“Why don’t you two go to lunch?” I suggested.
“What?” Beth said, or kind of expel ed in a breath fil ed with mortification.
“Sorry?” Hank said, staring at me like I’d lost my mind.
I had an idea. It was a heartbreaking idea, but it was something.
She seemed sweet, she was pretty and she liked him.
She liked him enough to come searching for him when she got back to Denver. She was normal and probably never had anyone shoot at her, nor ever would.
So she needed a snazzier wardrobe. Indy would help her out.
Maybe she didn’t spread sweetened cream cheese on French toast but I was relatively certain that Shamus would like her. Then again, Shamus seemed to like everyone.
I stepped away from Hank. “It’s been busy, so I can’t leave and anyway, Indy and Jet are bringing back food. You two go to lunch, catch up, you know… old friends and al that.”
Hank was no longer staring at me like I’d lost my mind, he was staring at me like he wanted to strangle me.
I took another step away from Hank.
“I don’t think –” Beth said.
“Can I talk to you a second?” Hank interrupted her and then didn’t wait for me to respond. He took my hand, nodded sharply to Beth and said, “Just a minute,” and then dragged me out from behind the counter and toward the bookshelves.
While being dragged, I caught a look at Uncle Tex who was shaking his head at me like I’d let down the side.
Hank dragged me passed fiction, biography, crime, romance and straight to the open area that separated the front room from the back room (travel, health, social studies) and had a huge table on it with cartons of upturned vinyl wedged in them.
Then he stopped, turned and looked down at me.
I opened my mouth to speak but he said, “Don’t say a f**king word.”
I closed my mouth.
Hmm, seemed Hank was angry.
He took a deep breath through his nostrils, getting control.
Then he said, in a soft, dangerous voice, “Please tel me you didn’t just try to fix me up with a woman I used to date.”
“Hank –”
He didn’t let me say anything.
“I used to be patient. Now, I’m findin’ it hard stoppin’
myself from shakin’ some goddamned sense into you.”
“Hank –”
“Roxanne, I just experienced my girlfriend trying to fix me up with another woman.”
“I’m not your girlfriend, I broke up with you.” He stepped closer. I stepped back. My bottom slammed into the table fil ed with vinyl. He fil ed the space I’d opened.
“That wasn’t nice, doin’ that to Beth,” he said.
“Yes it was. You two could have hit it off, you’d asked her out before. I was doing her a favor,” I defended myself.