business associate who often ran his marketing campaigns. But tonight Logan wasn’t calling her any of those things. As far as he was concerned, he never wanted to think of her, her name or what to call her again.
Too bad that image of her was stuck in his head, but that’s where he was hoping generous amounts of single malt Scotch would help.
Even though Riley, Claire, Lucky and Cassie wouldn’t breathe a word about this, it would still get around town. Logan wasn’t sure how, but gossip seemed to defy the time-space continuum in Spring Hill. People would soon know, if they didn’t already, and those same people would never look at him the same way again. It would hurt business.
Hell. It hurt him.
That’s why he was here in this hotel bar in San Antonio. It was only thirty miles from Spring Hill, but tonight he hoped it’d be far enough away that no one he knew would see him get drunk. Then he could stagger to his room and puke in peace. Not that he was looking forward to the puking part, but it would give him something else to think about other than her.
It was his first time in this hotel, though he stayed in San Antonio often on business. Logan hadn’t wanted to risk running into anyone he knew, and he certainly wouldn’t at this trendy “boutique” place. Not with a name like the Purple Cactus and its vegan restaurant.
If the staff found out he was a cattle broker, he might be booted out. Or forced to eat tofu. That’s the reason Logan had used cash when he checked in. No sense risking someone recognizing his name from his credit card.
The clerk had seemed skeptical when Logan had told him that his ID and credit cards had been stolen and that’s why he couldn’t produce anything with his name on it. Of course, when Logan had slipped the guy an extra hundred dollar bill, it had caused that doubt to disappear.
“Drinking your troubles away?” a woman asked.
“Trying.”
Though he wasn’t drunk enough that he couldn’t see what was waiting for him at the end of this. A hangover, a missed 8:00 a.m. meeting, his family worried about him—the puking—and it wouldn’t fix anything other than to give him a couple hours of mind-numbing solace.
At the moment, though, mind-numbing solace even if it was temporary seemed like a good trade-off.
“Me, too,” she said. “Drinking my troubles away.”
Judging from the sultry tone in her voice, Logan first thought she might be a prostitute, but then he got a look at her.
Nope. Not a pro.
Or if she was, she’d done nothing to market herself as such. No low-cut dress to show her cleavage. She had on a T-shirt with cartoon turtles on the front, a baggy white skirt and flip-flops. It looked as if she’d grabbed the first items of clothing she could find off a very cluttered floor of her very cluttered apartment.
Logan wasn’t into clutter.
And he’d thought Helene wasn’t, either. He’d been wrong about that, too. That antique desk of hers had been plenty cluttered with a clown’s bare ass.
“Mind if I join you?” Miss Turtle-shirt said. “I’m having sort of a going-away party.”
She waited until Logan mumbled, “Suit yourself,” and she slid onto the purple bar stool next to him.
She smelled like limes.
Her hair was varying shades of pink and looked as if it’d been cut with a weed whacker. It was already messy, but apparently it wasn’t messy enough for her because she dragged her hand through it, pushing it away from her face.
“Tequila, top shelf. Four shots and a bowl of lime slices,” she told the bartender.
Apparently, he wasn’t the only person in San Antonio with plans to get shit-faced tonight. And it explained the lime scent. These clearly weren’t her first shots of the night.
“Do me a favor, though,” she said to Logan after he downed his next drink. “Don’t ask my name, or anything personal about me, and I’ll do the same for you.”
Logan had probably never agreed to anything so fast in all his life. For one thing he really didn’t want to spend time talking with this woman, and he especially didn’t want to talk about what’d happened.
“If you feel the need to call me something, go with Julia,” she added.
The name definitely wasn’t a fit. He was expecting something more like Apple or Sunshine. Still, he didn’t care what she called herself. Didn’t care what her real name was, either, and he cared even less after his next shot of Glenlivet.
“So, you’re a cowboy, huh?” she asked.
The mind-numbing hadn’t kicked in yet, but the orneriness had. “That’s personal.”
She shrugged. “Not really. You’re wearing a cowboy hat, cowboy boots and jeans. It was more of an observation than a question.”
“The clothes could be fashion statements,” he pointed out.
“Julia” shook her head, downed the first shot of tequila, sucked on a lime slice. Made a face and shuddered. “You’re not the kind of man to make fashion statements.”
If he hadn’t had a little buzz going on, he might have been insulted by that. “Unlike you?”
She glanced down at her clothes as if seeing them for the first time. Or maybe she was just trying to focus because the tequila had already gone to her head. “This was the first thing I grabbed off my floor.”
Bingo. If that was her first grab, there was no telling how bad the outfits were beneath it.
Julia tossed back her second shot. “Have you ever found out something that changed your whole life?” she asked.
“Yeah.” About four hours ago.
“Me, too. Without giving specifics, because that would be personal, did it make you feel as if fate were taking a leak on your head?”
“Four leaks,” he grumbled. Logan finished off his next shot.
Julia made a sound of agreement. “I would compare yours with mine, and I’d win, but I don’t want to go there. Instead, let’s play a drinking game.”
“Let’s not,” he argued. “And in a fate-pissing comparison, I don’t think you’d win.”
Julia made a sound of disagreement. Had another shot. Grimaced and shuddered again. “So, the game is a word association,” she continued as if he’d agreed. “I say a word, you say the first thing that comes to mind. We take turns until we’re too drunk to understand what the other one is saying.”
Until she’d added that last part, Logan had been about to get up and move to a different spot. But hell, he was getting drunk, anyway, and at least this way he’d have some company. Company he’d never see again. Company he might not even be able to speak to if the slurring went up a notch.
“Dream?” she threw out there.
“Family.”
