truck.”
Wilde looked at her with hard eyes. “She doesn’t belong here.”
“She has a name,” Carly said before draining her glass. “And it’s Carly. And Carly wants another—” she pointed at her empty glass, trying like the devil to remember what she’d just ordered “—another one of these.”
Those dark chocolate eyes narrowed, but she ignored that and concentrated on his face. He has a nice chin, she thought. Strong and square. And those eyes. A soft sigh escaped her lips. A woman could easily get lost in all that intensity.
A series of little tingles skirted along her spine, then spread outward over her tummy, making her feel warm and cozy. If this was the way alcohol made people feel, no wonder such a large majority of the population imbibed on occasion.
Wilde braced his hands on the bar and leaned forward. She watched in fascination as his biceps strained against the fabric of his white T-shirt. The urge to trace her fingers along all that muscle was strong. Too strong, she thought, and frowned. Funny, but she’d never once considered doing that to her abandoned bridegroom.
“Don’t you have someplace else to go?” he asked, his deep voice as intoxicating as his eyes, no matter how disagreeable his attitude. Well, not exactly disagreeable, she amended, but he wasn’t the most friendly person she’d ever met.
She let out another little sigh and propped her chin in her hand and looked into eyes filled with distrust. “Not for the moment.”
“Isn’t someone wondering where you are?” he asked, looking pointedly at her wedding dress.
She ignored the reminder of her current state of shame and traced her finger along the rim of her empty glass, still wishing she could do the same to those incredible biceps and corded forearms.
“Oh, I’m sure they’re all quite curious.” Curious, concerned and disappointed in her. She’d never done anything remotely irresponsible in her life…until now.
The Rolling Stones began singing for a little sympathy for the devil. “Don’t you have any music from this century on that jukebox?” she asked him, anxious to change the subject. She didn’t want to start thinking about what she’d done or about the people she’d hurt by running off like a big fat coward.
“You want Top Forty, Princess, you’ll have to go to City Lights.” He slapped a damp towel on the bar in front of her. “I’d be more than happy to call you a cab.”
She ignored his blatant hint to leave and turned her head to the side, resting her temple against her fist. She let her gaze wander over the dozen or so patrons in The Wilde Side before looking back at Wilde. “I bet if you smiled more, you’d attract a lot more customers.”
He pushed off the bar, taking his damp rag with him, but not before giving her a look that said he didn’t appreciate her free public relations consultation. When he returned, he set the drink in front of her, and shot Benny and Joe a warning look before moving down the bar a few paces.
A warning about what? she wanted to know.
Benny leaned forward, bracing his big beefy elbows on the bar. “You from around here, Carly?”
She took a sip of her Scotch, keeping her gaze on Wilde. Using long, slender fingers, he gathered empty glasses from the bar and set them in a tub of soapy water. He turned, and she caught a glimpse of his backside, admiring the way the soft denim hugged his body. The man definitely wore his jeans well.
She looked at Benny. “I’m sorry, did you say something?”
“Are you from around here?”
She shook her head. “Nope.”
“Just passing through?” Joe asked before lifting the bottle to his lips.
She frowned and thought for a minute before nodding slowly. “That about sums it up,” she said quietly.
Benny turned, leaning on the bar, and looked down at her. “So, uh…where’s your groom?”
“I don’t know,” she said around the sudden tightness in her throat. “He’s probably being consoled by our families and friends because of what I did.”
Carly’s frown deepened. Because she’d panicked, she’d hurt people, and that bothered her more than her uncertain future. Family was still important to her, and heaven knew she had more than her share of family to go around. She’d been selfish and irresponsible, and the guilt weighed heavily upon her shoulders.
How was she going to break rules if she couldn’t do it without harboring guilt?
She sucked in a deep, shuddering breath and looked up at Benny. And then she burst into tears.
2
Rule 2: A lady will always strive to maintain a hint of mystery.
COOP SLID A pilsner glass over the scrub brush inside the metal tub of hot soapy water. He concentrated on twisting the glass over the scrub instead of allowing his gaze to drift back to the platinum bride with the chickie-boom curves and eyes the color of the Mediterranean Sea at sunset.
She was trouble. The kind of trouble a guy like him enjoyed and could easily be attracted to if he’d let himself get involved.
He couldn’t afford to get involved, not when he had a business to salvage.
He swished the glass a few more times over the scrub before dipping it into the tub of clear hot water, then added it to the rack to dry. The Stones CD on the jukebox faded into Carlos Santana’s sultry ode to a black magic woman, the momentary silence between CDs interrupted by hushed conversation and a sudden wail from the south end of the bar.
Cooper let out a sigh and shook his head, fighting the urge to stop what he was doing and head back down the bar toward the lush little number in white. That plaintive wail of hers was easily a barometer to her sorry emotional state, which no doubt included equal doses of regret and guilt now that a couple of stiff drinks had dulled the shock of her act of desperation.
Benny looked helplessly at his buddy Joe. “Don’t cry, Carly. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Carly muttered something Coop couldn’t quite make out, then she looked up at Benny. After a rather noisy sniffle, she dropped her forehead against the bar and sobbed louder.
Coop hid the wry grin on his lips when Benny’s jaw fell slack. “It’ll be okay,” Benny said, thumping the crying woman on the back in a rough attempt at sympathy.
“You gonna do something ’bout that, Coop?” Marty hitched his thumb in the blubbering bride’s direction. “She’s gonna chase off the customers, son, and you can’t afford that. If we wanted to hear a woman whine, we’d stay home.”
Considering his blue-collar clientele, Marty definitely had a point, Cooper thought. Fred and Lou were already loading their custom pool cues into their cases and preparing to leave.
“Why me?” Cooper muttered. He slapped a dry towel over his shoulder. “Of all the bars in Chicago, why this one?”
Marty
