Busted (Promise Harbor Wedding) - By Sydney Somers Page 0,4
“That always does the trick when it’s being temperamental.”
Conscious of the blonde’s scrutiny, he skimmed the song selection and punched in a favorite.
“Hit Me With Your Best Shot” played again.
He frowned and jostled the jukebox a little harder this time. The song continued to play and…was it getting louder?
The blonde merely shrugged and held out the hammer.
“I got this.” He ignored the hammer, but reached around back and unplugged the machine for a few seconds, giving it time to reset. The aging machine probably just needed a little reboot and she’d rock the roof off this place like she always had.
Confidence took hold despite the blonde’s amused gaze, and he hit the play button. The same song pounded out of the speakers, the tune a sudden and unexpectedly potent reminder of everything he’d lost.
“Precise touch?” the blonde echoed, laughing a moment later.
The contagious sound of her laughter pulled at his memory, but he couldn’t place it.
“You’d have a better shot of sending a rotten egg into the net without breaking it than getting anywhere with this machine,” she continued. She tucked the hammer back in the bag of tools on the table behind her.
“Sunset Bluff.” The words were out, his mind snagging the faint memory before it slipped away.
She paused, facing him with that skeptical brow arched.
“You and me in a red Chevy with a passenger window that wouldn’t roll down.” There was no way he had imagined that face staring at him through the passenger window, right? He’d borrowed the Chevy specifically for that date at the last second when the transmission had died on his own car.
“I remember that truck.” A flattering smile curved her lips, reinforcing the fuzzy memory he still couldn’t quite nail down. “The radio sucked.” More tools went into the bag.
The radio? “That’s all you remember?”
Her gaze turned reminiscent. “I do remember you throwing up everywhere.”
Details he could have done without came into sharper focus. He could count on one hand how many times he’d gotten drunk before being drafted for the NHL at nineteen, and luck would have it that she’d apparently been there for one of those shining moments.
Fantastic.
He winced at the memory and the smile she tried to hide. Despite their embarrassing history, he found himself returning the smile. “At least tell me I made it up to you?”
She laughed even harder. “Not even close.” She hefted the bag off the table and carried it to the bar. “And I highly doubt it would have occurred to you to try.”
He hadn’t been nearly the jerk a lot of his high school buddies had been, even if his mind had been on hockey more than girls. With that easy, sexy smile of hers, he would have wanted to take her out again. He was sure of it.
“Then let me make it up to you now.” He gestured to the bar. “Let me buy you a drink. We can catch up, or at least maybe I can help you remember something better about that night.” His earlier determination to avoid women this weekend was going down in flames.
She threw him a disbelieving look. “You don’t even remember me.”
His silence was undoubtedly telling, but it was coming back to him. Heather…Heidi… Something like that.
“Besides,” she added. “I don’t drink on the job.”
“Then later,” he pressed, wanting to talk to her a little longer. Maybe he could get her to laugh again. “You could tell me what’s changed around town. Or show me.”
When she bit her lip, tipping her head like she was actually considering it, he threw in, “We could sneak into the rink.” The outrageous suggestion had been one of his signature moves in high school, and it had never failed.
“You mean break in?”
He shrugged, both encouraged and just a little wary of the intrigue brightening those storm-gray eyes of hers. Why did it feel like he was missing something?
A moment later she burst out laughing. Again. “Did that actually get you laid?”
At least he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut on that one. Not that she gave him time to answer before she continued.
“You know what else I remember about that night? Taking the fall for my brother lending our parents’ truck without asking, then getting stuck cleaning up your puke and grounded for a month.”
Oh shit. She wasn’t the one he’d taken to Sunset Bluff at all.
“Hayley,” he managed, the croaked name rising to the tip of his tongue out of nowhere.