Read Online Up to the Challenge (An Anchor Island Novel) by Terri Osburn - Free Book Online

that Bubble guy?” Lucas asked.
    “It’s pronounced
Boo-blay
. And yeah. I like this song.”
    The song choice took him by surprise. He figured Sid for Metallica maybe. Old standards, never. “I know how to say it. I was just teasing. Mr. Bublé isn’t what I expected from you.” Lucas stepped back from the table. “Let’s get this going. You break.”
    “What did you expect?” Sid asked, before striking the cue ball and dropping four balls into various pockets. “Three stripes and a solid. I’ll take stripes.”
    “Of course you will,” he said, settling on a stool. “I figured you for hard rock. Something loud and dark.”
    The ten ball dropped into a side pocket. The cue ball rolled up behind the fifteen.
    Sid moved around for her next shot, putting herself between Lucas and the table. Chalking her stick, she shot him a look over her shoulder. “I can go that route, when I’m in the mood.”
    Replacing the chalk on the side, she bent over, giving him a clear view of prime posterior real estate. His brain nearly melted. The fifteen banked off the right rail, then dropped into the far corner pocket. She was down to two balls and he’d yet to take a shot.
    Though losing didn’t matter much so long as he could keep watching her. She moved with complete confidence. An air that made her seem taller. More potent. More desirable.
    She must have every man on the island after her. A thought that made Lucas want to barricade the door, though he warred with the question of which side he’d be on.
    She bent over again and the fourteen flew up the table, clipping the side of the pocket and remaining on the felt. “Damn it.”
    He took several seconds to realize it was his turn. “About time,” Lucas said, his voice steadier than the rest of him. “Three in the side.” The ball dropped and he moved to the next one. “One in the corner.” A little bottom-right English and the ball dropped, sending the cue ball right where he’d intended. This game needed to end before he got any more ideas about his pint-sized opponent.
    “I thought you’d be rusty,” Sid said, leaning on her cue, a hand on her hip. “Why didn’t you go for more money?”
    “You may not think you’re a lady, but I do. I told you yesterday, a gentleman doesn’t take money from a lady.”
    “At this rate, you’ll take twenty-five dollars.”
    “Five-six combination.” He dropped the balls as called, but the cue got away from him. “I had to agree to something to shut you up. And you owe me for yesterday.”
    “Really?” The spitting Sid returned, as he knew she would. Keeping her angry meant keeping her at a distance. “I don’t owe you shit from yesterday. I won that challenge fair and square.”
    Lucas sized up his next shot. He couldn’t get the two in the corner without glancing the eight, which could send it into the side. The four wasn’t any better. He’d have to float the cue down the table, away from her remaining balls.
    “You won yesterday by using what I estimate to be two D cups, which I don’t have. That qualifies as an unfair advantage.” He looked her way and let his eyes linger somewhere just below her chin. “Not that I’m complaining.”
    A subtle shade of red crawled up her neck. He’d already vowed not to go there, so why was he being a jackass? To make up for the comment, he sailed the cue ball past the two, leaving her a perfect position on the eleven. “Your shot.”
    With stiff movements, Sid took her place behind the cue and dropped the eleven in the side. But she’d left herself a difficult shot on the fourteen. Lucas slid up next to her and bent over to see the line. “Go high left on the cue and you can make it.”
    Liquid caramel eyes locked on his, that now familiar line forming between her brows. She looked to the ball across the table, then back to Lucas. “High left?”
    “High left.”
    He gave her room, moving out of her peripheral vision to avoid being a distraction. She suffered