Fyre, Raven - Blind Man's Bluff (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Raven Fyre

  Instead of shaking, he covered her hand in both of his warm, strong hands and held it cocooned there long enough for her pulse to nearly race out of her veins. “The pleasure’s ours, believe me. I’ve heard so much about you it seems like we’ve known each other for years. My deepest condolences for your loss.” He finally released her hand and glanced at Rachel. “Tyler sends his apologies. He had a meeting in Loxley with a distributor. Are you sure there’s nothing either of us can do?”

  Though his words were obviously directed at Rachel, his piercing, blue-gray eyes—so full of concern, they stole her breath—searched Chloe’s for an answer. “Thank you, but we’re fine. In fact, we’re overrun with food. Another day or so and we could set up a café and start selling lunches out of the carport. Can I get you a sandwich? Or a drink?”

  “The coffee smells great.”

  “Coming right up.”

  “Thanks.” He pulled out one of the wooden, ladder-back chairs and sat at the scuffed, round table where she’d enjoyed so many meals over the course of her childhood. Her grandfather had sanded and refinished it once, but time and use had again dulled the glossy coat.

  Jackson Sawyer, all pressed and polished in his crisp, ocean-blue dress shirt and tailored khaki pants, looked completely out of place in Gram’s humble domain. The outdated appliances were harvest gold, and the hardwood floors, like the table, could’ve stood a good buffing and a healthy coat of varnish. Gram had never seen the need nor had she possessed the funds to replace the old, yellowing laminate countertops.

  Yet, for all his perfection and his blatant affluence, Chloe failed to detect a single shred of condescension in Jackson’s manner or his tone. He politely accepted the mug that sported a cross and one of Gram’s favorite scriptures and helped himself to cream and sugar from the mismatched porcelain service on the lazy Susan. The sugar bowl was white with a cheerful frog perched atop the lid, and the tiny pitcher dispensed cream through the bill of a mallard duck.

  Gram and her odd collections, Chloe mused.

  “I hate to bail on you both, but my psych professor’s letting me make up an exam I missed earlier in the week.” Rachel grabbed her purse and rummaged the cavernous depths for her car keys. “I have to be there by one.”

  Jackson nodded. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “The earlier the better. It’ll be standing room only by ten.” With a wave to Jackson and a swift hug for Chloe, Rachel rushed off.

  “She’s right,” Chloe seconded. “The church is tiny, and Gram must’ve known every soul from here to Mobile.”

  Because she needed to busy her hands, Chloe stacked up several sandwiches with assorted meats and cheeses and sliced them into angled halves. Then she peeled one red and one golden apple. She brought the plates and her mug of coffee to the table and settled into a chair across from Jackson. Taking napkins from the basket, she offered him one and motioned to the plates.

  “God knows they’ve all sent food. The freezer’s overflowing with casseroles and cobblers. The carport looks like an ice chest convention. We could feed the entire Western world for a week…and I mentioned that.”

  God, she was rambling. But what was she supposed to do, supposed to talk about with this gorgeous stranger who caused her heart rate to accelerate just by looking into those mesmerizing eyes?

  In contrast to his professional attire, she noted the lean, tanned fingers curling around the mug. His hands looked so capable and strong, a working man’s hands. Odd, she thought, for an affluent nightclub owner. Chloe couldn’t help wondering what sort of work he might put his back into once he stripped down to jeans and a T. Or how those hands, slightly callused and so utterly masculine, might feel on her skin.

  No, no. She wasn’t going to think about that. Men were trouble. Men were scum. Dicks without brains, willing to screw any wet and willing cunt they could sniff out. Speaking of which…her pussy was growing wetter by the minute, throbbing.

  Damn it.

  Chloe clenched her thighs in a futile attempt to stop the ache that had started to beat in tempo with her heartbeat.

  “Rachel mentioned you’re working for Harry Tubbs.”

  “You know Harry?” The surprise was evident in her tone.

  He shrugged. “He and Dad go way back. High school days and football stories, that sort of thing.”

