Clenching his hand and pulling it from the bar top, he asked, "You sure?"
"Of course. You want a drink?"
A frown warred with the smile on his face, as if she'd surprised him.
"Aanon, come on man!" Ben yelled.
Ben's blond-haired friend, Mayva everyone called her, tugged at Aanon's hand until he was off the stool and following behind her.
"I'll have a beer," he called with an apologetic smile.
"Sure," she said, unable to take her gaze from Mayva's fingers wrapped around his.
****
Aanon wasn't a big drinker, and while his friends were well on their way to being unable to see the shoes on their feet, he was irritatingly sober. The two beers he'd nursed only dulled the edges a little.
"Dude," Ben said, leaning heavily on a pool stick. "Hot New Bartender looks smokin' tonight."
Aanon twitched his head and said, "Her name is Farrah."
"Farrah?" he asked, squinting at her.
Audrey stopped mid slurp on a long island iced tea. "Whoa, Farrah Fennel?"
"Who's Farrah Fennel?" Mayva asked.
Why did the name sound so familiar?
"Holy crow," Ben said, making his way to the bar.
Aanon got up to follow with a sick feeling in his gut. It couldn't be her. She looked absolutely nothing like the girl they used to make fun of in middle and high school. He hadn't thought about that girl in years.
"Farrah The Dweeb Fennel," Ben crowed.
Farrah had been talking to an older couple at the bar, but when Ben spoke up, the smile fell from her face.
A few in the group chanted "The Dweeb" completely off-beat. Aanon couldn't drag his gaze away from the hurt on Farrah's face.
Her mouth set in a pursed line, one at odds with her naturally happy expression. "You idiots picked the worst name."
"What?" Ben asked in a high pitched voice. "The Dweeb was classic. Say it. Come ooon. Just try it out. Dweeb is one of the greatest words in the English language."
"Yeah, well," she drawled as she pulled a rag from her shoulder and wiped down the bar top. "The joke was on you guys because I was terrible at school. My grades were abysmal, and I'm pretty sure decent grades are a requirement for dweeb status."
"Huh," Ben said with a look of utter confusion.
"Ben, let's go," Aanon said, pulling at his elbow.
"But, you were always studying. You never talked to anyone because you were always studying."
Farrah wouldn't look at Aanon. In fact, she was looking everywhere but at him.
"I didn't talk to you guys because you always called me The Dweeb, Ben," she said quietly. "If I raised my hand to answer a question in class, you said it. If I said hi to any of you, you said it. And I wasn't studying. I was reading books."
"Aw man," Ben said, "I feel like a dick."
"Come on, brother," Aanon coerced, turning his friend toward the pool table. "You're drunk and about to embarrass yourself big time."
Really, Ben's admission was ringing true and clear inside of Aanon. He couldn't get any lower in that moment. No wonder she'd been so put off with him when she saw him in the truck stop in Homer. He hadn't even recognized her.
Turning, he caught her watching him leave with the saddest expression. As he sank into a chair on the back wall, she said something to Briney and pulled her apron off. In a flash, she disappeared down the back hallway to the office.
Shit.
Leaning forward until his elbows rested on his knees, he rubbed his hands through his hair and squeezed his eyes tightly closed. She'd been nothing but helpful around the homestead, and who knew what she'd gone through in her younger years that made her run away from Cooper Landing and into the maw of the big anonymous city. He'd come along and not even had the decency to remember her. And the girl hadn't even called him out on it.
Ben wasn't the biggest jerk in the bar. He was.
****
Farrah waited in the truck until Aanon wised up and figured out she wasn't coming back in. Her shift was nearly over and Briney had already split up the tips, so she took her share and bolted for the safety of the Chevy. Thank goodness, nobody in this stupid town felt the need to lock their vehicles.
The temptation to load the four-wheeler herself was strong, but she'd never driven one up a ramp, and the angle was way too steep for her to be comfortable with. That would be all the embarrassment she needed to top off the night-driving Aanon's four-wheeler right through the back of his truck window.
Why did she let those stupid townies get to her? They were grown adults, and they weren't even being that cruel. Just letting her know they'd finally figured out who she was.
Except for Mayva. She had looked like she was enjoying Farrah's discomfort.
Turning the engine, she put her bare fingertips up next to the vent in hopes that the engine was still warm from Aanon's long drive in.
No such luck.
Cold air blasted out at her, and she turned off the heater completely to preserve what little warmth clung to the inside of her jacket.
The four-wheeler roared to life and wood rattled across metal as Aanon pulled two sturdy plats of wood from the bed of the truck. When the ATV was loaded and secured and the ramp stacked between the tires, he closed the tailgate and hopped in the passenger seat.
Her hand shook as she pulled the gear shift into drive, but Aanon's rested on hers and pulled it back to park.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked.
"Because it was embarrassing. And the longer you went without recognizing me, the more awkward it was. And then eventually, it didn't matter anymore. It was actually kind of nice that I got to start over with you. That you didn't remember me as The Dweeb."
His arm draped across the back of the bench seat, and his fingertips brushed the strands of dark hair that covered her shoulder.
"You were blond when you were a kid. You look really different. Still, looking at you right now, I can't put you together with my memories of you."
Sighing, she closed her eyes and leaned her head back. It was so cold, she could see her breath as she talked. "I wasn't naturally blond. My mom dyed my hair like that. We couldn't afford to eat half the time, but she kept up with my roots."
Unwilling to look at his face for fear of the disgust she'd see there, she leaned her head against the window and stared at the eyelash moon.
"I don't understand," he said. "Why would your mom do that?"
"Because she said, ‘Don't want no kid of mine with that devil black hair your daddy had.'" She rolled her head to the side and tried to smile. "Apparently, she didn't like the guy."
"Did you know him?"
"Never met the man."
"So it was just you and your mom?"
"Until I was eighteen. I moved to New York and as far away from here as soon as I could. Haven't been back since."
The seat squeaked as Aanon leaned back into the cushion. "I'm sorry. I was just a punk kid who thought I knew everything about everything. We shouldn't have made fun of you back then. I should've known better."
"It's okay."
Turning, he brushed the back of his fingers across her cheek. "It's not."
Warmth as deep and red as volcanic fire touched her skin where they connected. His gaze, so blue and pale against the snowy backdrop outside, bored into her like he could see every thought she'd ever had. His breath came faster and his attention dropped to her throbbing lips. Trapped in the warmth of his caress, she silently begged for him to touch his lips to hers. When he didn't move, she slowly unzipped his jacket and placed the palm of her hand against his pounding chest. His heartbeat tripped against her hand, and his muscular torso contracted under her touch. Nothing had ever felt so intimate in her entire life, not with his eyes swimming with such emotion.
"What do you feel?" he whispered.
"Everything."
"I've been told I don't have a heart."
Inhaling sharply when he cupped the side of her face, she said, "You've been told wrong."
His hooded eyes dropped to her hand, surrounded by his open jacket, and he pulled away. Her hand was cold where his beating heart had been taken from her.
"I'm with someone," he murmured. "It's complicated."
The words felt like daggers, as if each syllable wounded. "Mayva?"
"No. Her name is Erin. She lives just north of Homer. She's who I was visiting when I met you at the truck stop. You asked if I was bummed when I talked to you on the phone yesterday. I was upset because she cancelled plans we'd made. I shouldn't have called you."