Better Than Chocolate (18 page)

Actually, though, that was a good idea.

Red Ralston, who worked on the guest ranch with Bill Will, came
over and seated himself in a chair on her other side. “Hey, is Bill Will trying
to bribe you?”

“I can’t be bribed,” she said. “Anyway, the competition isn’t
tonight. You both know that. This is just the kickoff.”

“We know,” Red said amiably.

“And I’m not the only judge.”

“You’re the most important one,” Bill Will said, giving her a
playful bump with his shoulder.

She had to smile; Bill Will was so full of it. “How much have
you had to drink?” she asked him. Like he needed alcohol to be outrageous?

He raised both hands. “Just one beer. Honest.”

“Well, go get yourself another,” Samantha said. “You, too,” she
told Red. “This table is reserved.”

“Okay, fine,” Bill Will said with a shrug.

“Bill Will, over here!” called one of the Mr. Dreamy
hunters.

That was all it took. He sauntered off, his buddy following
him. Samantha watched them go and took another slug of her drink. This was
re-e-eallly
good. A couple of these could go a long
way toward helping a girl forget her problems.

Now Rita was back with a bowl of pretzels. “This is good
stuff,” Samantha told her.

Rita smiled. “We thought you’d like it.”

“Can I have another?”

“Sure. But go easy. It’s sweet but it packs a wallop.”

As hard as she’d already been walloped this week, Samantha
wasn’t afraid of a little old drink. “I can handle it,” she said.

Rita seemed dubious, but went to put in the order.

“I can handle my liquor,” Samantha muttered, then smiled. She’d
heard that expression before. Never thought she’d use it, though.

Now Charley was at the table. “I guess you got the entries,”
she said, pointing to the pile of papers on the table in front of Samantha.

“Oh, yeah. Looks like we’re going to have quite the
pageant.”

“I’d say so,” Charley said. “Make yourself at home with the
pretzels. I’ve got to announce our shirtless-man parade.”

Samantha frowned. “That is so disgusting.”

“Don’t blame me. It was your sister’s idea.”

“Which one?”

“The one who conveniently isn’t here,” Charley said, and made
her way to the tiny stage at one corner of the bar, where a mike had been set
up.

* * *

Blake had been in a corner booth when Samantha Sterling
entered the restaurant. Brave man that he was, he hid behind his menu at the
sight of her. Ever since she’d disappeared into the bar he’d tried to consume
the medium-rare steak and baked potato he’d ordered, but with little success.
Thinking about the mess she was in had taken away his appetite. Samantha
Sterling had been in his thoughts since the first day she’d walked into the
bank. Even worse, she’d quickly migrated from his thoughts to his dreams, and
they weren’t the kind of dreams a guy shared with his mom.

Those dreams would never come true. He was the unwilling
villain in her life. He recalled the very unpleasant scene with Darren after the
factory fiasco. Brown had merely shrugged off their encounter with Samantha. He
had the patience of a croc. He’d wait. Darren, on the other hand, had seethed
with a barely controlled rage all through lunch. And before he and Brown took
off for Seattle, he made sure he got a minute alone with Blake to rake him over
the coals for his lack of team spirit.

“If Trevor wants this,” Blake had retorted, “he’ll wait.
Meanwhile, Sweet Dreams is still a bank customer.”

“Not for long, just like your run as bank manager,” Darren had
snarled, and stormed off.

Wounded pride, Blake had reasoned. He’d calm down. And in
another couple of months Trevor Brown would happily swallow a new chocolate
company. The only one who’d come out of this badly was Samantha Sterling.

“Shouldn’t you be in the bar?” Maria asked as she gave him his
check.

“What’s going on in there?” he asked.

“It’s the kickoff for the Mr. Dreamy pageant,” she said.
“You’re one of the contestants. Why aren’t you in there?”

“I’m what?” Was she making some kind of sick joke?

“Nobody told you?”

He shook his head.

Maria made a face. “Well, you’re on the list.”

“What list?” Was he in the
Twilight
Zone?

Now she shook
her
head and put a
hand on her hip. “The one with all the contestants. You have some serious
competition.”

“I didn’t enter,” he protested.

“Somebody nominated you, because your picture’s hanging up with
all the other contestants in the Sweet Dreams shop.”