  “Small world,” she remarked, grateful for the diversionary topic. “Harry’s been great about letting me get in as many hours as possible between classes. And he was so understanding about giving me a couple weeks off just now.” She bit the corner off a turkey and wheat triangle. “I didn’t realize your folks were from Birmingham. So, you grew up there?”

  “Yeah, Tyler and I moved down after college and started the clubs. Spending summer vacations and spring breaks here…The mountains are great, but we both just knew being close to the beach was what we really wanted long-term.”

  Clubs. Plural. Apparently, they were even more successful than she’d realized. “It is beautiful, if you can take the sand and the perpetual heat. It isn’t for everybody.”

  “Is that why you moved?”

  “No…ah, no.” She chewed her bottom lip and stared off at the faded vines of ivy climbing up the paper on Gram’s walls. The only good thing about dredging up her past was that it quickly doused her arousal. “I married my high school sweetheart almost immediately after graduation. We moved a couple months later when he took a job in Trussville working for his uncle. After we divorced, it was…easier, I suppose, to stay in the same rut, the same job. Finally, though, I decided I’d had enough of the rut and did what I should have done to begin with—college.”

  “Nursing?”

  A hint of a smile curved her lips. “That’s right. I’m on the home stretch. You must tend the bar.”

  The smile was contagious. “Why do you say that?”

  “You have a good ear and a better memory. And a way of instantly putting people at ease so that they spill their guts without realizing it.” She propped her chin in her hand. “When most people ask questions, they’re just making polite conversation. And most either tune out the answers because they think they already know them or they don’t really care. Obviously, as you said, Rachel’s talked your ear off about me. Harry. Nursing. You’ve listened, and not just on the pretense of being polite. Harry’s that way—knows every detail about a customer, down to the names of their kids, when they leave his bar. He has an amazing memory.”

  Jackson chuckled. “He and Dad have that in common, too. Suppose I inherited the quality. Tyler’s the numbers man. I started out tending the bar when we first opened High Tide, while Ty keeps us floating, financially solvent. Now, well, I stick to management.”

  “Sorry, excuse me,” Chloe said and jumped up when the phone interrupted for what must’ve been the hundredth time just today alone. “It’s like the food—never ending.” She grabbed the handset off the counter, and her brow furrowed at the caller display. “Hello?”

  “Rachel?”

  “No. This is Chloe.”

  “Ah, yes, Chloe. How are you, dear? It’s Ed, Ed Botter.” From the bank and from Gram’s church, Chloe recalled. “My condolences, honey.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Botter.”

  “Listen, honey, I need for you to come by the bank and take care of a little paperwork. As soon as possible. Can you do that for me, honey?”

  What was she, twelve?

  If he honey’d her one more time, she’d scream. “Of course, Mr. Botter. How’s this afternoon—say, three?”

  “Excellent. I’ll see you then.”

  Chloe punched off the phone, but she couldn’t shake the odd feeling that something wasn’t right. Mr. Botter had sounded rather anxious about her coming in and extremely relieved when she’d agreed. More relieved than one would expect of a banker merely settling the accounts of a deceased client.

  Out of habit, Chloe picked up the carafe and moved to the table, refilling Jackson’s cup then her own. She looked do
wn and was shocked to see those long, lean fingers braceleting her wrist. As with a burn or a cut when the shock wears off and the pain receptors finally kick in, she suddenly felt the heat, the strength of his firm yet gentle grip.

  Her startled gaze flew to his and locked on. This close, this focused on his irises, she noticed the flecks of pale green mixed in with the blue and gray. He really had the most mesmerizing eyes, accentuated by thick brows and lashes longer than the law should allow for a male. They went well with his sensual mouth, balanced out the strong nose and jaw.

  “Chloe? I asked if everything was all right.”

  He’d spoken? His touch, that look…She flinched. Boy, she’d really gotten lost for a minute there. Slippery slope. Get a grip, girl. Fast. “I, ah, yes. Yes. Sorry. That was just…business. Settling Gram’s accounts, that sort of thing.”

  “Is there anything I can do? Anything you need?”

  The list was long and complicated, she mused. But the apple hadn’t fallen far from Gram, Chloe figured. Like her Gram, Chloe was too stubborn to step over her mountainous pride and take an offered hand. No, if she took anything, it would be earned.

