by Beth Andrews
CHAPTER TWELVE
HALF AN HOUR LATER the speed dating thing had ended—and Dean had tossed the air horn in the Dumpster out back. He mixed what had to be his sixtieth cosmopolitan of the night and wondered about the allure of pink drinks. The ladies in The Summit sure couldn’t get enough of them.
Probably because Allie had made all red and pink drinks half price in honor of Valentine’s Day.
After finishing the order, he dunked a fresh cloth in cleaning solution. He heard the unmistakable sound of Allie’s laughter, which was crazy seeing as the noise level in the room was off the charts. Wringing out the cloth, he raised his head as he searched the crowd for her.
He slapped the cloth onto the counter when he found her holding court by the pool table with a half dozen males of various shape, size and age. The only thing they had in common was their open appreciation of Allie.
Or at least, their appreciation of how well she filled out that damn red sweater of hers.
Dean scrubbed at the counter. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what happened in her kitchen the other day. How she’d felt under his hands and mouth. How she’d trembled.
“I take it you’re not into competition?” Kelsey sidled up next to him, a smirk on her face.
“Why?” he asked. “You want to challenge me to an arm wrestling match?”
“If I thought I could win, you bet.” She nodded toward the small jungle of flowers by the cash register. “How many bouquets do you think Allie got today? Five? Six?”
“Eight,” he said before he could stop himself.
She pursed her lips. “Right. Eight. Plus three boxes of candy and one very ugly red teddy bear. What does that tell you?”
“That the florists and gift shops in Serenity Springs praise the day she moved back to town?”
Kelsey opened a bottle of water and took a long drink, watching him steadily over the rim. “You know, despite my initial doubts, I think I could learn to like you.”
“I’m a very likable guy.” He gave her his most charming grin.
She twisted the cap back on the bottle. Untwisted it. “Be that as it may, I can’t help but wonder if you’re pulling the deep freeze on Allie because of all the attention she gets from the opposite sex.” She gave his hand a pat. “What’s the matter? Feeling insecure?”
“I’m not freezing her out and I’m not threatened by the attention she gets from, or gives to, the opposite sex. Allie and I have a business relationship. Period.”
“For your sake, I hope you’re telling the truth. Because if you do anything to hurt her,” Kelsey said, pointing her bottle at him like a weapon, “I will come after you like the wrath of God.”
He’d been warned off by a redhead who probably weighed one hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. And yet he was just the slightest bit scared of her.
One thing was for sure. This job hadn’t been boring.
He watched Allie lead a middle-aged man in a dark suit over to a back table. “You don’t think she can take care of herself?”
“Please. Allie can take care of herself, this bar and half the population of Serenity Springs without breaking one perfectly manicured nail.”
“Exactly.” Dean gestured to a chubby brunette, one of the many women who’d come for the speed dating, that he’d be with her in a moment. He turned back to Kelsey. “Allie’s one of the smartest, savviest, most capable people I’ve ever met. But if it’ll set your mind at ease—and get you off my back—I promise I’ll do everything in my power not to hurt her.”
He left Kelsey with a thoughtful frown on her face.
“Evening,” he said to the brunette. “What can I get you?”
Behind her black, rectangular glasses, she blinked her muddy-brown eyes. “Uh…white wine?”
He grinned. “You asking or ordering?”
She brushed her heavy, brow skimming bangs to the side. “Sorry. I’d like a glass of white wine. Chardonnay, please.”
She took off her gray coat and then dug through her purse as he poured. While he knew she hadn’t been in The Summit before, he must’ve seen her around town because she seemed vaguely familiar. Then again, during the course of the evening he’d recognized several Serenity Springs’s singles taking part in the speed dating, including a bubbly redhead who worked at the bakery, a local cop who looked more like a linebacker, and the guy who delivered mail to the bar.
The woman pulled out her cell phone and a twenty and set her bag aside. Twisting a chunk of drab brown, shoulder-length hair around her finger as she opened her phone, she checked something, then closed it again.
