The Fifty-Cent Groom

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  Resting her hip against the bar, she wrinkled her nose then sipped the wine. “He’s standing by the terrace doors. His name is Harry Schaffer. He’s short, balding at thirty, intellectual and terribly sexy. You know the type. An abbreviated Paul Newman without much hair.”

  “I see him. Is he going to notice that I find you fascinating?”

  “Probably not, but don’t let that stop you.”

  “That could be the solution, you know. Nothing attracts a man’s attention faster than seeing a woman flirting with another man.”

  “First, he’d have to be able to see me.”

  “I find it hard to believe you don’t know how to arrange that.”

  “Maybe I do.” She looked at Ben thoughtfully. “You’ll help me, right?”

  “I am at your service, Miss Ridgeman.”

  She had a little girl’s laugh, and he couldn’t help but respond to it.

  From the corner of his eye, he caught the silky movement of Sara’s hair as she looked his way. Even from across the room, he could tell she was curious. At Your Service employees probably weren’t allowed to laugh while on duty, either. A moment later, Ridgeman’s gaze followed hers to the bar and narrowed slightly before he bent his head and said something to Sara.

  “Uh-oh.” DeeNee’s voice dropped to a confiding level. “Big Brother is watching us. He’ll be over here in a minute with some dumb excuse to drag me away. The truth is, he’s such a snob and he can’t understand what he calls my strange compulsion to fraternize with the hired help. It drives him crazy.”

  “Hmm.” Ben kept his eye on Sara, who was keeping an eye on him. “I would have thought he’d understand perfectly.”

  “Not West. Sara’s the only woman he’s ever dated who is gainfully employed. He’s very impressed because she has her own business.”

  “I figured he was very impressed with the way her hips move when she walks.”

  “That, too,” DeeNee agreed.

  Sara touched West’s sleeve, smiled at him, then walked toward the bar. Ben was as impressed as hell—and he couldn’t even see her backside.

  “Well, our fun is over for the moment.” DeeNee set her glass on the counter. “Sara thinks it’s sweet that West worries about me. She told me once she wished she had a protective older brother.” DeeNee shook her head. “Ignorance is bliss, I guess. Hi, Sara. Don’t scold Ben. I insisted he have a drink with me.”

  Sara answered with a self-assured smile. “I’m sure he told you that would go against company policy.”

  “I did. And you’ll notice I do not have a beverage in my hand or tucked out of sight beneath the counter.” Ben held her gaze with a rich and warm amusement. “That’s because I’m a quick study.”

  “I like him a thousand times better than that frilled shirt you usually bring.” DeeNee reached over and patted Ben’s cheek. “And he’s so very helpful.”

  “Just doing my duty.”

  “Yes, well, let’s not go overboard with that duty stuff.” Sara glanced restlessly at West.

  DeeNee sighed dramatically. “Okay, okay. I’ll move on before my brother brings out the chastity belt. But, Ben, I’m counting on you for later.”

  “I’m already looking forward to it.” He gave her an encouraging wink and she blew him a kiss.

  Sara turned to him the moment DeeNee was out of earshot. “Did you make a date with her?”

  Ben raised his eyebrows. “Is dating against company policy, too?”

  “Look, I know this is the first time you’ve been exposed to this kind of upscale situation, but you are here in a professional capacity only. Flirting with DeeNee is inappropriate.”

  “You’re flirting with her brother.”

  “I am not flirting, and it isn’t the same thing at all. West and I are…friends.”

  He wiped the towel across the counter. “I see. It’s all right for you to bat your eyes at Mr. Raffle Ticket, but not for me to talk to his sister. Is that what you’re saying?”

  Her eyes flashed with an attractive annoyance. “This isn’t open for discussion. I hired you for the evening, and that means I set the standards.”

  “One standard for you and another for your employees. Well, let me get something off my chest, Ms. At Your Service.” He reached up, unfastened the middle button of his shirt and paused before undoing a second.

