Into the Fire - Leslie Kelly [30]
"Can't think about your decades-old affair anymore, Mom," she muttered as she cleaned up her desk for the day. "Not when I've fallen smack-dab into a crazy, reckless affair of my own!"
As she prepared to leave, Lacey wondered how she could be so angry and yet so reluctantly amused by Nate Logan with each encounter they shared.
The man was a smart-ass, no doubt about it. He liked saying outrageous things, trying to get a rise out of her. Yet he wasn't always being intentionally goading, she knew. Part of it appeared to be his forthright personality, an attitude of let's cut the crap and get down to the issue at hand, which came across so strongly in his writing.
She supposed she had to be thankful to him for prodding her in J.T.'s office. Of course, she would have eventually realized what she could ask of J.T. in return for doing the assignment. She hadn't needed Nate to think of it first. But he had, and she did appreciate it, deep down.
She hated that. Hated appreciating anything about him. Because there was too much she liked about him already. Correction, too much she had liked before learning his name.
"Why couldn't you be Joe Blow, an accountant from Jersey ?" she asked out loud. As she flipped off her overhead light, she acknowledged the truth. If he'd been an average Joe Blow from Jersey , she probably wouldn't have found him so devastating Friday night. His self-confidence had attracted her, his flirtatious charm had intrigued her, his embrace had seduced her.
And that self-confidence, charm and embrace had been all pure one-hundred-percent Nathan Logan.
* * *
Chapter 5
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F lanagan's Pub was located a few blocks off
Charles Street
in an area of office buildings and trendy restaurants. Surrounded by businesses that catered to professionals seeking a good spot for lunch meetings, Flanagan's was one of the last few old-time bars on the block. The pub's wood floors were pitted and stained, its booths sticky, its vinyl-covered bench seats torn. They served lots of beer, lots of whiskey and absolutely no umbrella drinks. A few nights a week some of the locals would gather to start up impromptu Irish music sessions, with fiddles, tin whistles and bodhran drums. There was no pretense in the building or the servers, and it was Lacey and Venus's favorite after-hours hangout. Since Venus's foster uncle Joe owned the place, they came here quite often.
Waiting for Venus and Raul, Lacey tucked herself into an empty booth near a front window. Fortunately, she'd arrived early, because a half hour later, with happy hour fully under way, there would be no free tables.
Though it was a work night, Lacey figured she deserved a beer after the day she'd had. She ordered one from their regular dour-faced waitress. The woman had just thumped a mug of beer down on the scarred wooden table and walked away when Lacey noticed a pair of men's boots, topped by faded blue jeans, standing in the aisle.
"Well, Miss Clark, imagine running into you here."
Not really wanting to, Lacey raised her eyes anyway and saw Nate Logan standing there. Raul stood behind him, his grin impossibly wide, a sparkle of excitement in his big brown eyes.
"You're dead meat, Raul," Lacey muttered. "Yeah, you are, Raul," Nate said before he slipped into the booth to sit across from Lacey. He leaned close so she could hear him over the chatter from nearby tables. "I didn't know you were going to be here. I wouldn't have come if I'd known."
That pricked her ego. "Feel free to turn right around."
Instead of coming back with a retort, Nate held her stare. "I didn't mean I'm not happy to see you. I meant I wouldn't have come knowing you didn't want me to. If you'd like me to go, I will. We have to work together. We don't have to socialize."
Lacey shrugged. "Well, since we are going to have to work together, we probably should declare a truce."
"I didn't know we were at war."
"Don't you read your own press?"