“THREE HOT BABES ON Valentine’s Day!” Barry the bartender spread his arms and grinned. “Heaven got my order straight.”
Samantha Drexel stopped in the middle of sliding onto a stool at the end of the convention hotel bar. Him again. Her gaze fell to the prominent slice of uber-hairy chest where his oversize Italian horn amulet rested. Mr. I’m-Too-Sexy-For-My-Shirt.
“I’m afraid we’re not here to answer your prayers,” she said, turning to her two friends with a stay or go? look.
“He’s harmless,” Tori Halsey said, tossing back her long blond hair.
“Ouch.” Barry clapped a hand over his heart.
“He’s good for a laugh.” Kitty Clayborn’s dark eyes twinkled.
“Double ouch.” He crossed that hand with the other.
“Tonight he’s also good for a drink,” said Manny, a fellow bartender, reaching over Barry’s shoulder to stuff a twenty into his shirt pocket. “He just won twenty bucks on you three.”
Barry’s lounge lizard smile froze.
“You bet on us?” Samantha looked from Barry to her friends with exaggerated outrage. “He bet on us.”
“Well, I figured you’d be back. You’re always here on Valentine’s Day. What—like three years running?” Barry finally realized he was digging himself deeper. “I mean, you never have dates or anything.”
A hand grenade dropped in their midst couldn’t have had any more effect than that simple declaration.
“Hello. At a trade show here. Working.” Sam charged into the deepening silence. “Plus, we’re in the ‘greetings’ industry. Corporate—” she pointed to herself and then each of the others in turn “—freelance and retail. Valentine’s Day is our business.”
The three had met four years ago at the Greeting Card Association’s Winter Trade Show in Dallas, perversely always held over the industry’s big Valentine’s holiday. Bonding over drinks and dinner on that first night, they had quickly gone from business contacts to fast friends.
“Yeah, we always have to work,” Kitty declared.
“Besides, we have standards,” Tori put in, with a glance at the dregs of the happy-hour crowd propped up along the hotel lobby bar.
“So I think you do owe us a drink,” Sam said with a defiant edge.
“And you can bring them to that table—” Tori pointed “—over there.”
By the time they had ordered and settled around the nearby table, Sam’s mind was in overdrive, unable to let go of Barry’s words.
“‘Never have dates,’” she quoted, scowling. “Do you believe that guy?” But how long had it been since she was out on an honest-to-goodness date? Dinner, a show or concert, and sweating up some sheets afterward?
“I have dates. Plenty of dates,” Tori said, frowning. “Until lately. I guess I’ve been kind of caught up in my work.”
“In a small town—” Kitty sighed “—there’s not much to choose from. It’s been a major dry spell for me. I could use a good ‘bump in the junk.’”
Sam and Tori hooted laughs.
“I think what you mean is ‘a bump in your trunk,’” Tori said.
“Are you sure?” Kitty scowled. “Some girls were in the store the other day talking lyrics, and I’m pretty sure they said ‘bump in the junk.’”
“Trust Tori on this,” Sam said. “She knows her trunk from her junk.”
“Great,” Kitty muttered. “If I did actually ‘get me some’ I probably wouldn’t know where to put it.”
There was shared pain in their laughter. In the three years they’d been meeting at the Dallas trade show, none of them had been in a real relationship. If Sam weren’t so rational, she’d wonder if working in the Valentine’s Day trade had somehow jinxed their love lives.
“So if we did hook up with a Valentine’s date, how would we celebrate?” Sam cut a sideways look at the red foil hearts taped up here and there around the bar. “Living with mushy poems and romance-y visuals year-round pretty much spoils the prospect of the usual card and heart-shaped box of candy.”
“Not with roses, that’s for sure.” Kitty brought up another Valentine’s Day staple. “Those big, woody red things they hijack people into paying a hundred dollars a dozen for—they’re mutants. The smell’s been bred completely out of them.”
Sam’s thoughts went inescapably to the only bouquet of roses she had ever gotten on Valentine’s Day…her junior year of college…just before her boyfriend Rich Collier’s big fraternity dance…
“Here you go!” At that moment Barry arrived at their table with a tray of drinks. When they looked up, there was a sagging red rose between his teeth. Plopping the limp flower—clearly plucked from a nearby hotel arrangement—on the table, he leaned in with a suggestive waggle of the eyebrows. “For my favorite sexy babes.”