“Here you go.” He set her drink in front of her.
“Thank you.” She handed him the twenty but knocked her glass over. “Oh!” She grabbed her phone with one hand, righted the now empty glass with the other. “I’m so sorry. I’m such a klutz.”
“No problem.” Dean wiped up the mess and took the glass from her. “Let me get you another one. On the house.”
She blushed and shook her head. “Thank you, but I’d rather pay for both.”
“It’s really not—”
“I insist.”
He raised his eyebrows. Who knew a stubborn streak could be hidden under such a plain exterior? Guess that proved what his mother always said about not judging by appearances. Was his mom ever wrong?
He refilled the customer’s glass. “Can I get you anything else?”
She smiled shyly at him. “No, thanks.”
He rang up her wine—both glasses—and handed her the change. “You here for the dating extravaganza?” he asked, even though he’d seen her switching dates a few times this evening.
She sipped her wine. “My boss asked me to come with her, and I’ve always had a hard time saying no to the person signing my paycheck.”
He nodded at the college kid who held up his empty glass. Mixing another rum and coke, Dean realized where he’d seen her before. She worked at that beauty parlor next to the pizza place on Union Street. He’d followed Allie there on Wednesday and seen the brunette through the window.
He gave the rum and coke to his customer as Allie joined them. “Ellen,” she said as she hugged the brunette. “I didn’t know you were coming tonight.”
“Georgie talked me into it. She didn’t want to come alone so…”
“So you got stuck playing her wing-woman?”
Ellen smiled. “She’s been so good to me, I didn’t see the harm.”
“So, how was it?” Allie asked. “Did you meet anyone special? Make plans to get together again?”
Ellen looked as horrified as if Allie had just attempted to pimp her out to the highest bidder. “No. I mean…I wasn’t serious. It was more to pass the time.”
“Well, that’s too bad,” Allie said. “I saw you sitting with Jared during that last round and he’s so nice—cute and smart and funny. The kids he teaches at the high school love him. If you want I could—”
“Hey, Yentl,” Dean said to Allie when he noticed Ellen’s pale face and the death grip she had on her purse, “ease up on the hard sell.”
Allie glared at him before she saw how freaked out Ellen was. “Sorry. I guess I…got carried away by the spirit of the evening.”
“I appreciate the offer but really, I’m not interested.”
“No problem. If you change your mind, though, Jared is a very nice man.”
Dean winced. Sweet God, if a woman as sexy as Allie ever described him as a very nice man in any context whatsoever, he hoped someone would shoot him and end his misery.
He waited on another customer while Allie and Ellen chatted. When he returned, the brunette was gone.
“What happened?” he asked Allie. “Did you scare her off?”
“Hardly.” She scooped ice into a glass and poured cranberry juice over it. “Her son’s recovering from a bad cold so she went home.”
“More than likely she got out of here before you brought up nice-guy Jared again.”
“It’s not
like I dragged the man over here,” she said, waving the bar’s soda gun around. “I was simply pointing out that if she was in the market for a date, so to speak, she could do a lot worse than Jared.” Allie stabbed a straw into her glass. “I didn’t sell her into matrimony.”
“I thought after what happened with Richie you were going to stop saving the world and put yourself first?”
She met his eyes. “I tried that the other day. It didn’t quite work out, remember?”
His phone vibrated, but even though he was waiting for a call from Nolan, Dean ignored it. He edged closer. He was so tired of keeping his distance, of fighting his feelings for Allie. She stood her ground.
“Seems to me things worked out just fine for you that morning,” he said huskily. He slid a finger over the back of her hand. “And I sure don’t have any complaints.”
Instead of backing up as he expected her to do, she took a step forward so that their thighs brushed. “If you hadn’t run off, you wouldn’t have had any complaints about what happened next, either.”
His mind blanked and then filled with images of them together. “You might not understand this,” he told her, “but I’m trying to do the right thing here.”
