Chapter 86 86
Watching Sherry shoot pool was guaranteed to turn his brain to mush and make other parts of him, well…not mush. She moved with a confidence that was beautiful to watch. Justin had played pool with other women. Most of them either refused to break or did so with such a weak shot that the balls remained clumped together. It should have come as no surprise to him that Sherry was not like other women.
Ignoring him completely, she chalked her cue, lined up her shot and sent the cue ball slamming into the tightly packed stripes and solids. A trio of the latter slid into three pockets with a precision that made his jaw drop.
She paused to give him one sly, taunting smile over her shoulder before returning to her game and running the table. When nothing remained on the felt but a single white ball, she wiggled her shoulders, stretched her hands over her head and lifted an eyebrow. “Your turn, Mr. Covington.”
Muttering beneath his breath, he picked out his own cue and told himself to ignore the fact that a beautiful woman stood watching him. Her gaze tracked his every move. Even so, he managed a creditable break, sinking two shots to her three. He lined up the next few, one after another…and made them. But when he went for the last one, he made the mistake of looking at his adversary. Her eyes sparkled with amusement as if lit from within. His pride suffered a nick. So much so that he bobbled the shot and had to suffer the indignity of having Sherry step up and clean the rest of the table.
When it was over, silence reigned. She replaced her cue in the rack on the wall and flipped her ponytail back over her shoulder. “Not bad for an old man,” she said. “I guess your reflexes are slowing down.”
“Didn’t anyone ever teach you that you’re supposed to let the guy win?”
It was a smart-aleck comment, a tease, a jab. Certainly not a serious rejoinder. But Sherry blanched. And for the briefest of seconds, he saw real distress in her deep, translucent eyes.
“Hey,” he said quickly, seeking to temper his blunder. “You know I’m kidding, right? You’re amazing. If you weren’t already swimming in money, you could play this game professionally. It’s true that I don’t like losing. But I’ll have another shot. You beat me fair and square.”
She had turned away during his impulsive backpedaling and was now fiddling with a portfolio of notes she’d been working on earlier. He touched her arm, making her face him. When she wouldn’t look at him, he took her chin in his hands. Though several moments ticked by, finally her eyes met his.
He stroked her cheeks with his thumbs. “I… Was… Kidding. Get it? No man worth his salt wants a woman to let him win at anything.”
“You’d be surprised,” she whispered.
Feeling like the biggest jerk on the planet, he kissed her forehead. “You can’t tell me all those wild Bennets of yours wanted a fake victory.”
She chuckled weakly. “Them? No. Daddy and Uncle Vic used to give me five dollars every time I beat one of the boys. My brothers and cousins hated it, but it made them work harder to improve their game. Unfortunately, when I finally went off to college, no one told me the rules had changed.”
“What do you mean?”
“My first week on campus I was invited to a frat party with five or six other girls. The house had a pool table. One of the pledges offered to teach me the game…I guess to show off to his buddies.”
“And you beat him.”
“Three games in a row. I was too arrogant for my own good.” She paused, as if seeing a painful vision known only to her. “He called me a dyke,” she said abruptly. “Everyone laughed.”
“Jeez, Sherry.” He took her in his arms, despite the fact that she was stiff as a board in his embrace. “College guys are unmitigated jerks for the most part. They check their brains when they walk through those ivy-clad arches and don’t reclaim them until four years later. He was thinking with something other than his brain, and you showed him up. It wasn’t your fault. Good Lord, you should be proud of your talent.”
She sniffed, finally relaxing enough to lay her head on his shoulder.
“Mine is more luck than skill. It’s no big deal.” He shook her gently. “Be proud of who you are. You’re an original. A Bennet daughter. One of a kind.”
“Sometimes it’s lonely,” she said quietly.
He froze, stunned to realize that for perhaps the first time, Sherry was trusting him enough to open that closely guarded heart of hers and let him see a glimpse of the marshmallow center inside the crusty shell. “What about your sister-in-law to be?” He stroked her back lightly.
“She's nice. But we don’t have much in common.”
“How so?”
“We are just different. Nina is the sweetest and most appealing, feminine woman.”
“I guess I’m missing something. Sherry, you’re a knockout. Killer smile. Fabulous legs. And a personal style that I’d lay money lots of women try to emulate.”
“And yet I’ve never had a serious boyfriend. Why do you think that is? I’ll tell you,” she said, rushing ahead before he could answer. “Men don’t want someone like me. Well, I take that back. In bed, yes. Or as a trophy. They like the outside of me. But…”
“But what?”
She wriggled out of his loose embrace and scrubbed her hands over her face. He could almost see her withdrawing. “If I need a shrink, I’ll pay for one,” she said curtly. “I’ve got work to do, Justin. Do me a favor and get lost.”
He felt his temper boil, despite the fact that he knew she was goading him deliberately. He had gotten too close, and she had reverted to her usual antagonistic ways.
“Fine,” he said, feeling a real urge to throttle her. “l will stay out of your hair until the snow melts and I can get back to my real life. But this…” He seized the ladder and threw it against the wall, feeling a surge of satisfaction when it splintered into a half-dozen pieces. “This is off limits. If you really need to get up high doing whatever the hell you are doing in here, you’ll have to ask for my help. I know it will choke you, but that’s the deal.”