Page 3 of Austin
She kept an eye on Austin’s table from a distance. She had to go back eventually. Check on them.
Although…maybe no one would notice if she didn’t?
It’d been crazy to pretend she didn’t know Austin, crazier still to have gotten away with it. It would bebeyondcrazy to push things—and maybe she didn’t have to. Her manager was busy with the private party. Jess and Christa, the bartenders, were slammed. She could stay ‘busy’ elsewhere.
Which was exactly what she did, feeling shifty the entire time. To her utter relief, the guys stood after only one round and started dropping money on the table. Bullet dodged. Or so she thought until Eva, the head waitress, cruised up to where she was waiting for an order at the end of the bar.
“Are you allergic to cowboys or something?” Before Kristen could speak, Eva gave her an accusing look. “I don’t think they would have left so early if you’d gone back to check on them. You know…done your job?”
Kristen’s cheeks warmed, because she rarely if ever slacked, but tonight she had. For a very good reason.
“I…” She met Eva’s cold gaze and the words petered out.
“Do better,” Eva said flatly.
“I will.” The tips were shared communally and if someone slacked, everyone suffered. She didn’t want that—but she also didn’t want Austin telling people back home in Marietta that she was working in a casino instead of sitting in her cubicle crunching numbers…like her family thought she was.
Point made, Eva turned away and started rattling off a list of drinks to Christa, who lined up glasses.
After her shift ended, Kristen kicked off the bootie shoes that were part of her western saloon girl costume and peeled off the fishnet stockings. After checking her feet for blood—there was none—she shoved the killer hosiery into her bag, slid her feet into her blessedly roomy flats, picked up the bootie shoes and headed out of the staff room, still feeling keyed up from her near miss with Austin. But it was over. She was safe.
“See you,” she said to Deke, the security guy, as she passed by his office on the way down the narrow hall leading to the exit. He gave a small grunt, keeping his focus on the cameras that covered the parking lot and the surrounding areas. Taciturn habits aside, Deke seemed like a good guy—just very quiet and focused on his job. She understood quiet and focused—it was the strategy she’d used for years to insulate herself from situations she didn’t know how to handle. Keep your mouth shut; look like you know what you’re doing. Take no chances and let Whitney run the show.
Her strategy had worked fine in high school, where she’d had her twin to run interference and a few close friends. Not so fine in college, where people assumed that someone who did as well as she did academically, yet rarely spoke, had to be stuck up.
No…not stuck up. Just anxious and very adept at hiding it. Like it or not, she had the ice princess thing down pat.
Her mouth twisted as she shoved the thought out of her head. She wasn’t going there. Not again. The thing was, she wasn’t any wimpier than Whit when push came to shove. She was simply more tuned in to what other people thought. Less likely to make a scene. And harder on herself.
In a lot of ways, serving drinks at the Silver Bow was good for her. She was forced to interact with a multitude of people and every day she worked on faking a higher level of comfort than she felt. It was working. She was less flustered every day, but that didn’t keep her from longing for her old world. The one where she could disappear into her cubicle and immerse herself in a project. Take the kind of risks she was comfortable with. Academic ones.
Kristen pushed the heavy metal door open and stepped out into the parking lot, thankful that it was so well lit. Her roommate’s tiny Ford Escort was parked only a few spaces away from the entrance, and she started toward it when the door behind her opened and an unexpected voice stopped her in her tracks.
“It’s not a rattlesnake, you know.”
Kristen whirled around as Austin stepped out of the building a few feet behind her, letting the door swing shut behind him. “The Tonopah mascot,” he clarified. “Not a rattlesnake.”
Kristen pressed a hand to her chest, trying to keep her heart from beating its way out. “You startled me.”
One corner of Austin’s mouth lifted, not in a particularly friendly way, and then he pulled his phone out of his pocket, brought up a screen and held it out. The picture was difficult to make out from a few yards away, but it appeared to be a cartoon man wielding a pickax and shovel.
“What is that?” Kristen asked, her voice little more than a husky whisper.
“Thatis a mucker.”
A mucker. “Tonopah’s mascot?”
“Uh-huh.” Austin dropped the phone back into his pocket, then folded his arms over his chest, making his shoulder muscles ripple under his cotton cowboy shirt. “What gives, Kris?”
“I’m sorry.” The apology tumbled out as she tried to make her brain work. She was in a spot, but maybe she could talk her way out of it. All she had to do was tell the truth, ask for cooperation…from the guy she’d cut down in front of his friends years ago. She’d been justified, but she hadn’t been kind, and she still cringed at the memory of what had gone down between them.
“You’re sorry,” he said flatly, a note of incredulity in his voice.
“I am.” The words were inadequate, but what else could she say?
Austin’s eyes narrowed. “What are you sorry about, Kris? That you lied to me? Or that I caught you in the lie?”
Kristen cleared her throat. This is where the talking part came in, where she cajoled him into understanding her situation—but her brain was not cooperating and as the uncomfortable seconds ticked by, she felt herself withdrawing into self-protection mode, shutting down, clamming up. Her curse.
