“Not a long time to develop an undying hatred for someone.”
She leaned against the cabinet on the other side of the bar. “It was plenty long where Axel is concerned. I was thirteen and insufferable, he was eighteen and insufferable. At least I had the excuse of being thirteen. I gather he’s still insufferable.”
“He has his good points. Not many, but some. He isn’t good with people, but he’s damn good at his job. When my life depends on good intel and good equipment, I appreciate the last part.”
She gave a small grunt of acknowledgment. “I guess so.”
“Trust me-I know so. Axel’s father was your mom’s second husband?” He kept his tone casual, wondering how much more she’d divulge.
She had a variety of noises that expressed a lot of feeling, and this time she used a snort. “Second? More like fourth. I think.” Looking at the ceiling, she counted them off on her fingers. “Dad, Wilson, Hugh, Douglas-yes, he was the fourth.”
“Damn. Four marriages and you were just thirteen? That’s rough.” He still kept it casual because he suspected she wouldn’t appreciate sympathy.
“Mom is a serial bride. She’s on number seven now, but she’s getting older so she may hold on to this one for a while-unless she’s divorced him since the last time I heard from her, which has been a while. We aren’t close. Not enemies, just not close. She’s got her own thing going on, and I’m here in West Virginia. She likes big cities.”
The scenario was getting clearer. Bo had had no stability in her life, no one on whom she could rely, so she’d learned to count on herself and no one else. His psychology skills weren’t even at armchair level, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out how disruptive the musical-chair stepfathers had been in a young girl’s life. His own childhood had been steady, thank God.
“After Douglas she was single for a while-long enough for me to finish high school without moving again, though she had a couple of steady boyfriends. After I started college, she married… Adam. I think. He didn’t last long, so I never met him. Adam, Alan, something with an A. I’m not sure about number six, either. Number seven is William, and I’ve actually met him. They’ve been together a few years and live in Florida.”
“How often did you change schools?”
“Every time she married, but after Douglas I was in the same school until I graduated. I was able to join the swim team. I love swimming. All of the apartment complexes we lived in had pools, and that’s where I spent my summers.”
Yeah, he could see her as a swimmer, with her aerodynamic build. She’d be the sprint swimmer, while he was an endurance swimmer, able to swim for miles. That is, normally he could swim for miles; now he’d probably drown after twenty yards.
“What about your dad? You close to him?”
“No. He pretty much forgot about me when he left. He remarried, adopted his new wife’s kids, had a couple more of their own, and that’s his family now. I think they’re living in Sacramento, but that was years ago so they may well be somewhere else by now.”
He got the picture. It wasn’t awful, but neither was it pretty: ignored, abandoned, jerked around from place to place. No wonder she had walls.
“What about you?” she asked, slanting him a sideways glance from those dark eyes, turning the tables on him. “Have you been married? What about your family?”
“My dad is dead, from a fall in the kitchen. He hit his head on the corner of the cabinets. That was almost fifteen years ago. My mom remarried year before last, to an okay guy. He loves her and takes care of her, and that’s good enough for me.”
She waited a minute, probably to see if he’d answer her first question. “What about marriage?”
“Never been married, no kids. I came close to getting hitched once, but it didn’t work out. It’s hard on a wife when the husband is in my line of work. I’m out of the country more often than I’m in it.” His heart hadn’t been broken either, because the truth was he could remember his fiancée’s name, but not really how she looked.
“I can see where that would be a problem,” she admitted.
“How about you? Ever been married?”
“Once. I tried it when I was twenty-one, fresh out of college. It lasted less than six months before he cheated.”
“Ouch.” He’d been keeping an eye on the clock and he had a good idea how long frozen pizzas were supposed to heat, having eaten more than a few of them in his life. He slid off the stool. “Sorry I haven’t been paying more attention, but I don’t know where you keep stuff. Point me in the direction of the plates and things and I’ll set the table.”
She looked surprised, dark brows arching. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”
“Carrying two plates?” he asked testily. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Don’t get cranky about it. The plates are there-” She pointed toward one of the cabinet doors. “The glasses are there, and the silverware is there.”
“Why do we need silverware?”
She chuckled. “I don’t guess we do.”
As he collected the plates and glasses he said, “I like the barn. You did a good job.” The kitchen cabinets were kind of beat up, but it was like they were supposed to look that way. Big industrial-looking lights hung from the high ceiling, as well as steel ceiling fans. Considering how high the ceiling was, the fans were a necessity. The layout was open from one end to the other, the only real privacy either in the bathroom or the rooms upstairs. It would be a great bachelor pad, out here in the middle of the country, nothing restricted or fussy about the building.
“Thanks. It wasn’t renovated in my taste, but I suppose over the years it’s become mine. It’s my furniture, and that helps. Plus no one else has ever lived here, and in a way that makes it more mine.”
“Except for the cows.”
That got a smile from her. “Cows don’t count.”
He set the plates on the table, added napkins. As he headed back to get the glasses he said, “What do you want to drink?”
“Grab a couple of beers from the fridge.”
His head came up, his attention laser-focused on her. “Beer? You have beer?” She’d been giving him milk when there was beer?
“If you’re steady enough on your feet to carry crockery, you’re steady enough to have a beer. Plus you aren’t on any pain meds; I wouldn’t let you mix them.”
“Beer,” he muttered, opening the refrigerator door and yes, thank you, Jesus, there were five dark brown bottles there. He hooked his fingers around the necks of two of them and pulled them out. They weren’t Bud or Miller; there was a pig on the label. He tilted the bottles up to look at them. “Naked Pig? Never heard of it.”
“Back Forty is a little brewery in Alabama. One of the guys in town is a truck driver and every time he goes through there he stops and picks up an order for the devotees here. I like Naked Pig.”
She was into microbreweries. He didn’t care. She was a beer-drinking woman, and life was looking better by the minute.
She pointed toward a bottle cap opener that was stuck on the stainless steel refrigerator by a magnet. He popped the tops off, tossed them in the trash. “You want yours in a glass?”
“Yes, please.”
“Girly.”
She grinned. “That’s my beer, so watch your mouth or you won’t get any.”
He chuckled and poured the beers into glasses-his, too, though he’d have been just as happy to drink it out of the bottle. Her beer, her rules. He’d buy the next delivery.
He almost moaned aloud as the first cold sip slid down his throat. The bubbles snapped on his tongue, and the crispness of the taste made him want to down the whole glass at one go. “Damn, that’s good,” he sighed.
She checked the pizza. “Just another minute or so.” Tricks had trotted over when she opened the oven door and stood looking up, hope in every line of her furry pale gold body. “No, nothing for you,” Bo said. “You’ve already had your dinner. I’m not baking cookies.”