“Hmm,” he seemed to purr, finally looking away from her to skim the shelves behind. Elspeth caught her breath at his eyelashes, at their soft curl, and was thinking about how they’d tickle against her throat. Then she thought about his mouth under her ear.
Shocked at the path of her thoughts, Elspeth blinked rapidly. She wasn’t one to immediately fantasize about tourists. Or anybody, really. Anybody flesh and blood shifting on the barstool like his cock was too big, pursing full lips and intently considering her whiskey.
Her pulse had already been high. She was flushed from her run in ankle boots not meant for running and a dress too fine for the cold wind. Her body was primed for a wild ride with somebody. And Jesus Christ, what a somebody.
She studied the square of his jaw and long lines of his sun-tanned throat, disappearing under the crisp collar and wide knot of a silver-lavender tie that tucked neatly into the waistcoat. His black hair was slicked back in thick waves, shorter in the back, and she thought she saw the shine of scars licking behind his right ear. She wanted to lick behind his—
“Jameson?” he suggested, after a long enough pause it occurred to her he’d been allowing her to stare.
“You can get that in America,” she teased breathlessly, trying to salvage some pride.
“What do you recommend then?” the American smiled again, just a sly curve of lips this time.
“Hmm,” Elspeth murmured, copying his purr as she turned and tilted her face up to consider her stock, too. Looking away brought only a little relief, because now she felt his gaze down her spine, drawing heat with it, lower and lower. What was her next move? Did she try to impress him, or tease him again, or give him her own favorite? Was he noticing that her bra was too tight, band cutting into her back fat, or horrified by her tangled hair, and worried the Welsh never bathed?
Elspeth briefly closed her eyes, remembered his smile—hooked up like a secret—and made her decision: humor.
She hopped onto her little step stool and grabbed the Black Barrel Jameson—the kind they aged in charred barrels—and plunked it down in front of him with a grin.
“Jameson,” he said, voice deepening with amusement.
Elspeth slid her hand down the bottle in a brief caress. “Well, it’s always a solid choice, but this fancy bottle I can upcharge to my heart’s content.”
A laugh burst out of him, deep and raw as if despite his wolfish grin laughing wasn’t something his body was accustomed to, either. He nodded once, still chuckling, and Elspeth felt a thrill of satisfaction that danced down to the soles of her feet.
She poured him a double without asking how he liked it, then returned the bottle to its high shelf. When she looked back, he’d taken his tumbler and wandered away from the bar, giving her a fine view of his ass and the perfect way the dark gray waistcoat hugged his waist and framed his shoulders.
Oh, Elspeth was done for.
And then she noticed he’d left his jacket there on the bar for her. Like a promise.
Biting her lip a little, she lifted the jacket up and took it to one of the old boat cleats hammered to the wall for hanging hats. She settled the jacket into place and smoothed it with her knuckles.
For the next hour, Elspeth watched him nurse that double of Jameson while he perched at a high table against the back wall, flipping through the stack of old paperbacks in the built-in cubby. They were a mix of thrillers, romance, high fantasy, and a few literary classics Elspeth didn’t absolutely hate. All of them reread until the pages were soft as butter and the corners of the covers worn away, the spines cracked in ten places. Many had been her dad’s, a few she’d picked up in her teens, and three donated by regulars. She let people borrow them sometimes, if they promised to bring them back, or offered replacements equally loved.
The tourist family paid and departed, and Mr. Cutter, and the later afternoon crowd, filled in—mostly more tourists and a few locals—and Elspeth was constantly pouring drinks and washing dishes in the back, dipping chips in and out of the hot oil until Mrs. Morgan and her sons came with the evening pies—three sweet and two meat—the only real food on Elspeth’s menu. It was exactly the right amount of busy to keep her in motion but not quite enough that she needed help.
A perfect afternoon, especially with the American giving her something pretty to look at. This was the sort of day when she couldn’t imagine selling The Fort, no matter the money, no matter how it could free her up to do—well, anything. Go back to finish her degree, or travel, or push full-time on the buy-local groups.
