Can't Hurry Love (Sunshine Valley #1) - Melinda Curtis Page 0,14
pitched and threatened to empty. She took a shallow breath and slid Drew’s champagne flute back into his space. “You can’t distract me from getting answers.”
He flashed the detached smile he used when handing over his rent check. “This isn’t completely about your empty stomach. I’m hungry.” He gestured toward the stage, where the auction was still going on. “And if I’m the only one ordering, Mims will have my hide.”
Wendy Adams was sold to Paul Gregory for $400. Drew frowned.
Were Drew and Wendy an item?
The bench seat seemed to roll beneath Lola. She gripped the table. Drew and Wendy didn’t matter. The truth about Randy mattered. “You’re trying to distract me again.”
“I’m not,” he said, as stiff as his starched uniform.
Not that Drew was always stiff. In fact, he’d surprised her when he’d escorted her to their table. He’d moved in close, and his warm breath had wafted over her cheek. His offer to take her home had made her feel less the betrayed outcast and more like a woman a man could be interested in, truthful with, loyal to.
“Why did you volunteer for the auction?” Drew leaned forward slightly, brown eyes pinning her as if he were conducting an investigation and she was withholding a key piece of information.
Lola didn’t flinch. “I thought it’d be the best way to get the word out.”
“What word?”
“That I want to talk to Randy’s mistress.” Lola watched Drew closely, ready to capture the most minute reaction, anything to tell her what he knew. “Is she here tonight?”
“How would I know?” Oh, he had a good poker face. It was all that starch. “What do you plan to do with this woman when you find her?”
“I told you.” She tried to smile, but her cheeks seemed too heavy for her lips to lift. “I want to know if—”
Noah Shaw appeared, bearing two plates. He set a burger in front of Drew and a turkey sandwich and fries in front of Lola. “I know. I’m a mind reader.”
Drew stared at his plate. “What? No fries?”
“You need to watch your waistline.” Noah turned away but not before flashing a friendly smile at Lola. He was handsome, but Lola felt no howdy-do.
“The next thing he’ll be doing”—Drew grumbled in a most un-sheriff-like fashion—“is serving me light beer.”
Lola had rarely seen Drew exhibit a sense of humor. It almost made her smile. She tore off a piece of crust and chewed it slowly, allowing Drew to eat a few bites of his meal before resuming her push for information. “Never fear. I’m not out to shoot or stab the other woman. You can tell me who she is.”
“I don’t know the who or the why.” He eyed her fries. “But I wonder if you’re asking for proof this woman can’t provide. How did you know Randy loved you when he proposed?”
Of all the…“He wouldn’t have proposed if he didn’t love me!”
At the bar, Iggy glanced their way again. On stage, Avery went up for auction.
Drew considered Lola in that measuring way of his. “Did he get down on one knee with flowers and a ring? Or was it one of those spur-of-the-moment things?”
If Lola could choose one otherworldly ability, it would be shooting daggers from her eyes. She’d take aim at that gold badge on Drew’s chest and—
“Ah.” Drew stole a fry. “A moment-of-passion proposal.”
“It wasn’t.” Lola couldn’t lie. She slumped. “It was.”
They’d met in Times Square, literally bumping into each other in a crowd. It had been Randy’s first time in New York, and he’d been looking up. Lola had still been grieving over her grandmother’s passing a few days before and had been looking down.
After careening into him, she’d staggered to find her balance, and her heel had snapped on the edge of a grate.
Randy had steadied her and then knelt to retrieve her heel. He’d held it up as if it were a ring and he were proposing.
“Oh, Nana,” Lola had breathed, because Nana had always promised Lola a prince and Randy was golden and glowing. “Why now?”
“Bad day?” He’d stood and given her a smile New Yorkers didn’t often bestow—a kind smile, an interested smile.
Lola had been horrified to realize she was near tears. Over a shoe. Over Nana.
“Hey, don’t cry.” Randy had hustled her out of the foot traffic and into the doorway of a tourist gift shop, next to a display of green foam Statue of Liberty tiaras. “I’ll pay for your shoe. It was my fault.”