  Jackson’s thumb was lazily rubbing the skin of her wrist, sending little shivers of heat up her arm. Making it awfully hard to form a thought.

  What was it about him that turned her brain to mush?

  Rachel certainly hadn’t exaggerated about his looks. The tanned skin, the toned body, the ruggedly handsome features. The sun-streaked, light brown hair he wore in a shaggy, wind-tousled cut that contrasted with his meticulous appearance. There was humor in his eyes, charm and sensuality in his smile. And an all-too-appealing confidence in his manner.

  All in all, Jackson Sawyer made a very attractive package.

  She now sympathized wholeheartedly with Rachel’s disappointment concerning the Sawyers’ no-dating-among-staff policy. Not that she was interested, because she wasn’t. Her life was turned upside down enough without throwing a man into the mix. Besides, Rachel was her focus now, after seeing Gram properly put to rest.

  Priorities, she hated to have to remind herself.

  “I don’t want to put you in an awkward situation. Or Rachel,” Chloe added. “But, well, maybe you know someone—another club owner or one of the local restaurant managers—that would let me pick up a few shifts while I’m here?”

  He released her wrist, and she returned the carafe to the heated, black circle of the maker.

  “Let me make a few phone calls.” His voice was at her ear. His hands were lightly gripping her upper arms.

  She hadn’t even heard him move. But she felt the heat radiating off his massive body, pinned as she was between him and the counter. She stared at the cabinet in front of her and nodded. It was all she could do with the frisson of sexual awareness rippling over her body.

  He pressed his lips to her hair, and she heard the intake of a deep breath, as if he were breathing her in. A million tiny hummingbird wings suddenly took to fluttering in her stomach.

  This strange, startling reaction to Jackson Sawyer was not wise.

  Not wise at all.

  “I have to get back to the club.” His voice sounded oddly strained. “I’ll make some calls, and I’ll let you know. Chloe?”

  She managed to whisper, “Yes?”

  “Night or day.” He stroked a hand over the hair he’d kissed. “Anything.”

  Whew!

  It took a minute for her system to calm, for her legs to remember how to move so she could turn around. And when she did, he was already shoving through the screen door. She blew out a ragged breath and leaned back against the counter for support.

  Jackson Sawyer wasn’t just eye candy with brains and charm. He was trouble with a—capital T.

  She didn’t know what to make of their…encounter? What to even call it? He hadn’t been creepy and groping, but he had most definitely been hitting on her. The subtle caresses, his offer of help. Smooth. The man was very, very smooth. And she couldn’t even think about the brief, light kiss or the way he’d breathed her in.

  Chloe had been hit on enough times in her career as a waitress to recognize the signs of an interested male. Problem was, she was interested right back. Off-the-charts interested. And the timing sucked mud—the red, Alabama clay variety.

  Clearing the table, she noted the cream-colored rectangle lying next to his half-empty mug. She picked it up and turned it over. The front was embossed with the club’s moniker, High Tide, the address and phone number, and a shiny brass anchor. Flipping it back over, she realized he’d written his cell and home numbers.

  Night or day, he’d insisted. Anything.

  How could one word hold so much unspoken meaning?

  How could a man she’d only just met make her so unbelievably weak?

  Unwittingly, Chloe ran her thumb over the bold, dark script and thought of his thumb rubbing her wrist. Her skin tingled in response, and she closed her eyes, trying to block out the sensations he’d stirred.

  Sensations she’d long ago buried. Or so she’d thought.

  It would’ve been so much easier if he’d just been blatantly tactless and made some sort of insensitive, inappropriate move on her while they were right here in Gram’s kitchen, under Gram’s roof. But Jackson Sawyer was the epitome of a Southern gentleman. Sophisticated. Refined. He was well-educated and successful and sexy as hell. He possessed an edge most men would’ve pressed to their advantage.

  To Chloe, the fact that he hadn’t done so only made him infinitely more alluring. Keenly aware of the circumstances that had called her home, of her impending responsibilities, she knew getting tangled with a man—any man—would be ill-advised. Besides, in another week, tops, she’d be back in Birmingham, back to waiting tables for Harry and gearing up for her final semester of nursing.