Her smile was slow and sensual. “Who’s stopping you? Now, you might want to answer your phone or turn it off. Or else people are going to think that vibrating bulge in your pocket is something else entirely.”
“Hello?” Luckily, the voice on the other end wasn’t Nolan’s, or else in Dean’s state, he’d probably blow his cover wide open.
“Hello, sugar! Happy Valentine’s Day.”
Even though it’d been this past Christmas since he’d last heard that voice, he had no trouble placing it. “Mama?” He noticed Allie watching him curiously. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s just fine, thanks in part to the gorgeous dozen roses you sent. But a visit from you in person would’ve been even better.”
There was no way he could fend off his mother’s reproach while under his boss’s watchful eyes. “Could you hold on a minute?” He covered the mouthpiece. “Do you mind if I take a quick break?” he asked Allie.
“By all means,” she said, shooing him away. “I’ll handle your end of the bar.”
He nodded and brought the phone back up to his ear, holding his free hand over his other ear to block out some of the noise. One good thing about talking to his mother, hearing her voice killed any sexual thoughts he might have been having about Allie.
He might have to send her another dozen roses just for that.
ALLIE PULLED TWO DRAFTS and had Kelsey mix up a raspberry lemon drop, which she gave the customer for half price as part of her Valentine’s Day red drink promotion. Allie was pouring three shots of Jack Daniel’s for a trio of twenty-something guys in jeans and polos when Dean returned.
“Thanks,” he said, filling the next order for an imported beer. “I’ll take it from here.”
“This the no-good, untrustworthy, womanizing cowboy I’ve been hearing way too much about?”
Next to her, Dean bristled. Allie sighed. “Did Kelsey really call him a womanizer or did you make that part up?” she asked Dillon Ward, who stood at the bar, his arm around Nina Carlson’s waist.
Dillon ran his free hand through his auburn hair. Even though she could tell he’d recently had a trim, the ends still reached his collar. “You think I would use the word womanizer on my own?”
“Well, in that case, yes, this is him,” Allie said. “Dean, these are dear friends of mine, Dillon Ward and Nina Carlson. Dillon is Kelsey’s brother.”
“That would explain it,” Dean said.
“Nice to meet you.” Nina’s dimple flashed as she smiled. She turned to Dillon. “While you two do your manly, sizing each other up thing, I’m going to go over and say hi to Kelsey.” She kissed his cheek, rolled her eyes at Allie and walked away.
“I have customers waiting,” Dean said. “I think I’ll skip the sizing up portion of the evening.”
Watching Dean move down to serve the next person, Allie leaned her elbows on the bar. “Good to see you still know how to clear a room with your sparkling personality, Dillon.”
“Room’s still full. I want to talk to you.”
“If you’re here to discuss Dean—”
“The cowboy?” He laughed. “I’m not. We both know that if you wanted, you could have him wrapped around your little finger. My sister’s time would be better spent worrying about how that poor bastard’s going to survive you.”
“It’s not like that between me and—oh, sit down.” She opened a bottle of his favorite beer and gestured toward an empty stool.
He shoved his hands into his coat pockets. “Can we go into the kitchen? I need to ask you something.”
“Sure.” She took his beer and her drink, told Kelsey she’d be right back, and followed him out of the room. “What’s up?” she asked as she sat at the table. “Is everything okay with Nina and the kids?”
“Yeah, they’re all fine.” But he wouldn’t look at her and he kept pacing.
“Trey didn’t get his visitation rights back, did he?”
A few months ago, Nina had petitioned family court to grant her full custody of her two young children. She had needed to get them away from her ex-husband’s physical and emotional abuse.
“No, he still only has supervised visits twice a week for a few hours.”
She wiped her damp palms down the legs of her jeans. “Well, what is it then?”
Dillon dug into his pocket, pulled out a silver jeweler’s box and slammed it onto the table. “Open it.”
