Batteries Not Required Read Online Free PDF Page B

the violent type,” I said.
    Flo set my plate of meat loaf down in front of me. Hunger had driven me to that diner, but now I had no appetite at all. Because I knew Tristan and everybody else in the place would make something of it if I paid my bill and left without taking a bite, I picked up my fork.
    â€œAnd I am?” Tristan asked tersely.
    â€œYou said it yourself,” I replied, with a lightness I didn’t feel. I put a piece of meat loaf into my mouth, chewed and swallowed, before going on. “If you were in Bob’s place, you’d punch him in the mouth.”
    â€œWhat does he do for a living?”
    â€œI told you,” I answered smoothly. “He’s in electronics. Mostly, though, he just concentrates on keeping me happy.”
    â€œI’ll just bet he does.”
    I wanted to laugh. I ate more meat loaf instead.
    Tristan looked annoyed. His voice was an edgy whisper. “What kind of man doesn’t mind when somebody else boinks his woman?”
    â€œBob gets a charge out of things like that,” I said. It wasn’t the complete truth. I didn’t have to plug him into the wall like I did my cell phone. He ran on Duracells.
    â€œI can’t believe you’d settle for a man like that,” Tristan snarled. He glowered at Flo when she brought his milk shake and silverware, and she retreated quickly, though she was grinning a little. “Don’t you have any pride?”
    The meat loaf turned to cardboard, and stuck in my throat. I took a gulp of cola to avert any necessity of the Heimlich maneuver. “Funny you should ask,” I replied quietly, “after what just happened at the Bronco.”
    At last, Tristan turned far enough to face me. He looked straight into my eyes. “You don’t love this Bob bozo,” he said bluntly. “If you did—”
    At my panicked look, he stopped. For all I knew, the people on both sides of us were listening to every word we said.
    Flo came back with his meat loaf, but he pulled some bills out of his Levi pocket and tossed them on the counter without even looking at her or the food. “Come on,” he said. Then he grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the diner.
    I dug in my heels when we hit the sidewalk. “I wanted to finish my dinner,” I lied.
    â€œI’ll fix you an omelet at my place,” he said. There was a big, shiny SUV parked at the curb. He opened the passenger door and practically tossed me inside.
    â€œI am not going to your place,” I told him. But I didn’t try to escape, either. Not that I could have. He was blocking my way. “What we did at the Bronco was a lapse of judgment on my part. It’s over, and I’d just as soon forget it.”
    â€œWe need to talk.”
    â€œWhy? We had sex, it was good, and now it’s history. What is there to talk about?” Was this me talking? Miss Traditional Love and Marriage, hoping for a husband, two point two children and a dog?
    Tristan stepped back, slammed the car door, stormed around to the other side, and got in. His right temple was throbbing.
    â€œMaybe that’s all it means to you,” he bit out, jamming the rig into gear and screeching away from the curb, “but to me, it was more than sex. Way more.”
    My mouth dropped open. We were hovering on the brink of something I’d fantasized about, with and without Bob—or were we? Maybe I was out there alone, like always, and Tristan was leading me on. It didn’t take a software wizard to work out that he wanted more sex.
    â€œLike what?” I said.
    He turned onto a side street, and brought the SUV to a stop in front of a two-story house I used to dream about living in, as a kid. It was white, with green shutters on the windows and a fenced, grassy yard. There were flowerbeds, too, all blooming.
    And the sign swinging by the gate read, “Tristan McCullough, Attorney at Law.”
    â€œNever mind like