  Her eyes widened. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Making sure I have your attention.” He kept his hand on the shirt placket as he leaned toward her. “If there was any flirting going on here—and I’m not saying there was or there wasn’t—it isn’t any of your business. And for the record, she approached me.”

  “Of course, she did. You’re the bartender. Now, button your shirt.”

  He ignored the interruption. “I like DeeNee. She’s sweet and funny, and if I did ask her for a date, it would be because I like sweet and funny women, not for any other reason.”

  “Are you implying I have some mysterious ulterior motive for flirting with West?”

  “See there? You admit you were flirting.”

  “I admit nothing. You’re the one who started this.” She glanced self-consciously over her shoulder, making sure no one else was paying any attention. “Please, Ben, button your shirt.”

  He did, wondering if he could have provoked her into threatening to do it for him. “There’s no need to get defensive, Sara. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with flirting. It keeps life interesting.”

  “Well, while you’re working for me, keep your shirt buttoned, your interests to yourself and your seductive green eyes off West’s sister.”

  “See, that’s something else we have in common. I think your eyes are seductive, too.”

  The startled look of awareness that flared momentarily in her sexy brown eyes was worth the effort. Her voice betrayed none of it, however. “You and I have nothing in common.”

  “Of course we do. We both know what we want and we go after it, no holds barred.” He smiled, daring her to deny it. “If you want Ridgeman, he might as well raise the white flag right now and be done with it.”

  “And I suppose you believe you could wrap DeeNee around your little finger with no trouble at all.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say it would be no trouble.” His hand brushed the length of her arm as he wiped a minuscule watermark from the bar, and he smiled to himself when she moved out of reach. “She wouldn’t be the challenge you are, of course, but with a woman, there’s always some trouble involved.”

  “You’re out of your league here, Ben.”

  He laughed softly. “In your opinion.”

  “In point of fact. There isn’t a woman in this room who would succumb to your charms for more than half an hour.”

  He pursed his lips, more than a little annoyed by her attitude. “That almost sounds like a dare.”

  Sara crossed her arms at her waist, then apparently realized how defensive she must look and dropped them to her sides. “If I felt the need to challenge you, I wouldn’t leave any doubt as to my intention.”

  He lifted the glass set aside for gratuities and held it out to her, spilling its emptiness all around. “Maybe you should leave a tip, instead. I’m not sure I can be bought off, but it might be worth a try.”

  “What a time to be penniless.” She gave a coy, lessthan-regretful shrug. “I’m afraid I have nothing to give you…except advice.”

  “Here. I’ve got fifty cents.” He pulled two quarters from his pocket and dropped them into the glass. “We’ll consider it a loan.”

  “Consider it whatever you like. Just remember you’re here to tend bar, not to socialize with the guests.” She turned on a dime and then abruptly turned back. “And for the record, there is nothing wrong with knowing the qualities I want in a mate. The size of his bank account is not important, but ambition and drive certainly are.”

  “What about companionship? Love? Back rubs?”

  Her lips snapped into a practiced smile as a man and
a woman approached the bar. Ben filled their orders with self-assured good humor. “The tips are lousy here,” he said after the couple had walked away without so much as a thank-you, much less a glance at the two quarters in the glass. “No wonder you said I could keep them.”

  “Perhaps service is the problem.”

  His eyebrows went up. “Knocking the employees is not good for morale, boss. But don’t worry, I know you didn’t mean it. You’re just upset because I’m having more fun than you are.”

  “I am not upset, and fun has nothing to do with it.”

  “My point, exactly. You’re not having fun and I am. It’s unfair, I know, but then, I didn’t set the standards.”

  Irritation lined the set of her lips. “I knew I’d be sorry I didn’t check your references.”

  “It was fate. You bowled me over with your charm…so to speak. Of course, if I’d spent more than a half hour with you, I might not have succumbed …so to speak.”

  “You succumbed to the offer of a paycheck,” she said snippily. “Let’s not confuse the issue with charm.”

  Ben wished he wasn’t so competitive—or so susceptible to women with attitudes, or so intrigued by this particular and inconsistent redhead. “I have a proposition for you, Sara. A small wager.”

