Free Unbearable Desire: Lone Pine Pride, Book 4 by Vivi Andrews Page B

to come here on her “date” with Aaron Brandt as they wove through the crowds around the pool table toward the smaller tables clustered in the back. It had seemed like a good idea at the time—someplace they would both be comfortable, helping to keep things casual and take the pressure off this as a big romantic evening.
    She liked Dr. Brandt— Aaron, must remember to think of him as Aaron— but she’d never really thought of him that way until she was desperate for someone to take her mind off Hugo and he’d walked into the office they shared. He really was the obvious choice. They had so much in common. They got along well together. It was a miracle they’d never tried this in the past.
    Brandt— Aaron —held out her chair for her and Moira smiled gratefully as she sank onto it. He took the other chair and said something. Moira lifted a hand to her ear. “Sorry?” she called over the noise.
    “Crowded!” Aaron shouted back.
    She smiled and nodded enthusiastically. She scanned the tables around them, looking for something else to kick off awkward first date conversation with this man she’d worked with every day for the last decade.
    There was Lila, perched on the lap of her beau, Santiago, laughing at something Whiskey said as the bartender slid a pair of pints to the couple. And there was Kelly Mather, with his cowboy hat and ever-present smile, leaning down to whisper something to Grace as the scarred and surly tiger, Dominec, growled at him to take his next shot at the pool table.
    And there in the corner booth—
    Moira’s heart stuttered.
    Hugo.
    And he wasn’t alone.
    Moira couldn’t see the woman across from him from this angle, but she could tell the woman wasn’t blonde. Not Lucienne then. Who was he here with? What had happened to fighting for her, huh? Sure, she’d ignored his attempts to woo her for the last two weeks, but was that really all the devotion she merited? Lucienne had gotten two and a half decades and Moira didn’t even get two and a half weeks?
    “Moira?” Brandt shouted. “Is everything all right?”
    “Yes.” She forced her eyes off the corner booth, but they just ricocheted right back there. The burning was back—but it wasn’t the burning ache of heartbreak, it was the white-hot flame of righteous indignation. Whoever he was with now deserved to know exactly what she was getting into with Hugo. “Actually, no,” Moira said to Brandt. “I’ll be right back.”
    Springing out of her seat, she stalked to the corner booth. She still half-expected to see Lucienne, so she stared for a moment when she recognized Aubry. The leopardess was a bit on the young side for Hugo, but she was romantically unattached. Available. What the hell was he thinking?
    “Moira.” Surprise colored the big dumb bear’s delicious rumbly voice.
    Moira pivoted to pin Hugo with her fiercest glare. “May I have a word with you?” she bit out.
    His brow furrowed in confusion, but he excused himself to Aubry and rose to trail her to the side door where Moira pulled him out into the brisk night. She rounded on him even as the door snapped shut. “What do you think you’re doing? Yesterday you were begging to see me and now this?”
    Something warm gleamed in his eyes and his lips quirked, but his words were serious. “You told me to grow up. I’m trying that. No more one woman or no one. Not even you.”
    She glowered up at him. “Always with the trying ,” she grumbled.
    “What are you doing here?”
    She shoved her chin up pugnaciously. “I’m on a date as well.” In a pointless attempt to forget you, you big lummox.
    His eyebrows bounced up. “With Brandt?”
    “He’s a good man and a good friend. At least I know he will never treat me like I don’t deserve to be loved.”
    Hugo flinched. “That’s never what I wanted. I’m so sorry, Moira. I know I was a bastard. No wonder you can’t forgive me.”
    And just like that all the steam drained out of her anger. “I always