They glanced at each other and laughed guiltily.
Thinking they were awed by his smooth line, Barry laid out their drinks and then swaggered off as if he assumed that—behind his back—they were admiring his butt every step of the way.
“Well, he got one thing right,” Sam said, hoisting her gin and tonic with a wicked laugh. “We are sexy babes.”
Kitty nearly snorted her white wine out her nose.
“I’m serious. Look at you,” Sam said, gesturing to her friends. “Tori’s got that whole ‘bohemian chic’ thing going…the flowing blond hair and silk scarf shirts and exotic jewelry…not to mention the killer body. And Kitty’s a Ralph Lauren dream…all horse-country casual in boots and blazers…with the pouty lips Hollywood pays big money for.”
“And you, Miss Corporate Cool—” Tori picked it up “—with the auburn hair and Lauren Bacall voice…and legs up to the forty-fifth floor. You’re not so bad yourself.”
“My point exactly. We deserve some Valentine’s Day rapture,” Sam said, snapping the red plastic heart off the top of her swizzle stick.
“So,” she continued, “what was your best Valentine’s Day ever?”
After a moment, Tori laughed and launched into a story about sneaking downstairs to her older brother’s Valentine party and seeing his best friend making out with a girl on the stairs.
As she listened, Sam’s thoughts went inescapably back to the day she’d received that first and only bouquet of roses. The Valentine’s Dance had been magical. She’d never forgotten the sight of Rich standing at the bottom of the staircase holding a single red rose to match the ones he had sent her, looking for all the world like Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall.
By the time Kitty related her story about making a Valentine dinner that ended with a sinful chocolate cake, sinfully consumed…Sam was also remembering the fight she and Rich had after the dance. It was supposed to be their first time, but Rich hadn’t brought condoms and she hadn’t yet started the pills she’d gotten from the Student Health Center…
Strange how she still thought of him whenever she saw a bouquet of roses in a magazine, on television or on a coworker’s desk. Her first love. Nothing since had quite measured up to it for sheer thrill power.
A moment later that thought horrified her.
“Your turn,” Tori was saying as she came back to the present.
“My best Valentine’s Day—is yet to come,” she said forcefully. “Not that I don’t love you guys, but next year I’ll have a date. I’m going to go out and track one down and have a fabulous hot Valentine’s night.”
“Track one down? Like, you’re going hunting or something? For a man?” Tori said, trying to wrap her head around the concept.
“Manhunting?” Kitty looked mildly alarmed. “Just how do you intend to go about that? I mean, lurking around gyms and football stadiums with a club in hand can get you arrested.”
When they stopped laughing, Sam’s mind hit high gear.
“It’s just like business…there are opportunities all around. You have to keep your eyes and mind open to find them. There are single men in fitness centers, bookstores, home improvement classes, volunteer jobs. Put the word out with friends at work, neighbors, old classmates. Sign up for an Internet ‘match’ service or one of those just-lunch things. Take charge. Decide what you want and go for it.”
“Manhunting.” Tori caught her enthusiasm. “I like it. Sounds primal. Very woman power. I’m in.”
Grinning, Sam put out her hand. Tori took a deep breath and put hers on top. They both turned to Kitty, who groaned but added her hand to the pile. “Three, two, one,” Sam counted down.
“Manhunting!” they shouted in unison…just as Barry arrived with a tray of fresh drinks.
Moments later he was back behind the bar, disappointed by their lack of response to his irresistible lines. His fellow bartender, Manny, met him at the central beer taps and nodded to the Valentine threesome.
“What was all that about?”
“Them?” Barry gave a huff and began clearing empties from the bar top. “They just made some girl pact. They’re going manhunting.”
“Your Valentine hotties?” Manny chuckled. “Where do I sign up?”
“They say they’re not spending another Valentine’s Day here, alone. They’re gonna go out and find true love.” He gave a snort of disbelief. “Fifty bucks says they’ll be back next year.”