  She glanced over her shoulder again to make sure no one was watching before she leaned close to Ben. “Let me guess. You’re going to try to get me to bet that you can’t seduce me. I am not stupid. I know where this is leading.”

  “You jump to conclusions faster than anyone I’ve ever met—with the possible exception of my father. He believes he’s invulnerable, too. However, contrary to your unflattering and erroneous opinion of me, I do have principles, and I would never seduce a woman just to prove a point.”

  “I can’t wait to hear the rest of this.”

  He almost backed off at that point, but the sheer energy she exuded, the zest she exhibited in every action, dragged him ever deeper into this ill-advised flirtation. “I will wager my paycheck that before the last stroke of midnight, I can charm at least one woman in this room into spending more than a half hour in my company—and kiss her into the bargain.”

  “That would fall under the category of seduction—which is against your principles—or flirtation, which is against mine.”

  “I did not say seduction is against my principles. I said I wouldn’t do it just to prove a point.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “And the difference is?”

  “I would be happy to demonstrate.”

  “Oh, I’ll just bet you would.”

  “Good. Double or nothing?”

  She shook her head. “You know, Ben, you really deserve to be taken down a notch or two.”

  “Don’t tell me. You believe you’re just the woman to do it.”

  “If I wanted to, I could.” Smug confidence shadowed her smile. “Without half trying.”

  “You’re very confident…even for a redhead.”

  “Sara?” West’s hand cupped her elbow. “Is there a problem?”

  “No, not at all. Ben and I were just discussing professional etiquette.”

  “Good. There’s someone I would like you to meet, if you can drag yourself away from instructing the bartender for a moment or two.”

  “Of course.” She glanced at Ben, her confidence veiled by the same polite facade that marked every other guest in the room. “We were finished with our conversation.”

  “I thought you were.” West guided her in a smooth turn, never once acknowledging Ben’s presence by so much as a direct glance. “There’s an old family friend who-”

  “Sara.” Ben interrupted, reclaiming her attention. “Thanks for the tip.”

  For an instant, the confidence returned to center stage in her eyes, and her smile challenged and captivated him all over again. “Think nothing of it,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to go home emptyhanded.”

  “As I was saying…” West turned her like a pancake, and Ben was awarded a view of her back, which wasn’t altogether a bad thing because she was poetry in motion. He watched the sway of her hips with unabashed admiration and thought that if Ridgeman was half as smart as he thought he was, he’d find a way to walk several steps behind her.

  There was a dim rumble in the kitchen, a noise that grew louder and more distracting, until everyone in the room heard and turned to look at the door. Into the momentary hush, a clatter of metal fell like a gunshot and then a voice lifted out of the noise like a phoenix. “Hey, get out of there! Leave that alone! Drop it! Drop it, I tell you!” Another clatter, and the swinging door slammed back on its hinges as Cleo dashed into the room, carrying a slab of roast beef nearly as big as her head and followed by a squat, tan-and-black dog with a crumpled nose and the gleam of fresh meat in its beady eyes. Behind them, Arthur gave chase, a carving knife in one hand, a cutting board in the other.

  “Brody!” DeeNee stepped into the dogs’ path.

  “Cleo!” Sara stepped in front of DeeNee.

  “You know this dog?” West didn’t step in front of anyone. He just looked astonished.

  Ben didn’t step up to claim responsibility. As the dogs veered in his direction, he jumped from behind the bar, sending it in an unfortunate and unerring collision with a pedestal table and a rather ugly piece of sculpture. Bottles crashed, beer spewed, wine gushed, liquor poured, and the artwork shattered, lost to the world forever in a sea of booze. Worse, Cleo was too agile for him, and Ben caught only the end of her tail. He tried to hold her, but she slipped free and raced for the open terrace doors with her prize.