No, on a day like today The Fort was hers, a shell of armor against the world, warm and sweet and smoky inside, and she controlled what happened within—who was welcome, what she served, with whom she flirted. Just as before it had been her father’s, and his mother’s, and his mother’s father’s, back to 1857. Elspeth could never be the Gwenlan to end the tradition. She’d been born in the bathtub upstairs, for Chrissakes. For better or worse, she couldn’t leave it, and memories of her dad, behind.
Smiling sadly to herself, thinking of rubbing down this chipped bar for the rest of her life, she pushed at stains with her old rag like they were anxieties she could save for later. When she glanced again at the American curled over his Jameson and the paperbacks, she realized she didn’t know his name. She’d lusted after him harder than she could remember in her life, and hadn’t even introduced herself. Three novels piled next to his tumbler, and as she watched, he took the one in his large hand, flipped to the end, and started reading the last chapter!
As if sensing her horror, he glanced up. Whatever her face was doing surprised him, and he lifted his eyebrows. Elspeth shook her head, too overcome.
Sauntering over with two of the books and his near-finished whiskey, he said, “You don’t think I’ll like this one?” holding up the Nora Roberts he’d so blithely desecrated.
“No, I think you will,” Elspeth tried to pull back into flirtatious instead of flabbergasted. “But you read the ending!”
“I had to make sure it wouldn’t make me sad,” he said with a one-shoulder shrug, entirely unapologetic.
Before she could react, he held up the Kate Elliott with the beautifully illustrated knight in golden armor. “This one clearly doesn’t end well.”
“That,” Elspeth said, reaching for it, “is the first book in an epic seven-book series, so of course it doesn’t end well—it doesn’t end at all.”
He handed over the fantasy novel. Elspeth cradled it against her breast, and slowly realized what he’d said. “You don’t like sad books?” she murmured, barely audible over the three hikers who’d just come in, trailing mud and yelling pleasantly as they tried to choose a table.
The American’s expression fell into something a little bit hard and a little bit vulnerable, and all Elspeth could do was stare at the bend of his lovely mouth and feel rather tenderly.
Probably, he was sussing her out the way she’d teased him with the Jameson.
She said, “None of the books over there are sad. Bad things happen, but villains don’t win for long.”
“I’m safe with you—with your books,” he corrected himself quietly.
That was definitely a slip on purpose, and Elspeth narrowed her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “But stick with the romances and mysteries if you want a tight turnaround on happy endings.”
“Okay, beautiful,” he said, slow and deliberate.
“I’m Elspeth,” she corrected smoothly, despite the heat climbing down her vertebrae.
“Daniel. But my friends call me Kel.”
“And what should I call you?”
“Depends on what you’d like to be,” Daniel replied matter-of-factly, then knocked back the rest of the whiskey.
She rather felt like she’d downed a shot of the water of life herself, and carefully breathed through her nose.
Daniel slid his tumbler gently toward her and Elspeth asked, “Another?”
“How about a ginger ale? And a piece of that pie?” He glance
d at the man down the bar making enthusiastic progress on a slice of steak pie.
Elspeth wrinkled her nose at the flavor combination, but nodded, pointing for him to have a seat.
He obeyed, positioning himself at the inner end of the bar where he could face the whole pub. While she grabbed a can of Seagram’s from the minifridge, he unbuttoned his cuffs and began rolling his shirtsleeves up.
Elspeth cracked open the pop-top and set down his drink, eyes trailing up the suntanned lines of his forearms. As his hands moved, the muscles shifted, and she focused on the bone of his wrist, then the trio of thin scars down the back of his left hand, shining and pale pink, then his knuckles and the wide spread of his fingers, and before she could help it she imagined them on her waist, sliding down her hips to press into her thighs. It was all she could do not to roll her hips with anticipation.
“Thanks,” Daniel said, taking the ginger ale.
Elspeth snapped her eyes up to his and nodded. She spun away to fetch a slice of steak pie, a hearty one, too; he’ll need his energy later if I get my way, she thought, putting a little bounce in her step. Then she laughed at herself, knowing she’d never go through with it. She was behaving monstrously.
