Free WhiskeyBottleLover by Robin Leigh Miller

didn’t understand what
happened. A few ticks of the clock passed as they stared into each other’s
eyes. A hazy vision flickered in her memory, one of him standing before her,
naked, hard and ready to please her. She could smell him, not the musty whiskey
odor, but the pure male musk of a man ready to rut.
    Even his name rang in her ears. When the vision faded she
stood there, holding his gaze. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say he’d
experienced the same thing. His lush lips were parted and he breathed heavily,
causing his chest to heave. Simultaneously they jerked their hands back. Hayes
gripped the strap of leather tight in his fist and she rubbed her tingling hand
on her jeans.
    They both ignored it, pretending it didn’t happen. Hayes
pulled his hair back in a ponytail.
    “That should work. Thanks.”
    Chance couldn’t look away from his broad chest. If just a
few buttons popped she could see what he looked like beneath that black shirt.
She bet he was all planes and angles, hard as concrete.
    “Chance?”
    “Huh?” Finally her gaze snapped to his face. “Sorry, what?”
    He took a deep breath, causing his chest to rise and fall
like a breathing mountain. Those dark of eyes of his, was it her imagination or
were they darker now, and why were his nostrils flaring?
    “I said thank you.”
    His voice rumbled, not loud or menacing but soft and erotic.
Her eyes did a quick roll back in her head as she swayed. What the hell was it
about this guy? Did he cast some kind of spell on her? Had to be. She never
acted like this with men.
    “You’re welcome,” she quickly replied and then turned and
made a hasty retreat back to a safe distance.
    The next hour they both worked quietly. It appeared the lamp
would be finished in time for the weekend tourists and a few of the knickknacks
were all ready to go. She looked around for the old hand-carved horse she’d
found at the bottom of a junk box she purchased. The instant she picked it up
she knew it had been hand carved and was at least one hundred years old. A
piece like that needed to be preserved.
    Chance searched around the workbench, beneath it, turned and
scanned the floor as she slowly moved. It had been lying on the workbench for
weeks. What the hell happened to it? She intended to put it up on her website.
    The moment her gaze settled on the little wooden figurine
lying on the ground against the far wall, her heart broke. Frantic, she ran,
knelt down and gently picked up. “No, no, no,” she whined as the front leg separated
from the rest of the carving.
    “Chance? Everythin’ all right?”
    “I don’t understand. How did this happen?” It didn’t matter
that she couldn’t sell it like this. The money didn’t matter. She loved the
piece, the careful detail and time put into creating it. It was priceless.
“Damn it, I bet an animal got in here and carried it around.”
    Hayes came up behind her, looking down over her shoulder.
“That’s a nice carvin’.”
    “It used to be. Now it’s broken.”
    “What’s that stuff you put on broken things to fix ’em? Ya
know, a sticky concoction?”
    “Glue?”
    “That’s it. Glue it. It’ll be right as rain.”
    She could glue it but it would be obvious and ruin the look
of the piece. “This is all natural, old and a lot of time put into it. Slapping
glue on a work of art like this would be so disrespectful.” Chance inspected
the broken leg, pushed the two pieces together and frowned. She could glue it
but it didn’t feel right. “I’ll worry about it later.”
    She carried it back to her workbench, put it inside a
plastic tote and sealed the lid so nothing else could come in and run off with
it. Now all she had to do was load her car and get to the shop. Jenny would be
expecting her soon. Filling her arms with the finished pieces, she pushed
through the door and headed for the car.
    “Where ya goin’ now?”
    “I need to take these to my store and do some work there.”
She had pieces