Page 34 of Daring Lance

“Sorry, but I’m meeting a friend.” Lance did not tell the woman that overly eager, pushy women were not his type. He stopped himself because she did not seem like someone who took rejection well, and he was not in the mood to explain himself any further. He had agreed to come out for a beer, and one beer only, because he was tired of Cameron’s complaints that he had been in a perpetual bad mood for the last several days.

He took a drink, a very small pull from his bottle of beer, as he scanned the crowded bar. It was the typical place where locals hung out after a hard day’s work, where they wanted only to have a drink and shoot the shit with friends before they went home to whatever awaited them, good or bad. From what he could overhear from conversations around him, things at home were mostly bad.

The music from the ancient Jukebox in the corner of the room was cranked up to near earsplitting, which he didn’t mind as it provided him with an excuse not to speak with anyone. With the exception of the woman who had approached him earlier, he had been able to avoid conversation with most everyone since arriving almost an hour ago. It helped that Cameron and Antonio were occupied in a game of pool, allowing him to stand off to the side, alone in his own thoughts.

He was about to inform his friends that he was calling it a night when he saw a woman, her back to him, leave through the bar’s one exit. Even with the less than adequate lighting, her long black hair shone. She flipped a large strand behind her shoulder, and Lance’s heart skipped a beat. He’d recognize that gesture anywhere. It was a habit he’d teased Willow about often. Without a moment’s hesitation, he set his beer down on a table and pushed his way through the crowded bar. He thought he may have heard Cameron call to him, but Lance kept moving. He’d explain his hasty departure to his friends later. Right now, he had to determine whether the woman was actually Willow or a figment of his imagination brought on by his tormented heart.

He stepped outside of the bar and was immediately accosted by a deluge of rain, a storm that must have begun during the last hour. It had been cloudy but dry earlier in the evening. He did a quick scan of the parking lot and didn’t see her. She had to have already made it back to the hotel as there was nowhere else to go. While the area they were in was beautiful, the beach less than a hundred yards away and the palm trees abundant, there wasn’t anything else for miles but the small hotel and the neighboring bar. This lack of amenities made the beach the perfect location for the first of several eco-friendly resorts the Bennett Construction Company would build in the area. He breached the short distance between the bar and the hotel in less than five minutes.

He shook off the raindrops and ran his hand over his hair to remove the top layer of dampness from it.

“There must be some mistake. I’m positive I have a room for this evening.”

Lance’s gaze darted to the hotel’s front desk. If he had any doubt that he had seen Willow in the bar, he didn’t now. Her voice was as recognizable as her hair. He made his way from the entryway to the front desk in a few brisk steps. “My apologies, Carlos, she’s with me. I forgot to let you know before I went out this evening.”

Willow looked back at him, her gaze reflected relief and something else. Joy? Happiness? Was he being overly optimistic? But why else would she be here but to see him?

“Lance?”

He raised his hand, prepared to brush the raindrops from her cheek, and caught himself, lowering his arm to his side. The last time he had seen Willow, she had made it very clear that it was over between the two of them, destroying any right that he had to touch her as he once had. “That’s me.” He had so much more to say to her, that he wanted, needed to say, to her but not here. Perhaps his friends would consider him as being unnecessarily cruel with his flippant response, but until he knew the purpose of her visit, his guard remained up.

“There seems to be some type of misunderstanding with my room. Courtney texted me the room number, but the front desk says it’s occupied.” Willow skimmed her fingertip across her smart phone several times before showing him the screen. “See? I have the confirmation number right here.”

Lance didn’t have to look at Willow’s phone to know the room number Courtney had sent Willow because he’d bet a month’s pay it was his own. Damn, two fruity margaritas had been all that he needed to share the details of his trip with his nosy neighbors. “That’s my room.”

“What? I had to idea.” Her eyes widened right before she swiveled her head to look at the front desk clerk. “Excuse me—"

Lance grabbed her upper arm and pulled her next to him, leading her and her luggage, which he had grabbed with his free hand, toward the stairway. “Never mind, Carlos, I got this. Good night,” he called over his shoulder.

They walked up the stairs to the top floor of the hotel, which also happened to be the second floor because not much more was needed in the small town with its minimal amenities. That would all change when then the resort was built and was something, fortunately, all of the locals welcomed.

Lance made haste of opening the door to his room and ushering Willow inside. “Towels in the bathroom if you want to dry off.”

Willow nodded and retreated to the bathroom without comment, and Lance used the time to change out of his own damp shirt. He had been tempted to follow Willow into the bathroom with the offer to assist in drying her off but held himself in check. Not until he knew exactly why she had traveled all the way to Costa Rica would he make a move toward her or get his hopes up that she would welcome it.

Lance leaned against the wooden dresser, having chosen it over the only other piece of furniture in the room, which was the bed. He wasn’t going there, at least not yet, or so he hoped. He checked his phone for text messages, knowing he didn’t have any but needed the distraction, when Willow exited the bathroom. Her long black hair was pulled back from her face into a ponytail, which emphasized her high cheekbones and exotic green eyes. Lance swore there was rarely a time that she didn’t take his breath away, and tonight was no exception.

“Thank you for the use of your towel. It didn’t occur to me to bring an umbrella with me. I, ah, sort of packed in a hurry.”

Lance folded his arms and laid them low on his abdomen. “Why’s that?”

Willow stuck each of her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, and, in turn, the swell of her breasts inched forward in her white t-shirt. A thin bead of sweat broke out at Lance’s hairline. When she sucked her lower lip between her top teeth, Lance nearly pushed himself away from the dresser to yank her into his arms.

“Last minute trip.”

“Ah.” Lance stared back at her and, before he could stop himself, asked, “Why’s that?”

Willow crossed the toes of one foot on top of the other, and he noticed that her brightly pinked toenails were a stark contrast to her olive skin. God, he had it bad if he found himself thinking about her feet.

“The woman you were speaking to in the bar was attractive.”

“What?”

She curled her toes into the carpet, her gaze remaining focused on the floor. “I went to the bar looking for you. You were by the pool tables, and she was there, with you.”

Lance briefly recalled the woman approaching him, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what she looked like and didn’t care, either. “She was no one, Willow. If you had stayed, you would have seen her walk away moments later. Which brings me back to my original question, why the last-minute trip to Costa Rica?”

Willow raised her gaze, a shy look in her eyes. He didn’t regret that she had witnessed the brief exchange with the woman he couldn’t remember; he liked the trace of jealously he had heard in her voice because of it. She rocked back and forth on her heels, and he assumed her feet were probably cold. Her gym shoes and socks were likely wet from the deluge of rain that had so quickly pounced on them. “I brought Daphne ‘s collar, the pink leather one, with me? It was at my house when you left, and she likes to wear it on the weekends when she goes out on walks.” A small smile curved her lips. “Where is she and her two siblings, by the way?”

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