canister of fuel.

A change of subject was due, because the last thing he wanted was for her to feel uncomfortable. He was enjoying this way too much.

“Looks like you've done this before.” He gestured around the site.

She wiped down the damp dishes and stacked them in a labeled plastic bin. “First time this year. I bought myself a big Christmas present last year and splurged on all this stuff.”

“Did you just wake up one morning and think, ‘You know what? What I'm missing is more ice-cold showers'?”

“I was thinking that I needed more run-ins with skunks, actually.” She peeked up at him as she slowly folded the layers of dish towels, but as she went on, she spoke to the cloth. “I grew up camping. They were my favorite vacations. Last year I was asked to be at the Gleann Highland Games at the last minute, and rather than stay somewhere an hour away, I borrowed a tent and some supplies and I fell in love with it all over again.” She made the final fold and looked up at him. “What about you? This your first time camping?”

No. But his experience camping when he was young hadn't been for vacation, and when he thought of tents, he didn't have fond memories.

“Yes,” he replied, and then inwardly kicked himself. This woman had spent her childhood outdoors and was clearly a woman with more facets than he'd originally given her credit for, but . . . the shame lingered. It glued his lips shut. And not for the first time, he hated how that made him feel.

The fire released a loud
pop
, and Shea turned to slant a big dry log over the top of the burning ones. She definitely knew what she was doing, and he found that he really enjoyed watching her. It took his mind off the past.

“So there's no Scottish in you?” she asked.

“Couldn't say. Genealogy wasn't exactly on my family's to-do list.”

“I know a little.” She poked at the fire. “What's your last name?”

“Byrne.”

Setting down the long stick, she looked at him curiously. “Really? So what's your first?”

“My parents and sister and brother call me J.P., but they're the only ones who do.”

“Hmmm. J.P. Could stand for a lot of things.”

“You'll never guess.”
Please, please don't guess.

“J.P. Byrne. You sound like a bank. Like the guy I saw last night.”

He was confused. “Dan?”

“No. You. Bespoke Byrne.”

“
Bespoke
Byrne?”

Was it his imagination, or did a slight chill suddenly fall over them? She'd been warming up to him, too. Ah, that must be it. The fact that it
was
going well was freaking her out. She'd bent her rule about flirting with guys she met while working, but now he got the distinct sense that her retreat had something to do with his job. Or his money.

Then she gave another little shrug and it was gone, leaving him to wonder if it had been there at all.

“Just something I do, give names to people,” she said. “You were Rugby to me at first. Then Rugby Byrne. Then, last night, Bespoke Byrne.”

“Not Camping Byrne?”

She twisted her face exaggeratedly as she assessed him. “No. You're Rugby Byrne again. And for that, I'm glad.”

He considered that, thinking he understood. “You know, I'm not anything like Dan. I mean, we have the same job at the same company, but all that showboating and drunken obnoxiousness, that's not me.”

She took a deep breath. “Okay.”

“I'm kind of desperate to prove that to you. If you've changed your mind and want me to go, I will, but I don't want to.”

The next few seconds were endless. Then Shea sat down at the table, pulled his whisky bottle closer, and flipped her clear-water blue eyes up to him.

“So,” she said, making his heart jump a bit, “do you really want to talk about Dan, or do you want to drink this?”

He sat down probably a bit too fast, but it made her mouth twitch into a smile. Reaching into her plastic crate of camping stuff, she pulled out two metal coffee mugs, blue with white flecks.

“Not exactly the fancy ones I had last weekend,” she said. “Or the ones I have at the Amber.”

“I've never been there.”

Her hand paused slightly as she pulled out the whisky's stopper. “I'm starting to be glad about that.”

“Yeah,” he said, blatantly staring. “So am I.”

She poured a small splash into each mug and pushed his across the wood.

“So what do I do?” he asked.

She narrowed her eyes, and he thought that he was beginning to identify her more playful looks. “I saw you last weekend. You know what to do.”

“Only because I watched a video online about it last summer and remembered.”

“Last summer?”

Wrapping his fingers around the mug as though it were coffee, he smiled at her over the rim. “After I met you.”

“Oh.” She cleared her throat. “Well, I thought you might've been a Brown Vein.”

He laughed. “A what?”

“A Brown Vein. Someone who knows whisky so well it's part of their blood.”

“One of your names again?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Tell me some more.”

“There's a Drinker, and a Hot Air.”