At Your Service

by Amy Jo Cousins

  When Grace had replied that to hurt most of these women's feelings, you'd have to kick them rather hard in the rear because their heads had obviously already been affected by their cocktails, Tyler had simply laughed.

  Even with these three at the bar, one of whom looked ready to slide off her bar stool into a liquid puddle on the floor, he was at his most charming, winking and smiling like a politician.

  When he finally came down to the wait station to collect her checks and money from lunch, Grace was already untying her apron, ready to walk out the door.

  "Don't tell me you're abandoning me to those three?"

  Grace flicked a dismissive glance at the three beauties at the other end of the bar. The one in the middle had her fingers hooked in her mouth in what Grace hoped was an attempt to whistle Tyler back down to them. "Looks like they're having a grand old time. You should be proud."

  "Grace, please." Tyler grabbed her hand and pulled it to his chest. "They're blitzed, they've been coming here for lunch every day for a week, and now the dark-haired one is threatening to make me judge a lingerie contest between the three of them."

  "A lingerie contest?" Grace tried to keep the grin she felt from creeping onto her face as she realized that Tyler's desperation was very much real.

  "All I know is that they said something about demi versus. full cup," he said. "And then I ran away. Come on, Gracie, help me out here. In another ten minutes I'm going to have a bunch of half-naked women sitting at my bar."

  "Big John and Ted would be thrilled," she drawled, referring to the two construction workers who came in every day after work for a beer. Then she took pity on him and ducked beneath the countertop to join him behind the bar. She turned sideways to scoot past Tyler in the narrow space and was surprised to feel his hands wrap themselves around her waist.

  He bent over her and buried his face against her neck for one long moment while she stood frozen. In a week, he hadn't touched her, except by accident, and now she could feel his lips pressed against her neck, not kissing her, but just resting there softly. When he lifted his head, brushed his lips across her cheekbone and ear, his breath washing against her skin warmly, she shivered, and knew he felt it.

  "Just in case you have to pretend to be my girlfriend," he whispered in her ear. His hands where they rested on her waist were warm. His fingers flexed gently. "To save me."

  She wedged her hands between them and shoved him away with a sharp push to his chest, sure that he was making fun of her. Wondered how long she would remember the feel of the flat planes and smooth ridges of his body beneath her hands.

  "I wouldn't pretend to be your girlfriend," she said sweetly, "to save you from a pack of ravening wolves."

  "Hopefully the wolves wouldn't be trying to get me into bed." Tyler threw up his hands in surrender before she made up her mind to take a swing at him. "Just make them go away, Gracie, please."

  "Relax, Mr. Magnetism. I'll have them out of here faster than you can say, 'Check, please.'" When the wicked impulse slid over her she didn't resist. Rising on tiptoe, she pressed her entire body against his, until she could feel his shirt buttons pressing through her blouse against her breasts.

  She coiled an arm slowly around Tyler's neck and pressed a palm against the back of his head, holding him in place. Lifting her mouth to his ear, she exhaled softly and then whispered, "I'll have them back for lunch next week, too. And believe me—" she walked the fingers of her free hand silkily up his arm "—they'll never hit on you again."

  She scraped her fingernails gently across the side of his face and walked to the other end of the bar.

  Tyler felt as though he'd been punched in the gut.

  He rubbed his stomach reflexively and watched Grace saunter down to where the three women sat. "Damn," he muttered, and raised a hand to his face to scrub away the ghost of a soft mouth brushing with the barest touch against him. He was a grade-school boy with an uncontrollable erection in math class.

  Totally inappropriate, potentially humiliating, and absolutely nothing he could do about it.

  He yanked free the bar rag that was tucked in the back of his belt and switched it to the front of his pants, attempting some artful draping, and hoped that thoughts of baseball would help.

  Where the hell had that come from?

  Okay, he probably shouldn't have teased Grace like that about pretending to be his girlfriend. And he knew the moment he set hands on her that that was not a good idea at all. He'd felt the sudden tightening of her stomach muscles beneath his fingers and had to fight himself to leave his hands sitting in place on her small waist. The urge to skim them up the sides of her rib cage, brushing against the sides of her breasts, had been near irresistible.

  But he'd promised her that he'd back off.

  And I've done it, haven't I? Even if it's damn near killed me to watch her walk out that door every night and slide into the back seat of a cab, looking so worn-out after her shift.

  Would she even take a night off when he tried to insist on it?

  Of course not. She claimed they were still staffed too thinly, and worked yet another night in a row. And if she was right, that didn't make it any. easier to watch.

  The fact that his heart hurt every time he looked at her was another problem. One that he kept to himself, although he felt his mother's gaze rest sadly on him from time to time, and knew she knew.

  He'd watched Grace all through October, even as he kept his distance and tried to look at her as a younger sister or cousin. He'd seen the way she flinched sometimes at the sound of an unfamiliar voice, and didn't relax again until she searched out the voice's owner and reassured herself that it wasn't whoever she feared.