After serving him, she was distracted with an order for six black velvets and by the time she returned he’d eaten enough of the pie that she knew he liked it. Elspeth leaned her elbows on the bar and licked her bottom lip. “How’s it?”
“I don’t understand why meat pies like this never caught on in America.” Daniel lifted another forkful and ate it.
“Goes better with a lager,” Elspeth said.
“Probably, but I needed an alcohol break.”
“I don’t believe you’re a lightweight for a cold second.”
“Not usually, but I hadn’t eaten since this biscuit and cream for breakfast in London.”
“Morgan’s pie will fix you right up then.”
“Morgan?”
“From the market on the other side of the green. Just past the Blue Garden Guesthouse,” Elspeth added cheekily.
Daniel had the decency to look chagrined. “I left my car there, without saying hello.”
“Agatha has likely told half the town to be on the lookout for her missing American.”
“I really wanted a drink,” he said. He brought a hand up to rub gently behind his ear and she saw the tip of a tattoo peeking down from his rolled shirtsleeves, there at the delicate inside of his elbow. Impossible to know what it pictured.
Funny, she thought, how he hasn’t even loosened his tie or unbuttoned the form-fitting waistcoat, but only rolled up those sleeves. Like a deliberate attempt to convince himself that he is relaxing, without really doing so.
“You’re smiling at something, I sure wouldn’t mind knowing what,” he said, and Elspeth remembered he wasn’t part of her fantasy quite yet.
“Well,” she said, going all in, “you’re rather good-looking.”
With perfect timing, Mary Lannish arrived for her shift. Mary was nineteen and everything about her, from her personality to her ponytail, was pert and sweet. She tied on an apron and slipped into the kitchen to take over frying chips and fire up the oven to roast some brussels sprouts she’d fancy up with spices and oil into something serviceable.
Daniel remained at the bar and picked up the romance novel, reading from the beginning, like any sane person would do. Elspeth made him a Jameson and ginger, with ginger beer much spicier than the Seagram’s he’d been drinking. Then she settled into the evening, breathing deep of the laughter and sour spilled beer, the rhythm of building a good pour, hurrying to fill a new basket of chips, taking orders and closing out tabs. Asra showed up, too, and Elspeth could relax or take off for home anytime.
But she didn’t want to go home.
Daniel had set the book down and was chatting with a few locals, at ease and leaning on the bar like he belonged. He watched everything carefully, eyes always going to the door when somebody new arrived, and he kept his back to the wall like he was holding court. But she appreciated the way Daniel studied The Fort: the patrons, the smoke-stained whitewash of the ceiling, the clomp of boots, and calls for another round. He studied it like it mattered, not just out of curiosity. He caught her eye when a couple of tourist ladies sidled up to him to flirt, then threw up their hands when his accent revealed him to be just as American as they were. He bought them all shots of her fancy Jameson. They each left their own big tips. Impressive—in Elspeth’s experience, American white ladies were shit tippers.
Elspeth leaned across the bar and said to Daniel, “I should hire you to flirt with my customers.”
“I’m really just trying to impress you.” He leaned closer, too.
Oh, how Elspeth wanted to hop over the bar and dig her hands in his hair, scratch little pink lines down the sides of his neck, and grab the knot of his tie. She’d stare into his eyes, demanding, until he lifted his chin for her, and then with gentle, sure little tugs, loosen the tie, pull it away to get to the ivory buttons at his collar. Flick one open, then the second, and maybe a third, who knew?
Elspeth released a long, slow sigh, pursing her lips in an almost-whistle.
Daniel looked at her mouth, and his hand curled hard around the cut-glass tumbler. “I really had better go get settled before Agatha of the Blue Garden Guesthouse gives away my room.”
“She might show up with her dog, drag you out by your ankles.”
“Can’t have anyone witnessing such indignity.”
Just as she opened her mouth to offer to walk him over, John Surley called her name, waving her over to a small group of tourists with empty baskets of chips. She smiled bright with regret at Daniel. “Asra can close you out.”
