Getting His Hopes Up(2)

Curt shook his head. “I borrowed your car. Without asking first. That’s why it was only a misdemeanor and why I’m out already.”

Tara took a deep breath. “Are you seriously trying to tell me—”

Jason pinched her hip. No reason to piss off the guy off. Who knew what he’d learned in prison?

“Cupcake,” he said calmly. “How about I buy Curt a drink and we all forgive and forget? He’s out and starting a new life and you have me.”

Tara stiffened, no doubt in surprise—though whether it was over the pinch, his term of endearment, or the suggestion in general, he wasn’t sure.

But she turned and smiled up at him. “That’s a great idea. I’m going to go to the bathroom. Be right back.”

And she slipped out of his arms.

Oh, no. She wasn’t leaving him here with her ex, the criminal. Who was clearly not happy that Jason was with Tara. Hell, for all Jason knew, she was a criminal too and this was a set-up to get something out of him.

He snagged her wrist, hoping like hell she wasn’t a criminal. “Maybe I’ll buy Curt a drink and then meet you back there.”

He said it suggestively. Very suggestively. So suggestively that everyone who heard it knew exactly what he meant. He might as well have said, “How about a quickie in the ladies’ room while Curt nurses his free beer and contemplates his poor life choices?”

“You two are together?” Curt asked, before Tara could say anything.

“We are,” Jason said, not taking his eyes off of her face. “Seems like since I first set eyes on her, she’s all I can think about, and from the moment I first kissed her, I can’t keep my hands to myself.”

Her eyes widened slightly and he saw the hint of a smile curl one corner of her mouth.

Well, it was all true.

He’d noticed her right away. He’d already eaten his burger and was making his way through a half pint of his favorite beer—one that he couldn’t find back home and only one of the things he’d missed like crazy since he’d last been in Hope Falls—when she’d taken the seat at the other end of the bar.

She was beautiful and had a sweet smile and, well, that ass in those jeans, so he’d made note of her immediately. But then she’d ordered the same beer, and over the course of the next hour had put Thomas Rhett on the jukebox—four times—and had laughed at the same jokes from the bartender that Jason had. All of that combined for Jason into “a little smitten”.

The bartender, Levi Dorsey, who owned the bar with his wife Shelby, had been chatting with them both over the course of the hour in between serving others who came up to the bar. It was a weeknight, but JT’s Roadhouse was the only bar in Hope Falls, so it was still busy enough that Levi was jumping from one order to another. But he’d get a few minutes breather every so often and he would chat with Jason or Tara, the only two permanently seated at the bar rather than the wooden four-top tables throughout the room.

Jason remembered the Roadhouse fondly from his previous time in Hope Falls. The burgers were great, the beer always cold and the company was comfortable.

Tonight, more than ever, he appreciated the way everyone seemed like old friends even if they’d just met. Over the past hour, listening in on Levi’s conversation with Tara, Jason had learned she was an elementary teacher, liked fried pickles, loved chili cheese fries, had lost money on her fantasy football team and had hated the recent Ben Affleck movie.

Jason assumed she was from here. She and Levi knew a lot of people in common, anyway. He supposed she could have moved to town in the year since he’d been here. Or possibly before that. He’d only moonlighted in the Hope Falls clinic. He had officially been in the family practice residency that required he share his time between the hospital in Sacramento as well as an outpatient clinic, a nursing home and two free clinics. But it was hard to imagine he wouldn’t have run into her. It wasn’t a huge town. He could have crossed paths with her at Sue Ann’s Café or Two Scoops, the old fashioned ice cream shop. He could have seen her at the post office. Or here at the Roadhouse. And if he had, he would have noticed her. Definitely.

It made more sense, somehow, that she was relatively new to town. She could have gotten to know Levi and Shelby and met most of the town by now. It was possible. A lot had happened in the past several months in Hope Falls.

For just a moment, Jason’s heart squeezed as he recalled why he was here. He’d never been to a reading of a will before.

“I’ll take a Sam Adams,” Curt said, climbing onto the barstool next to Jason and jerking his attention back to the current situation.