Read Online The Love Shack by Christie Ridgway - Free Book Online Page A

that sounded really idiotic. How much had he had to drink? To clear his head, he sucked in a breath, and a delicate scent he couldn’t forget entered his lungs. “Damn woman,” he groused. “She can’t even leave my air alone.”
    “What’s that?” the bartender asked, stepping closer. “I didn’t hear you, friend.”
    “That’s what we were supposed to be,” he told the man. “Me ’n’ Skye. Friends.”
    Someone slid onto the stool beside his. His head still bent over his watch crystal, he pitched his voice toward the newcomer. “Are you another pretty woman? ’Cuz there were two...no, three sitting there before you.”
    “Is that what you’re waiting for?” a voice said, low.
    “Apparently not,” Gage grumbled, “since I’ve sent three—or was it four?—on their way.”
    “So many,” the person beside him murmured.
    The bartender spoke up, a helpful note in his voice. “It was Ladies’ Night. He kept opening his wallet.”
    “And yet I still couldn’t cinch the deal,” Gage added glumly. With bleary eyes, he stared at the TV screen over the bar. When had Letterman lost so much of his hair? “I must be getting old, too.”
    “Or maybe more discerning.”
    The moralistic tone sent Gage’s head swinging to the side. His mood, already on morose, slid straight to grim when he saw it was Skye on the next-door stool, wearing another of her circus-tent sweatshirts and a pair of jeans. “What the hell are you doing here? I declared you off-limits.”
    “I didn’t get the memo.”
    “Blame me, bud,” the bartender put in. “I knew you were staying in the cove and I called her when I wasn’t sure you were good to drive to your cottage.”
    “I walked here,” Gage said.
    “Okay. But I’m not sure you’re good to walk to your cottage, either.”
    “Of course I...” His voice dropped off. To be honest, he couldn’t feel his toes.
    “Give us a couple of coffees, will you, Tom?” Skye asked. “Black, a little sugar?”
    When the mugs were set in front of them, she picked hers up and gave him a sidelong glance. “I’m off-limits?”
    “In more ways than one,” he muttered, taking his own long swallow of the strong brew. Even if she smelled like damn heaven, he wasn’t interested in her in the way he was interested in other women.
    “What’s that?”
    He took another drink of coffee. “Look, I didn’t want you around when I...when I...”
    “Went on a gorge?”
    He narrowed his eyes at her. “We discussed that terminology, didn’t we?”
    “Sorry—”
    “Because it’s probably what ruined my evening. I had Updo in the palm of my hand. Halter Top claimed she could tell I was going to get lucky tonight by reading the foam on my beer. Tiffany—”
    “Oh, so at least you bothered to find out one of their names.”
    He frowned at her. “It was engraved on the heart-shaped pendant she wore around her neck.”
    “What a guy.” Skye rolled her eyes. “That’s not her name, that’s the jeweler it came from.”
    “As I was saying,” Gage continued, “every time I was on the verge of suggesting we retire to No. 9 for some private...conversation, I would hear your goddamn prissy voice in my head.”
    “I thought it was the margaritas,” the bartender said, pausing to top off their mugs. “That’s what you blamed it on before.”
    “Skye can take responsibility for that, too,” he said, using the logic of the inebriated. “Because it had to be a woman who decided to screw around with the perfection of tequila, triple sec and lime juice. Flavored margaritas are clearly a female invention.”
    “What are you talking about?” Skye asked, looking between him and the bartender.
    “Mango margaritas were the special tonight,” Tom explained. Then he plopped a glass in front of her and poured inside the last icy dregs from a blender. “I don’t think they’re half-bad, myself.”
    Gage stared at the orangeish concoction as if it were a snake. He could smell the sticky