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she could see, it was all good.
    The bartender came back and Min said, "Rum and Diet Coke, please. A double."
    "That's your third," Liza said. "And fourth. The aspartame alone will make you insane. What are you doing?"
    "Was he mean to you?" Bonnie said. "What happened?"
    "I didn't talk to him." Min waved them away. "Move down the bar a couple of feet will you. I'm about to get hit on and you're cramping my style."
    "We missed something," Liza said to Bonnie.
    "Move," Bonnie said, and pushed Liza down the bar.
    Min turned away when the bartender brought her drink, so when The Beast spoke from beside her, she jerked her head up and caught the full force of him unprepared: hot dark eyes, perfect cheekbones, and a mouth a woman would betray her moral fiber to bite into. Her heart kicked up into her throat, and she swallowed hard to get it back where it belonged.
    "I have a problem," he said, and his voice was low and smooth, warm enough to be charming, rich enough to clog arteries.
    Dark chocolate
, Min thought and looked at him blankly, keeping her breathing slow. "Problem?"
    "Well, usually my line is 'Can I buy you a drink?' but you have one." He smiled at her, radiating testosterone through his expensive suit.
    "Well, that is a problem." She started to turn away.
    "So what I thought," he said, his voice dropping even lower as he leaned closer to her and made her heart pound, "was that we could go somewhere else, and I could buy you dinner."
    The closer he got, the better he looked. He was the used car salesman of seducers, Min decided, trying to get her distance back. You could never get a good deal from a used car salesman; they sold cars all the time and you only bought a couple in a lifetime so they always won. Statistically speaking, you were toast before you walked on the lot. She could only imagine how many women this guy had mutilated in his lifetime. The mind boggled.
    His smile had disappeared while he waited for her answer, and he looked vulnerable now, taking a chance on asking her out. He faked vulnerable very well.
Remember
, she told herself,
the son of a bitch is doing this for ten bucks
. Actually, he was trying to do
her
for ten bucks.
    Cheapskate. Suddenly, breathing normally was not a problem.
    "Dinner?" she said.
    "Yes." He bent still closer. "Somewhere quiet where we can talk. You look like someone with interesting things to say. And I'm somebody who'd like to hear them."
    Min smiled at him. "That's a terrible line. Does it usually work for you?"
    He froze for a second, and then he segued from sincere to boyish again. "Well, it has up till now."
    "It must be your voice," Min said. "You deliver it beautifully."
    "T hank you." He straightened. "Let's try this again." He held out his hand. "I'm Calvin Morrisey, but my friends call me Cal."
    "Min Dobbs." She shook his hand and dropped it before it could feel warm in her grasp. "And my friends would call me foolhardy if I left this bar with a stranger."
    "Wait." He got out his wallet and pulled out a twenty. "This is cab fare. If I get fresh, you get a cab."
    Liza would take the twenty and then dump him. There was a plan, but Liza didn't need a wedding date. What else would Liza do? Min plucked the twenty from his fingers. "If you get fresh, I'll break your nose." She folded the twenty, unbuttoned her top two blouse buttons, and tucked the bill into the V of her sensible cotton bra so that only a thin green edge showed. That was one good thing about packing extra pounds, you got cleavage to burn.
    She looked up and caught his eyes looking down, and she waited for him to make some comment, but he smiled again. "Fair enough," he said, "let's go eat," and she reminded herself to ignore what a beautiful mouth he had since it was full of forked tongue.
    "First, promise me no more lame lines," she said, and watched his jaw clench.
    "Anything you want," he said.
    Min shook her head. "Another line. I suppose you can't help it. And free food is always good." She picked