He grabbed his wallet and pulled out his credit card. “Well,
it’s news to me.”

She shrugged and went to ring up his bill, and he sat and
drummed his fingers on the table, trying to figure out who’d done this to him.
Someone had a sick sense of humor.

Or thought he was fabulous. He frowned.
Gram.
Oh, man, this was sick.

Maria returned with his receipt. He added a generous tip and
scrawled his name, then headed for the bar to make sure he was removed from the
infamous list. After what happened this week, he had no doubt Samantha Sterling
would be happy to remove him, right off the face of the earth.

He arrived just in time for roll call. Charlene Albach, the
owner of the restaurant, was bringing the contestants to the little stage at the
end of the bar, one by one. Judging by the hoots and applause as each man took
his place, it appeared that the contestants had all brought their cheering
sections.

“Joe Coyote,” she called, and Blake’s old football buddy limped
self-consciously up to the stage while Lauren Belgado and a girlfriend cheered
him on. He knew Joe and Lauren had been seeing each other. Things had to be
pretty serious for her to be able to talk quiet old Joe into something like
this.

“Bill Williams.”

The bar erupted with screams and clapping as the cocky cowboy
in a Western shirt and jeans tight enough to show off his package swaggered up
to the stage. Bill was obviously a crowd favorite and Blake couldn’t help
glancing in Samantha Sterling’s direction to see if the guy was a favorite of
hers. Apparently not. She was frowning.

“Blake Preston.”

Now Samantha looked as if she’d just drunk vinegar and Blake
felt his face catching fire as all eyes turned to him. Lauren seemed surprised
but she and her girlfriend dutifully clapped and cheered along with a couple of
other women.

“Sorry, I’m not competing,” he called.

“Oh, come on. No chickening out,” Charlene teased, clearly
enjoying his discomfort. She started the crowd chanting, “Blake, Blake,
Blake.”

He shook his head and moved to Samantha’s table, seating
himself next to her. She bristled at his arrival.

The crowd gave up and moved on to fresh meat and, under cover
of the loud talk and laughter, Samantha hissed, “This table is taken.”

“I can see that,” he said. “That’s why I chose it. I wanted to
talk to you.”

She downed what was left of her cocktail in one gulp and then
hiccupped. “Well, I don’t want to talk to you.”

“You didn’t give me a chance to explain yesterday.”

“Like your actions needed an explanation?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, they did.”

She cocked her head and stared at him as if trying to bring him
into focus. How many of those drinks had she gulped down?

The cocktail waitress was at their table now, asking him what
he’d like to drink.

“Jack Daniel’s straight up,” he said.

“And I’ll have another of these.” Samantha held up her
near-empty martini glass.

“How many of those have you had?” he asked.

“None of your business,” she informed him.

The waitress seemed hesitant. “You’re not much of a drinker,
Samantha. Two might be your limit.”

“Three is a nice even number,” Samantha said. “Bring me one
more.”

The waitress frowned. “Okay, but after that Hank’s gonna cut
you off. I can tell you that right now.”

“Fine,” Samantha said with an airy flick of her hand. Now she
turned her attention back to Blake. “Are you still here?”

“I’m afraid so,” he said agreeably.

“You know, you really are a snake. And a hypocrite. Entering
our Mr. Dreamy contest while you’re trying to steal our company.”

“I didn’t enter your contest and I am not trying to steal your
company,” he said.

“Yes, you are. You want to give it to Trevor Brown. I’m not
stupid.”

“I never said you were.” Actually, he thought she was one smart
cookie.

“You’re probably the reason our permits are lost somewhere in
city hall,” she said, pointing a finger at him.

“What?” Oh, that smarted. After enduring a lunch with Priscilla
Castro drooling over him, he deserved a medal, not a cold shoulder.

“We need permits to have all those festival booths downtown.
You can’t just plant ’em like flowers. We need permission to sell food and
alcohol and have musical performances. We need an event permit. And so far we
have nothing. Nothing!” She waved a hand, almost taking off his nose. “Do you
know what a bust the whole thing will be if we can’t put up booths downtown?” He
opened his mouth to speak, but she talked right over him. “Not that it matters,”
she said, contradicting herself. “We’ll still have our dinner and our ball and
our Mr. Dreamy contest and we’ll sell lots and lots of chocolate. And I’ll pay
you and your bank buzzards everything I owe you.” She grabbed her martini glass
and tossed back the last of her drink.

