Double In Read Online Free PDF Page A

ability to think
clearly, to remain on her guard.
    She pulled her McCoy steel tips from her dart case, grabbed
the beer she’d set down, and made her way to the dartboards. She ignored the
creak of the back door opening and the sound of Reid’s sneakers squeaking on
the tiled kitchen floor as he came back into the bar. She put her beer down on
the nearest table, stepped to the toe line and forced her mind to focus on the
dartboard seven feet, nine and a quarter inches in front of her.
    It amazed her how easily she was able to let it all go. The
knot in her stomach loosened and the stress of the night left her as her first
dart sailed through the air on a direct aim for the triple twenty. Each dart
pulled her into a different kind of trance, a world where only she and her
steel-tip objects existed. She even managed to forget she wasn’t alone…until
Reid spoke.
    “I’m ready when you are.”
    Marsha closed her eyes briefly as reality slammed into her
reverie. Though his voice wasn’t quite as deep as Porter’s, it held the power
to entice her just the same. She heard it in her dreams, speaking sensually as
his calloused hands roamed her naked flesh. She heard it, too, in her head,
defending Blair’s decision to protest Martin’s last will and testament.
    She breathed deep and pushed all that aside. Stepping back,
she took a sip of her beer, and nodded. “I’m warm. Let’s go.”
    “Show me one.”
    “My bar. My option. You cork.” A slow, mischievous grin
stretched his lips and her pulse kicked into double time.
    “All right,” he drawled, stepped to the toe line, and aimed.
His dart landed smack-dab in the center of the bull.
    Damn it! She’d thrown the option back at him, knowing
Porter was hell on bulls, while Reid generally missed by smidgens of an inch.
When playing outside the league, the winner of the cork called the game to be
played. Those smidgens would’ve given her the choice.
    “Do you want me to pull it?”
    So she could throw her dart without the distraction of his
being right where she needed hers to land? “Please.” If she could pull it off,
they’d have to throw again. Instead, she missed by a hair.
    “You’ve gotten better,” Porter commented.
    Marsha looked at him as she picked up her beer and took
another sip. He’d turned a chair at a nearby table around backward and
straddled it, the fingers of one hand curled around his beer bottle, his
forearm resting on the back of the chair.
    He and Reid had taught her how to throw. They’d worked with
her, explaining the games, the mechanics and techniques, and offering her
advice until she’d felt confident enough to play against anyone in town. Many
of them would still beat her, but she wouldn’t hesitate to give winning her
best shot.
    “I figured you would’ve joined the GVDA by now and found you
a team to play on.”
    She hadn’t had time. She’d put all her focus and energy into
Bulls Eye Billiards since taking over the bar. Until she could see it feasible
to hire another waitress or two and definitely another bartender, she couldn’t
even think about joining a dart team.
    “I will…eventually.” She turned her attention to Reid as he
walked to the table. “You got the cork. What are we playing?”
    “301.”
    Okay, she could do this. Porter had hit one proverbial nail
on the head tonight. She had gotten better, and 301 had become her
favorite game. Double in. Double out. The only game that required the player to
hit a double of any number to start the countdown from three hundred and one
points as well as a double of the needed out to win. Porter might be hell on
bulls eyes, but Reid was a beast when it came to hitting doubles…and so was
she.
    “Nice choice.”
    “I’m aiming to win our bet.”
    “So am I.” And she wouldn’t lose. She couldn’t. Politeness
for the sake of business was one thing, but tonight had already gone too far.
On average, a game of 301 took ten to fifteen minutes to complete. She