13. Chapter 13
Lindsey’s head shot up, caught in another man’s arms. Again.
Every time Jase turned his back.
Unbelievable.
Helen gave Jase the heads up about where Lindsey was going, he’d thought, so he’d have another chance to say the right thing. Maybe Helen really was as evil as he always suspected and meant for Jase to find Lindsey with his replacement.
This one looked professional, at least—it was probably his Audi Jase passed on the way into Walker’s Whiskey Room—unlike those twerps who kept latching onto her on the trip.
And unlike the British punk from Lake Havasu City and the guy on the dance floor buying Lindsey drinks in Santa Barbara, this one had the size on Jase.
Money and muscles. Great.
“Jase?”
He recognized her dress from their first night in California. It was the one he’d finally gotten underneath after she finally let down her walls.
She was wearing it tonight. For someone else.
“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” he said. “Here I am feeling like a world-class prick for Santa Cruz, and you’ve already moved onto the next one.”
“Everything all right over here?” a white-haired ghost of a man behind the bar asked. “Can I get you a drink, sir?”
Without taking his eyes off the man towering behind Lindsey, Jase said, “Whiskey on the rocks. Bottom shelf.” Lowering his attention to Lindsey, he asked, “And how old is this one? Forty? Forty-five?”
“This one?” The man angled his head and asked, “Linds, you know this guy?”
“I do. Unfortunately. This is Graham’s brother, Jase,” Lindsey explained. “Jase, this is my brother, Luke.”
My brother.
It was literally the only thing she could’ve said that he had no answer for. “Your…”
“Brother.”
“Your brother,” he finally spit out.
“My oldest brother. One of three. Yes, my brother.”
“Graham’s brother, huh?” Luke looked him up and down, eyes dancing, mouth straining around a grin. “Hmm. Can I shake your hand without getting punched?”
“Don’t bother,” Lindsey said. “Jase was just leaving.”
“You sure?” Luke asked. “I want to hear about Santa Cruz.”
“No, you don’t.”
Jase swallowed the bottom shelf whiskey from the glass in front of him and shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” he managed to get out. Pinched, forced through a jaw clenched hard enough to crack his teeth, but an apology at the appropriate time for once.
Setting his empty glass on the bar with a ten-dollar bill, Jase turned to leave with whatever pride wasn’t caked to the bottom of Luke’s loafer.
With a last look at Lindsey in that dress, the fury in her face that probably shouldn’t have made his dick hard, but what-the-fuck-ever, he said, “I’ll see you at home.”