“Hey, you’re supposed to sip that stuff,” Blake cautioned.

“I am,” Samantha said. “I like big, long sips.”

“And now, before we start our shirtless-man parade, let’s have
a few words from Samantha Sterling, one of our judges,” Charlene said from the
mike.

Amid much clapping and hooting, Samantha stood—a little
unsteadily but she made it to her feet and then to the mike. “Thank you all for
turning out,” she told the crowd. “Ladies, if you haven’t gotten your tickets
for the Mr. Dreamy pageant yet you can purchase them at the Sweet Dreams gift
shop, along with our fabulous chocolates. Nothing is better than chocolate,
especially if it comes from Sweet Dreams.” With that, she gave the mike back to
Charlene, who started down the line of men, having them peel off their shirts
one at a time. Fired by alcohol and hormones, the women went wild.

Samantha returned to the table and fell into her seat. “Oh,
good. My drink is here.” She frowned at Blake. “And so are you. Don’t you have
somewhere to go?”

“Huh-uh,” he said.

She continued to frown and took a sip from her glass. “You
always did think you were hot fries, didn’t you? Big man on campus, giving all
the girls a thrill. Did you play football in college?” she demanded as if that
was, somehow, a crime.

“No, I blew out my knee my freshman year.”

Down went more of that cocktail. She was drinking it like it
was soda pop. “Too bad,” she sneered. “I guess you had to work for your degree,
then.”

“Actually I did. Same as you.” Now she was beginning to bug
him. Samantha Sterling had a mouth on her.

She grunted and took another swig. “What did you major in?”

“Business.”

“Monkey business, I’ll bet,” she muttered. “Why are you at the
bank, anyway?”

“That’s not what you’re really asking, is it?” he
countered.

“Oh? What am I really asking?”

“You’re asking, ‘Why aren’t you Arnie?’”

Her face fell and she stared into her glass. “Well, why aren’t
you?” she said, her voice tremulous. “He wouldn’t stand by and let my family
lose our company. He understood the importance of community.”

“That may be, but he didn’t understand the importance of being
wise with money. Sadly, a lot of people don’t.”

She reared back her head and looked at him through bleary eyes.
“Are you accusing me of not being wise?”

He knew she’d inherited the mess she was in. “Not at all. I’m
just saying—”

“I don’t want to hear what you’re saying. I don’t want to talk
to you. I want to have fun. Girls just want to have fun, you know. Why does
everyone get to have fun but me? Why do I have to worry about the company and
Mom keeping a roof over her head and not letting everyone down? I should be
partying. I think I will,” she decided, and began to climb up on her chair,
showing enough leg to bring every shirtless man running from the other end of
the bar. It was a wobbly assent, sure to summon disaster.

Blake grabbed for her and she shied away, ricocheting off
another table and upending a drink in a woman’s lap. “Oops, sorry,” she said to
the sputtering woman, and giggled. “Girls just want to have fun, you know. And
I’m gonna have fun.” She started dancing, waving her arms back and forth over
her head. “I want to dance in the sun or the moonlight or whatever it was.” Once
more she tried to scale the chair, but wound up draped over the table. “Who’s
spinning this thing?”

“Those drinks you inhaled,” he told her.

She managed to crawl up on the table but was now stuck on all
fours, glaring at him through a curtain of red hair. This was hardly the moment
to be turned on, but Blake was.

She tried to blow her hair out of her face, then scowled at
him. “You keep pretending you want to help me. Well, help me up on this
table.”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” he said. Bad enough
that he couldn’t stop her from making a fool of herself. He didn’t want her
falling and knocking herself unconscious on top of that.

“Fine, if you won’t help I’ll do it myself. I don’t need anyone
to help me, anyway.” She struggled to get up, leaving him no choice but to
assist her.

Oh, boy, this would be one more thing she’d blame him for once
she was sober.

“Oh, it’s high up here. I can see everyone. Go, Mr. Dreamy!”
She pumped the air with one hand and immediately lost her balance, toppling from
the table. He caught her before she could bang her head.