Page 19 of Austin
Chapter Five
Kristen kept hermouth stubbornly closed as they rounded a series of corners. She probably thought he was making a point about who was in the figurative driver’s seat as well as the literal one with his insistence on talking, but he wasn’t. There were things he wanted to know. Questions he wanted answered, and he wasn’t going to take social anxiety as an excuse.
“Here’s a topic,” he said, once the road straightened out again. “Did you really think you could get away with pretending not know me at the saloon?” More than that, pretending to be someone else.
Kristen sat straighter in her seat, but didn’t attempt to dodge the question, possibly because she sensed what a lost cause that would be. “I’d hoped.”
“Did you think I was that stupid?”
“I was banking on drunk, actually. And pretending not to know you seemed so outrageous, I thought I might get away with it.”
“You didn’t get away with it.”
“You weren’t drunk.” She smoothed the hem of the flowery shirt she wore.
“The situation bothered me.”
“Enough that you came back to the casino. I noticed.”
“I don’t like being lied to.”
“I don’t like being ratted out.” Kristen started pleating the fabric of her shirt between her fingers again, then stopped. “Would you have told my sister?”
“Maybe. What you did was kind of crazy.” He glanced her way. “But I wouldn’t have told her out of revenge.” It still ticked him off that she thought he operated that way.
“Did youeverthink of revenge?” she asked.
“No.” His fingers tightened on the wheel as he thought back on his reaction to their public face-off. “But I did kind of hate you for a while. You shocked the hell out of me. I thought I was a prize until then.” True story. He’d been good at bronc riding—not as good as his brother, but he was close. And the girls seemed to find him attractive. All but one.
“Guys who are prizes go to class.”
He frowned at her. For an alleged shy girl, she was holding her own. He’d expected her to try to clam up. “Do you have a guy in your life?”
Her chin lifted ever so slightly. “I do not.”
“Have you ever?” He was curious as to whether anyone had managed to battle through her defenses. If there were guys out there, unlike him, who recognized the difference between what she called social anxiety and arrogance. He still wasn’t totally clear on what the difference was because the result seemed to be the same. People got put off.
“None of your business.”
And there’s a limit. “Fair enough.”
There was a note of challenge in her voice as she asked, “How about you? Women?”
“I’m not shy.”
“Well, bully for you.” The telltale color was once again staining her cheeks, giving her a vulnerable look that belied the cool note in her voice. This was the high school Kristen he’d caught intriguing glimpses of. A touch vulnerable. A touch uncertain. After she’d taken him down, he’d decided he’d been imagining things. Maybe not.
“Actually, there is no woman in the picture.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“Because you did.” She turned her attention to the side window as they emerged from the canyon, watching the scenery with such intense focus that she had to be developing a crick in her neck. She was shutting down, drawing into herself.
Not going to happen.
He waited until they passed the town of Fernley before asking, “Why did you get fired from the casino?”
