last time.
The ding of her cell phone indicated someone had texted her. She looked down and saw her boyfriend had finally answered her. What the text said made her pick up the phone.
Sorry. No easy way to say this. I met someone else. You’ve been great. Take care.
That effectively shifted her focus. Rachel read the text again to make sure it said what she thought.
“You’ve been great?” She scoffed as the insult began to mushroom. “Take care.”
Had she really dated someone this insensitive and clueless? Lowering the phone, she looked up at the stranger, who reached into his jacket for something while clips of the last six months passed in her mind. Her boyfriend had been fun to be with but now that she had a bird’s-eye view, his superficiality became obvious. She hadn’t known anything deep about him.
“I believe this is yours.”
Startled, she looked down at what the man had taken from his jacket. Her wallet. He put it down on the bar.
“How did you—”
“I’ll have what she’s having,” the stranger said to Hans as he sat on the stool next to her. “And put hers on my tab.”
“How did you get my wallet?” she demanded. Then she recalled what he’d said.
She backtracked what she’d done with her wallet. She’d had lunch and put it back in the zipper pouch. Hadn’t she zipped it shut?
“I saw you go into a shop at the mall. Your backpack bumped the door frame and your wallet fell out. I started to go over but I heard you talking to your boss.”
She had bumped the door frame. But had it been hard enough for her wallet to slip out?
“I’m Luke Bradbury.” He swiveled to face her better.
She looked down at his offered hand and then back up at his drool-worthy blue-gray eyes, crinkling with an all-out charm-packed grin. Now that she wasn’t afraid of him, she could appreciate his looks. He was a great package. Dressed as though he had money, too.
Ordinarily, a man like him would capture her interest. He did capture her interest. But something about this one had her holding back. No, not him. Her boyfriend had just broken up with her in a text message. He was a successful businessman like Luke must be. She’d dated a lot of men like that. Successful men attracted her. Their stability. They had what she wanted. But maybe her criteria needed some tweaking.
Beyond his attractiveness, Rachel began to wonder why he’d come to this pub.
“Why did you follow me here?” Why hadn’t he approached her after she left the shop?
“I confess.” More charm oozed from him. “You looked so upset. I didn’t want to intrude.”
Intrude? “You had my wallet.” Hardly an intrusion to return it...
While he didn’t frighten her the way the other man had after her affair, she had to be careful. She didn’t know who’d threatened her back then. And Jared contacting her may have stirred danger. She snatched up her wallet and put it into her backpack, this time making sure she zipped it shut.
“Yes.” His smiling eyes made a pointed journey down her body and back up. “A perfect excuse to meet you.”
She gaped at him. Was he for real? She kept going back and forth between seeing him as an attractive man and someone untrustworthy. “Not interested.”
His confident grin slipped as she turned back to her coffee and sipped.
“In what?” he asked, as if he didn’t know.
Seeing his genuine perplexity, she said, “Thanks for returning my wallet, but I’d like you to leave me alone now.”
“Uh...sure...okay.” He continued to look at her.
Rachel decided to hurry and finish her coffee and go.
“I’m sorry.”
She turned to him. Why was he sorry?
“I shouldn’t have come on to you like that.”
“That’s not the only reason I want to be left alone.” She didn’t know why she kept talking to him. She really did want to be left alone now. “My boyfriend broke up with me in a text message.”
“Is that the, ‘You’ve been great. Take care’ guy?”
Rachel reeled again from the callousness of those heartlessly chosen words. “Yes.” She leaned a little closer to the stranger. “Do you all do that?”
“No. I always break up in person. If I’m the one doing the breaking up.”
Rachel didn’t think that happened to him very often. And she didn’t want to hang around to be the next woman he broke up with in person. She stood from the stool, lifting her backpack and tucking her phone in the same compartment as her wallet, zipping it shut.
“You’re leaving?” Luke asked.
“Yes. I came here for company but now I need to be alone.”
As she put the backpack on, Luke watched her, reluctant to let her go.
“When will I see you again?” he asked.
“You won’t.” She waved to the bartender. “Thanks, Hans.”
Luke noticed her friendly exchange, and Rachel realized she’d just revealed she knew the bartender, which also revealed she came here regularly.
Luke stood. “All right. I’ll see you here again sometime, then.”
She stopped from turning to go and his towering height flustered her, as did his impossibly blue-gray eyes. “Will I have to avoid my favorite hangout?”
“You’d avoid it?” His flirty grin returned.
Rachel feared her unwanted interest had begun to show. “No. Just you.”
He chuckled. “Have dinner with me, then. Somewhere nice. Quiet.”
“I told you I wasn’t interested.”
“I could have kept your wallet. Thank me for returning it by having dinner with me,” he said.
“You’d have kept my wallet?”
“No.”
She started for the door with a “Goodbye” tossed over her shoulder.
He didn’t say anything. When she glanced back, he didn’t seem so confident anymore. She’d shot him down, and he couldn’t believe why.
Rachel smiled before going outside. Luke Bradbury wasn’t a man accustomed to being rejected. His tenacity flattered her, but the cautionary instinct that had reared up when he’d said he’d followed