Her heart racing, Allie set her drink aside before lifting the lid. “Oh,” she breathed, “it’s beautiful.” She held the box up so the solitary princess diamond caught the light. She glanced at him. “But shouldn’t you be kneeling? If a guy’s going to propose to me, he’d better want me badly enough to get on his knee.”
“Then it’s lucky for me I’m not proposing to you, isn’t it?”
“That’s a shame, because to get my hands on this ring—or should I say, to get this ring on my hand—I might have said yes.”
He snatched the box from her, scowling. “Do you think Nina will like it?”
Allie stood and squeezed his arm. “If she doesn’t, she’s not the woman I think she is.”
He snapped the lid shut. “It’s not much. The ring Trey gave her was probably bigger. Flashier.”
“Are you kidding?” Allie’s heart was so full of love for him, she thought it would burst. “That sucker was huge. It was like she had a small boulder on her finger.”
He gave her one of his I’m-a-big-bad-ex-convict-and-you’d-better-not-mess-with-me looks. The one that had sent more than one person in town running.
“Don’t be an idiot. This ring is perfect. Besides, do you really think Nina’s going to care about what size diamond you give her? Or worse, compare you to Trey?”
He tapped the box against his thigh. “You’re right. It’s just that…I’m so nervous. I haven’t been this afraid since my first day in prison,” he admitted quietly.
“Any time a man asks a woman to marry him, he should be nervous.” Allie rubbed his back. “But Nina’s crazy about you. And so are her kids.”
He stuck the box back in his pocket. “The feeling’s mutual.” He took a long drink from his beer, leaning against the table, then he picked at the label on the bottle. “I even got Hayley a necklace with a diamond that matches the ring. I wasn’t sure what to give Marcus so I wrote him a letter, telling him how proud I am of him and how I’ll always be there for him no matter what.”
Her eyes welled. How could such a strong man seem so unsure of himself because he wanted to make the people he loved happy? Because he wanted to do right by them?
“The necklace and the letter are both wonderful, thoughtful gifts,” she said. “Nina and the kids are so lucky to have you in their lives.”
“Hey,” he said, straightening quickly an
d setting down his beer, “turn off the waterworks. You’d think someone died or something.”
She sniffed but couldn’t stop the tears from running down her face. “I’m so happy for you. Less than a year ago you were pathetic and alone—”
“Pathetic?” He looked to the ceiling. “Why me?”
“I was your only friend—”
“What you were was a pain in the ass who wouldn’t let me live in peace.”
“No one would hire you. Half the town was afraid of you.” She crossed to the counter for a paper towel. Wiped her nose. “And you spent most of your time cultivating your dangerous reputation so people wouldn’t find out that underneath that tough-guy exterior is nothing but a big old mushy teddy bear.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “If you don’t knock it off, I might start bawling, too.”
“And now you have a relationship with your sister again and you’re in love with a wonderful woman—a woman who loves you right back and whose kids are nuts over you,” Allie said, her voice breaking. “I’m ju-just…so ec-ecstat…happy for you!” She jumped into his arms, sobbing into his neck. “You deserve a family of your own.” She leaned back and grinned, her face still wet with tears. “I love you, you know that?”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah. I know.” Then he shocked her by squeezing her tight, which only succeeded in making her cry again in earnest. “I love you, too.” He set her on her feet and tapped the end of her nose. “But you’re still a pain in the ass.”
SHE WAS DRIVING HIM CRAZY.
Dean gritted his teeth and slammed a chair onto a table. He could ignore Allie playing the radio, filling the empty bar with the latest pop tunes instead of the classic rock on the jukebox. He could even deal with her singing along to aforementioned pop songs, mostly because, as he’d noticed when he’d walked into the kitchen for his interview last week, she didn’t sound half-bad.
But he couldn’t handle how she shimmied and otherwise shook her ass to each and every song. Or worse, the stab of jealousy he’d felt earlier when she’d walked out of the kitchen with Dillon Ward, her arm linked with his, her head on his shoulder. Tears in her eyes.