  The strength of his need to find that person, the man Grace feared in every unidentified voice, and beat him until he lay hurt and bleeding on the ground, came close to frightening Tyler.

  A series of ringing, feminine laughs broke out at the far end of the bar, and he saw uncomfortably that all four women, including his innocent Grace, were staring at him with wickedly speculative looks in their eyes. Then they turned back to each other and laughter burst out again.

  Tenderly patting his ego—after all, they couldn't be laughing at him, could they?—Tyler watched as Grace rang a total bill on the ladies' check and collected three credit cards without visibly flinching at the thought of splitting the bill three ways. After the women signed their tabs, Grace smiled at them and said something more in a low voice that had the women giggling again as they made their way out the front door, hopefully to return to bosses tolerant of long Friday lunches.

  As Grace made her way back up the bar, a self-satisfied grin on her face, another wave of desire washed over him, making him want simply to tuck her under his arm and hang on to her forever. Instead he managed to comment lightly, "I see you worked your magic. How'd you do it?"

  "Piece of cake, darlin'." She patted his butt casually as she squeezed past him. Tyler felt himself jump and cursed himself for a fool.

  "Let me guess. They now think I have some bizarre medical condition?" At an even more disturbing thought, he narrowed his eyes and drilled a hole in the back of her neck as she ducked beneath the bar and crossed to the outside. "If you even mention the word impotent, I'll be over this bar with my hands around your neck so fast—"

  "Relax, Romeo," she teased. The chat with the women seemed to have cheered her up. "Your Don Juan reputation is safe."

  "So? Cough it up, Grace."

  "Well, first off, I mentioned that they'd been coming in here fairly regularly, and then agreed with them when they said they couldn't think of a better way to spend lunch than looking at your ass." She grinned and hopped up on a bar stool. "Didn't you ever wonder why they were constantly asking you to pull different bottles from the beer coolers? Surely you didn't think they actually wanted to compare the labels."

  "What are you saying? That they wanted to—"

  "Watch you bend over?" Her grin could scarcely fit on her face. "You bet."


  Tyler felt himself flushing. He was used to flirting, enjoyed it, and thought he was good at making a woman feel special, attractive. But this was something else. The thought that three women were calculatingly setting him tasks for the sole purpose of watching his butt was highly embarrassing.

  "And I suppose when they accidentally dropped their money on the floor when they handed it across the bar to me, that wasn't really an accident."

  Grace laughed hard enough to lose her breath and shook her head. "Not hardly."

  Good Lord. He wanted to fan himself, his face was so hot.

  "What did you say to make them stop all this?"

  Her eyes widened. "Not a thing. You just told me to get rid of them." She clapped a hand over her mouth. It did nothing to hide her smile. "I'm afraid they'll be dropping dollar bills on the floor for a long time to come."

  "Grace," he growled at her.

  "Don't worry, they're just teasing, especially after I told them how great it was that they, were such steady customers of the tavern. You know, since most restaurants run in the red for the first five years. And since you're undoubtedly going to be broke as a college student for the next couple of years, it's sweet of them to help you out." She fluttered her eyelashes at him. "They promised to come in at least three times a week for lunch, and they'll bring their friends."

  Tyler needed to confirm what he was hearing. "Because they think I'm a charity case?"

  "Do you care?" Grace shrugged at him. "They're nice ladies, but they are serious husband-hunters. This way, they'll still come here and spend money, but you're basically safe from the total come-on."

  He just gaped at her, torn between gratitude and being offended.

  Meanwhile, Grace had started tapping her fingernails sharply against the varnish of the bar. Her eyes locked on her rapidly moving fingers.

  "Is that night off you mentioned still available?"

  "What? Yes. Of course it is. Tomorrow will be crazy, but take Sunday night off. Monday, too, if you want it. You've certainly put in enough hours in the last week, and you should have some regular days off anyway."

  "So should you, you know. You ought to think about a night off yourself."

  What was this sudden concern on her part? Grace looked edgy and still kept her head down. "I might, at that. Spencer offered to watch the bar for rne on Sunday night, since it should be quiet."

  As he watched, she twisted a cocktail straw until it was tied in knots. She stopped abruptly as if suddenly noticing what her hands were doing, and threw the straw in the trash with a grimace.

  Her eyes, when she turned her face toward him, were not quite happy.

  "Why don't you come over for dinner on Sunday, then?"

  ♥ Scanned by Coral ♥

  Six

  "What on earth was I thinking?"

  Grace demanded the question of her closet, standing in front of the open door for the sixth time on Sunday morning. She'd already raced through two loads of laundry and an hour at the ironing board in a desperate attempt to find something suitable to wear for dinner with Tyler. Crossed off the list were jeans and a T-shirt or shorts and a halter top, both too casual. Slacks and a blouse, too much like work clothes. The one short, cocktail dress she'd brought with her, God knows why, was much too dressy.

  Even when she considered going out and buying something specifically for this evening, a thought that made her shudder, the idea of having an unlimited selection did not help. Apparently there was nothing on earth that made sense when you were cooking dinner for a man who was not only your boss but also someone who had told her he might be tumbling into caring about her.