  Quick-thinking Harry and his colleagues blocked her exit, although Ben wasn’t sure why. Maybe they thought the roast beef was worth saving even if the reception was now beyond repair. Like an oil spill, Cleo covered the room in a matter of seconds, leaving devastation in her wake. A glass-topped table tipped over and broke apart as she tried to squeeze under it. She hurdled a sofa and landed, none too delicately, on the terrazzo tile. Her feet slipped on the polished floor, and her hind legs went into a skid that wiped out a tray of hors d’oeuvres and several glasses. Behind her, the pug grabbed bits of fallen hors d’oeuvres as he scurried to keep up. Wherever Cleo had jumped or skirted a piece of furniture, Brody left his footprints, tracking wine across the sofa, two Oriental rugs and a white cashmere afghan.

  One woman of matronly stature stepped onto the seat cushion of a wing chair and jumped up and down as she yelled, “Mad dogs! Mad dogs!”

  Far from being mad, the two dogs seemed pretty sane as they maneuvered past would-be dogcatchers and startled guests to race up the stairs. Ben would have caught Cleo if he hadn’t noticed that the maddog matron was about to tip over in her chair and stopped to prevent the disaster. When he reached the foyer, Sara, DeeNee, West and Arthur were standing at the foot of the curving stairway looking up at the two dogs as they gobbled their pnze on the second-floor landing.

  “What idiot let that dog in here?” Ridgeman’s voice trembled with outrage.

  “She must have come in with Brody,” DeeNee said. “Through the doggy door.”

  “That fat little pug can barely squeeze through there, much less a dog as big as that one.”

  “The terrace doors are open off the living room.” Ben pointed out the logical explanation. “The dogs could have come in any time and found their way to the kitchen.”

  Ridgeman wasn’t ready for logic. “When I find out who owns that black disaster, they’re going to find themselves facing a court date and a lawsuit for damages.”

  Ben didn’t like threats, and he certainly didn’t like them from lawyers. “Then I suppose you’re looking for-”

  “Me.” Sara stepped in front of West, effectively preventing Ben from doing so. “I’ll accept full responsibility. Cleo came with me.”

  Chapter Seven

  From inside the van, Sara stared morosely at the big house. “West will never speak to me again.”

  “Or me.” Ben turned in his seat to loo
k in the back, where Cleo lay in abject humiliation. “And that goes triple for you, hellhound.”

  “Don’t call her that.” Sara rested her head against the seat back. “She’s more miserable than I am.”

  “She deserves to have a world-class stomachache. She all but swallowed that piece of beef whole.”

  “Brody ate part of it.”

  “One bite to three of her gulps. I’m just grateful she didn’t throw up until I got her outside.”

  “A disastrous night,” Sara said. “Although I don’t know why I’m surprised. Murphy’s Law has nothing on the Gunnerson Rule of Thumb.”

  “Which is?”

  “When opportunity knocks, take cover.”

  Ben laughed and reached behind his seat. “I filched these from the bar.” He held up two beer bottles. “I’m sure you have a rule of one sort or another against At Your Service employees pilfering alcoholic beverages while on duty. But when the bar crashed, I figured I was out of a job, anyway.” He offered her one of the bottles. “It isn’t the private stock, but it isn’t the cheap stuff, either.”

  She ought to hang tough and refuse to partake of illgotten goods. On the other hand, she was out of a job, too…more or less. The referrals she’d hoped to gain among West’s associates had crashed with the party, and by the time she reimbursed West for all the damage, the cost of a couple of beers would be small potatoes. “Did you steal a bottle opener, too?”

  “Real men are born with all the tools they need.” He wedged off the cap with his thumb and handed the bottle to her. “Bottoms up.”

  “Aren’t you having one?” she asked. “After you went to all the trouble of smuggling them out of the house?”

  With a slight smile, he shoved his thumb against the second bottle cap and flipped it across the dashboard.

  As she raised the bottle to her lips, Sara noticed the furtive way he pressed his thumb against his mouth. “You didn’t hurt your tool, did you?”

  A sheepish glint merely enhanced the seductive humor in his eyes. “I think from now on I’ll carry a bottle opener in my pocket.”

  “Don’t be too hasty. That kind of macho muscle flexing impresses a lot of women. DeeNee, for one.”