  Chloe Rezner wasn’t the type for a crazy, fast fling.

  And nothing would distract her from achieving her goals, especially not some man, even if he was the most gorgeous man she’d ever met, who also happened to spark a fire in her blood so hot, so intense that it was shocking. It was an intensity she’d never, ever felt before.

  But never again, she’d vowed. Marrying Clint Rezner had been the swiftly learned, harsh life lesson of the millennium. Since ditching him like the cheating dead weight he’d proven himself to be, Chloe had worked too hard and come too far.

  No man was worth giving up her dreams.

  “Damn,” she muttered after a glance at the clock. “Gotta get a move on.”

  She tucked Jackson’s business card away in the pocket of her jeans, wishing she could do the same with the troubling sensations he’d churned up, and went to change for her appointment with Mr. Botter.

  Chapter 2

  At this hour of the day, High Tide was reminiscent of a ghost town. Mickey was manning the bar, and a trio of the club’s best waitresses milled about, making preparations for the crowds that would flow in come sundown.

  “Hey, Mr. J.”

  “Afternoon, Mick,” Jackson replied. “Has Ty been in?”

  Mickey cocked his head toward the stairs at the end of the bar. “Upstairs. If he asks about the case of Jameson, tell him we got it straight.”

  “Will do.”

  True to Mickey’s word, Jackson found Ty pouring over the books. Thank God the man had inherited their mother’s head for numbers. Give Jackson the hands to shake and the customers to schmooze. He’d always been more at ease with people than with the tidy little columns of figures that insisted on being balanced. In that respect, Jackson was just like their dear old dad.

  Funny, he mused, how quickly Chloe had assessed his skills, pegging him as a natural for tending bar.

  Ty glanced up from his work as Jackson dropped onto the dark brown leather sofa that lined one wall. “How was Rachel?”

  “Holding up. She had to rush off and make up an exam, so we didn’t talk long.” He scooped a hand through his hair. “We could use another set of capable hands, just for a
few days, don’t you think?”

  Looking up again, Ty’s dark blue gaze narrowed in on his older brother. “Suppose we could. Why?”

  “Chloe, Rachel’s sister. Remember, she’s the one working for Harry and finishing up her degree in nursing? Being here’s obviously a strain, financially speaking as well as emotionally. She asked if we might know someone who’d be willing to let her pick up a couple shifts.”

  “Not the best idea, having her here.”

  “It’s only a couple shifts,” Jackson repeated, knowing exactly where Ty’s mind was headed.

  “Couple shifts, my ass. She favors Rachel?”

  Scrubbing a hand over the stubble sprouting on his chin, Jackson thought of how best to describe Chloe Rezner in comparison to her sister. The looks, he supposed, were similar enough. Typical sibling characteristics, thick, dark locks, killer bodies, the same heart-shaped faces, the same affable personality that served them well, considering the jobs they’d chosen.

  But Chloe’s hair held a hint of waves and a silky sheen of fiery auburn highlights. Rachel’s did not. She’d smelled as fresh and clean as sunshine. And her arms had been deceptively smaller, more fragile than he’d first thought, beneath his hands.

  She was a couple inches taller than Rachel as well. Perfect, Jackson thought, though it wasn’t wise to recall exactly how perfectly she’d fit, with her head just under his chin. It was foolish of him to wonder how those perfectly lush curves would feel pressed up against him. Even more reckless to let his thoughts run wild with ideas of having those long, slender legs and arms vining around him while she cradled his body and welcomed him deep inside her.

  Those eyes of hers were like the clearest Caribbean waters, a beautiful, sparkling turquoise wreathed in thick, long, black lashes. A man could drown in those eyes. And her skin was pale as cream with the appearance of smooth, delicate porcelain. He couldn’t imagine such perfection being marred by the sun or the tanning booths Rachel worshipped.

  Beauty and the sexy body aside, Jackson also admired what he knew of Chloe’s personal history. Losing her parents at a young age. Supporting herself and putting herself through college after what Rachel called a rough divorce. The path she’d had to travel in life had been rutty and harsh. Clearly, she was stronger than she looked.