He smiled. “I’ll be in town a couple weeks,” he said as if she’d asked.
Elspeth felt her whole body straighten and when she swung out from behind the bar—the proper way—she did it with a bit of a silly shimmy. Then grimaced at herself, but laughed and headed for John Surley.
When she glanced back over her shoulder like an eager ingenue, he was watching, and held up the romance novel, one beautiful eyebrow arced in a question.
She nodded, and he pressed it flat to his chest, hand splayed over the gilded cover to hold it against his heart.
The next time Elspeth looked, he was gone.
Chapter Three
Before the sun rose Friday morning, Elspeth was in her running clothes and heading into the chilly dawn with a tray of scones for Agatha. She dropped off nine every other day, from her mother’s fresh batches. Then she went for a jog up the mountain past the old chapel ruins to the Neolithic burial chamber, on a rough route she’d perfected over the past three years.
Her bare knees and arms were freezing, thanks to the spandex shorts and exercise top she wore, but she’d be glad in half an hour, working up a sweat along the winding road. Elspeth walked as fast as she could across the dark sidewalk without disrupting the cloth-covered scones. She was sleepy but brightening in the brisk breeze that pebbled her skin. It was a short walk from the cottage she shared with her mum to the guesthouse, too near to bother driving unless it poured rain.
The sky overhead was dark blue, stars twinkling everywhere but in the east, where just over the canopy of trees and shadow of the mountain, dawn pressed silver fingers. Nobody else was out so early, though the first bus would arrive soon, and the lights were on in the Morgans’ back room. A tiny part of Elspeth wished she’d catch a glimpse of the American, who her mum had told her was called Daniel Kelly, which she’d heard in turn from Mrs. Morgan with a little sniff at the Irish. Elspeth had laughed and given her mum the whole rundown of the evening, only censoring the exact intensity of her lust. Mum had been encouraging, though wary of Daniel’s sheer Americanness—America was too far away for a relationship. Since Elspeth’s mum had started quietly seeing Asra’s dad, who was a Londoner, Mum had appointed herself quite the expert on how distant a long-distance relationship had any right to be.
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br /> Elspeth had extricated herself with a defiant insistence that relationship wasn’t the correct term to describe her interest in Daniel Kelly, fleeing before her mum’s scandalized cry. She’d been up half the night obsessed with the idea of licking the tip of that tattoo peeking out of his rolled shirtsleeves, without even knowing what it was a tattoo of! It could be the base of a sleek anchor or a camo-painted rifle or the slender foot of one of those pin-up girls they used to paint on the side of planes with offensive gravity-defying tits, and she wouldn’t care. Elspeth was betting it was military of some kind, but for all she knew it was a tattoo of a heart with his mum’s name and she’d still die to put her mouth on it.
She sure couldn’t explain that to her own mum. Especially when either of them having any romantic interest at all, much less discussing men together, was too new, too delicate, to ruin with serious engagement.
But the memory made her laugh again, and she admitted to herself that she was fairly sure she’d take anything from Mr. My Friends Call Me Kel. Good thing he’d be tucked away in the dark guesthouse this early.
But a thrill of fear stopped her cold at the flicker of firelight on the guesthouse patio. The firelight appeared, disappeared, appeared again. Like a bobbing corpse candle.
Elspeth blew out an aggravated breath; it was only a man, not a premonition of death.
Though . . . she forced herself to keep walking at a casual pace.
Daniel. It was Daniel Kelly.
He slouched on the delicate wrought-iron garden chair set against the façade of the guesthouse, one elbow propped on the equally florid wrought-iron tea table. His long legs stretched before him, crossed at the ankles, and his black hair flopped over his forehead, shadowing his eyes even when the lighter in his hand flicked on again, casting a fiendish glow against his stomach.
Elspeth swallowed the bubbling thrill, stepped past the last of the decorative birch trees lining the sidewalk along this stretch of the main road, and came into his view.
The lighter flicked on, and remained on as Daniel lifted his chin and stared at her.
Naughty Brits: An Anthology Page 38