Shaking his head, smiling, he polished off his drink. “I don’t believe that.”
“What, that my conquests never call?” She propped her elbow on the bar and rested her head in her hand, openly flirtatious.
When had they last bothered to flirt? When had her eyes traveled over this man’s chest, his shoulders, his face, and thought something other than, I need to get the clippers out this weekend and give them all haircuts or That undershirt’s getting ratty. Add that to the Target list?
He nodded toward her wrist. “Looks to me like you give them a reason not to call.”
Confused, she lifted her head and glanced at where he was looking. “What’s that?”
“Your husband.”
Oh. The ring.
She twisted it off and tucked it in her purse.
“Oops,” she said.
A wry grin. “Yeah. Oops.”
“Was that a game-changer, Steve?”
He met her eyes. “You want it to be?”
“No.”
No, she didn’t want the game to change. She wanted to keep going. See where they ended up.
She wanted this adventure, this hope, whether it was the smart thing or not.
Steve tapped the bar with one finger. Looked at her again. “Then I guess the question is whether your husband would kick my ass if he found out.”
“He’s not here.”
“Not here, like not in the bar, or not here, like—”
“Like not on this island.”
“Why not?”
“He had to work.”
A searching pause as he looked into her eyes, and she wanted to take it back. The words had burbled up, unplanned.
She did have a husband. He was back in Ohio, working. And she didn’t want to think about him right now—his work, what it meant, what it cost her. She only wanted to be with this man.
“His mistake,” he said quietly.
Amber let herself drift a step closer. Close enough that her arm brushed his, and she thought about his hand on the bar. If he lifted it and dropped it to her hip, how heavy it would feel there. How the humidity meant that her skin would feel cold, bereft when he took it away.
“What brings you to Jamaica, Steve?”
“A wedding.”
“Not yours, I hope.”
“My brother’s.”
“Oh, brother wedding. That’s treacherous. Do you like the bride?”