Pitch Imperfect(25)
“Reiver.”
“Reiver Carver it is, 11:30, and then I’ll take you to lunch. Don’t shake your head at me, gorgeous. My mother taught me never to take strangers to a ceilidh and that means I have to get to know you.”
Well, why not? It would be fun to spend time with a man who didn’t throw her into hopeless turmoil. Someone she was in no danger of loving or being loved by, someone she was not going to spend the next half of the game staring at from behind the bar, she promised herself.
A spate of happy, thirsty customers at the end of the game—Scotland 21, Ireland 9 result—allowed her to keep her promise. When she finally had a chance to glance towards Rob’s table, he and Sarah were gone.
“They left together,” Ash said, coming out of the back office. “Rob’s taking her home.”
“How can you possibly know that? You were in the kitchen the entire game.”
Ash adjusted her green shalwar kameez. “I was in the bathroom and I overheard Lesley Harris tell her sister that Sarah was using the damsel-in-distress card. She told Rob her car—” Ash stopped to make quotation marks with her fingers, “—’broke down’.”
Anjuli sniffed. She would never lie to get Rob into bed for the night.
No, you’d have sex with him first, and then lie to get him out of your bed.
“Don’t worry, Babes, I’m sure it’s just a pit stop on Rob’s part. He’ll get her engine oiled and that’ll be it.”
Anjuli gritted her teeth. “I. Am. Not. Worried. I’ve got more serious problems to think about than Rob’s mechanical prowess.”
“Oh?”
“Brendan is in concert at the SECC next week and I’m seeing him the morning after in Glasgow. It’s time to remind him he promised to pay me back.”
“Like he promised to give up gambling?”
Anjuli’s teeth worried at her bottom lip. “He knows I’m desperate, Ash. I told him about the house and about applying for a loan.”
“What makes you think he’ll turn up?”
Anjuli looked down guiltily. “I threatened to tell his new wife we were married. And about Chloe.”
Ash patted her on the back. “Blackmail, huh? I like it. It’s what he deserves.”
Anjuli puffed her cheeks and let the air out slowly. She hated forcing Brendan to meet her like this. He wasn’t a bad person, but he was an irresponsible shirker, and if she didn’t pressure him she would never see her money again.
“Can I borrow your car tomorrow morning? We’re meeting in a seedy café on the wrong side of town, to avoid the paparazzi.”
“You want my cloak and dagger too?”
“I have a feeling I may need the dagger.”
* * *
“Come in and wash that off,” Sarah said, glancing at the oil on Rob’s hands. “I feel awful for taking you away from the pub like that.”
Rob followed her into the cottage. “I’m glad I could help.”
In fact, driving Sarah to Halton Petrol Station, changing her oil and making sure she got home safely had helped to clear his head. If he’d stayed and watched Damien flirt with Anjuli another second he might not have held his cool.
Washing the grease from his knuckles was like trying to wash Anjuli from his mind. No matter how hard he scrubbed, the silage of their past together clung to him. The way she’d looked at him at the pub, as if he owed her explanations for being with Sarah, filled him with a conflicting mixture of pleasure and anger. Seeing her hand in Damien’s had almost made him behave true to the kilt he was wearing and revert to less civilised times. Warn the vet away and if he ignored him, then spear him through the heart if he so much as looked at Anjuli again. No other woman had ever possessed the power to provoke his most basic instincts.
Why had he told her Sarah was his friend and not let her wonder about their relationship? Kept her guessing about his love life instead of revealing he had no romantic interest in Sarah. Because you don’t play games or lie to get what you want.
Sarah offered him a whisky and he shook his head. “If I have another I’ll risk going over the limit, and I’d hate for Ben to pull me over,” Rob said. “He’s on the graveyard shift.”
“Coffee it is, then.”
“It’s late.”
“So it is, but we could finish the interview we started the other day. I still don’t know your opinion about the Scottish referendum result. Then there’s the prize you won for that new hospital wing in London. I want to hear all about it. We’ll be done and dusted in as long as it takes to drink my special blend, promise.”