Saint and Scholar by Holley Trent Read Free Book Online Page B

think I’d see you again. Imagine my surprise when I saw you walk in.”
    “I know. Twice in one day.”
    He smiled so the creases at the corners of his eyes wrinkled.
    For the second time that day, her tongue turned to cotton. Fortunately her wit was intact. “You might want to buy a lottery ticket.”
    “I’ll do that. Maybe even tonight .” He turned to scan the crowd encroaching on the little table from the dance floor. “You here with friends, or looking to pick up a hot date?”
    She scoffed. Hot date? With Sharon and Meg’s scrutinizing attention? Hardly. “Friends. They’re out on the floor somewhere.” She turned her head to look through the packed sea of bodies and saw a bare glimpse of red hair and the glint off the rhinestones on Sharon’s big gaudy bracelet. “I don’t get out very much, so I figured I owed them tonight. I’m a horrible friend. I haven’t seen Meg in months and we live a mile apart.”
    “Don’t beat yourself up over it. I’m not much for social engagements, either.” He leaned back against his borrowed chair and hooked a thumb in the direction of the bar. “I got forced out tonight to chauffeur a couple of friends. See? The Neanderthals over there by the bar carefully watching the barmaid’s every move with their jaws scraping the ground?”
    She turned her head to see the two men, one in a gray fedora, the other bald with a scruffy orange beard, unabashedly ogling the bartender and occasionally heckling a nearby tall woman. The woman seemed somehow familiar, but she couldn’t put a finger on why. She had walked right past them without realizing he was among them.
    “Oh.”
    “Complete geeks. So, do you want to dance? I’m no Baryshnikov, but I can keep a beat pretty well.” He bobbed his head to the music to demonstrate.
    She smiled and couldn’t help it. She couldn’t do much beyond swaying side to side to the beat herself.
    As tempting at the offer was, she shook her head. Maybe if it’d been a slow song she might have felt differently. “Sorry, I gotta hold down the fort. We always keep an anchor at the table so we have a home base and can find each other. Once you give up your table here, it’s nearly impossible to swipe another.”
    “Ah. Probably smart to have somewhere to keep your purses.”
    “Exactly. The one time I checked mine at the door, I left the building fifty bucks lighter.”
    Grant cringed. They stared at the undulating crowd for a while and settled into a companionable silence. She didn’t feel the need to talk. Sitting there with him just felt right . The nervousness she’d been feeling at his arrival had abated in exchange for an odd hyperawareness. She could feel his gaze occasionally flitting to the side of her face as she watched for her friends on the dance floor. Without looking, she could tell when he’d leaned forward a bit and breached what she typically would have considered personal space. She felt his hand on her shoulder long before he actually touched it.
    “Hey, so, where were you heading to in such a hurry earlier?” he asked during a quiet transition between two songs.
    She put her hand on top of his and turned in her seat to put her legs under the table again. She pressed his hand between her two atop the table and stared down at the contrast of their skin. Her olive to his fairness. Her parents had been that way. Her father had always teased he’d married dark so his kids would inherit some sun protection.
    Feeling suddenly brazen, she dropped her hands to her lap. “I wasn’t…well. I–I wasn’t actually in a hurry. I thought you were, I was just–”
    Grant’s grin widened.
    “You’re fucking with me.” She swatted ineffectually at him and buried her face in her hands.
    “Yeah, I’m just messin’ with ya. Why were you hanging out on campus? Are you in a graduate program?”
    “No, I had some work to do on campus today.” She sat up again and willed the heat to recede from her cheeks. “I do police