"I suppose sharing a motel bedroom with a stranger is nothing new to you," she remarked.
"It's happened."
"Not to me."
The waitress arrived with their coffees.
Lucky watched Devon mindlessly raise hers to her lips and sip at it before she remembered that she had originally declined it. Coffee sloshed over the rim of the cup and into the saucer when she set it down emphatically.
"Now that we're alone, will you please tell me what we have to talk about?"
"What were you doing in the place?" he asked.
"That dive where we happened to meet?"
"Right."
"Did you read my story in this morning's paper?"
He cocked his head to one side, unsure what relevance her question had to his. "No. I didn't get past the picture of you."
"If you had read it, you would have realized I was in that tavern doing research."
He settled his cheek in the palm of his hand, propped his elbow on the table, and regarded her calmly as he silently invited her to elaborate. She took a deep breath.
"My column this week was on the rights still denied women, despite the strides we've taken in the past two decades toward achieving equality."
"You went into the place and bought a drink. What right were you denied?"
"My right to be left alone."
He grunted noncommittally.
She continued, "A woman still can't go into a bar alone without every man in there assuming that she's on the make, to pick up a man or be picked up. The thesis of my article was that there are still bastions of our society that women have yet to infiltrate, much less conquer.
"What took place in the bar proved my point. I did nothing to encourage the attention of those two rednecks. I sat quietly in my booth, drinking my beer, until they came over and started hassling me. It wasn't…" She paused and glared at him. "What are you laughing at?"
"I was just thinking that if you were missing a few teeth, and had acne and thick ankles, you probably could have drunk your beer in peac
e."
The waitress arrived with his food. Once she had set the platters in front of him, Devon picked up her argument.
"In other words, a woman who isn't particularly attractive is safe from male attention."
"You look mad," he said, all innocence. "I thought I was being complimentary."
"How much more sexist could you be than to judge a woman's worth—or a man's for that matter—strictly on the basis of looks?"
She brushed locks of her thick, lustrous hair off her shoulders. If she wanted him to judge her on the merits of her mind, Lucky thought, she should stop practicing feminine witchcraft like tossing around that mass of dark red hair and looking so damned seductive.
"Sorry, Devon, it's just not in my genes to think of you as anything but a beautiful, exciting woman."
"Is that spelled g-e-n-e-s or jeans?"
Casually he shook salt and pepper over the patty of the cheeseburger, then placed the top bun on it—all without ever taking his eyes off her. "Both. Better not ask which one makes the most convincing argument." He bit into the cheeseburger and derived satisfaction not only from its taste, but from her obvious discomfiture.
"Tell me, then," she said, making a stab at being composed, "if I had been missing teeth, et cetera, would you still have come to my rescue?"