  But probably was not.

  And what on earth was she doing cooking dinner for him, anyway?

  Grace still wasn't quite sure exactly what had possessed her on Friday afternoon to invite Tyler over for a dinner that was now less than eight hours away. Temporary insanity, perhaps, inspired by the fun she had teasing him about being a sex object. Or by the odd possessiveness she felt lately toward him, tempting her to keep an extra glass of Cabernet on hand just in case she needed to conveniently spill it on the nearest over-aggressive flirter.

  Regardless, she was now standing in front of a plundered closet, clothes strewn about the room, one forgettable blouse flapping like a windsock on the rotating fan, and it seemed increasingly likely that she would be cooking in the nude.

  Deciding that the tornado-blast look of her bedroom was a cry for help if she ever saw one, Grace went to call in the Marines.

  Sarah's bedroom door hung invitingly half open. Grace clutched the door frame and leaned into the room, letting a thread of panic leak into her voice.

  "Help," she croaked. "Please help."

  Sarah sat huddled on her bed, intently curled over a thick textbook, a pencil clenched between her teeth. Her eyes slowly focused on Grace. "Did you say something?"

  "Help. No clothes. Making dinner for your brother. Must not be naked."

  Sarah slammed the textbook closed with a resounding whap and promptly threw it across the room. She popped up off her bed like a cork shooting from a champagne bottle and raced over to clasp Grace's hand in her own. "Bless you. If I had to memorize the Latin name of one more intestinal parasite I might have thrown the towel in on veterinary medicine altogether."

  "My pleasure. I am in dire need of fashion inspiration, or else I'm going to be standing over a stove in nothing but an apron." Grace looked at her watch. "In less than eight hours."

  "Fortunately for you," Sarah announced as she flung her closet door open with a flourish, "I adore dressing other people." She glanced down at her daily uniform of jeans and a T-shirt and then shrugged. "Not that you could tell by the way I dress myself."

  Fifteen minutes later, after a quick buzz throughout the slim selection in Grace's own wardrobe, she was dressed. And dressed perfectly.

  They stood in front of the bathroom's full-length mirror together. Sarah had talked Grace into the long straight column of a black jersey skirt and a spaghetti-strap tank top in ice-blue silk, combined with casual black sandals and a chunky silver necklace.

  "See? Perfect," Sarah said as she finagled the clasp on the necklace. "The skirt's a little demure, the tank top a little sexy. Sandals to show you're not trying too hard, and the necklace because I like it."

  "I may be crazy, but I look terrific." She hugged Sarah to her for a moment. So this is what it felt like to have a sister. "Thank you, Sarah."

  Sarah surveyed her creation with pride. "I told you. I love dressing up other people." A quick tug on the skirt straightened its fall. "In fact, I still think you two should go someplace swanky, because that scarlet slipdress I've got would look incredible on you. And the poor thing is begging to be worn out on the town. I never have the time." She grimaced. "Or the date."

  Grace heeded the frown and refrained from quizzing Sarah about her love life. Hoping to distract her, and to nip any misconceptions in the bud, Grace told her, "This is not a date. I'm just cooking dinner for Tyler because I can't afford a gift to say thank-you for taking me on, and because..." She struggled to come up with another reason. "Because the man needs someone to make him take a night off."

  "Whatever you say, sister." Sarah stood behind Grace, pulled her shoulders back and pushed her chin up. "My work here is done. And intestinal parasites wait for no woman. Knock him dead."

  All Grace could think, staring at herself in the mirror, was that if Tyler made fun of how she was dressed, she'd knock him on his ass.

  The little voice in her head that she normally listened to, the voice that was sane and conservative and in charge of keeping her safe, was apparently locked in the cellar of her mind, not to be let out for the time being.

  But Grace could hear it pounding on the door, warning her of danger ahead.

  The only thing that let her remain calm, her safety net, was that she was cooking dinner for Tyler at Sarah's place.

  I suppose I should think of it as our apartment.
But the important thing is that even if Sarah isn't here, Tyler isn't likely to try some kind of grand seduction if his little sister can walk in the door at any moment. She'd realized that fact as the words inviting him over had tumbled from her lips. Tyler probably wouldn't be thinking of sex in his sister's apartment.

  Or, better put, he wouldn't actually plan to have sex in his sister's apartment. There was no telling what the man might be thinking.

  She, on the other hand, couldn't stop thinking about Tyler and sex and her room at all. Or to be more honest, her room, the bathroom, the kitchen table...

  At three o'clock in the afternoon on a clear-sky Sunday in late October, blessedly warm with an Indian summer breeze, without a moment's warning, the safety net vanished.

  "I'm so sorry, Grace," Sarah apologized, pacing the floor in the kitchen. She had just hung up the phone. "But Todd never calls me up and asks to come over. And he definitely never tells me that he 'wants to talk.'"

  "Of course you have to see him. Don't worry, I understand."

  "I just don't know if he's coming to break up with me or to ask me to marry him."

  Grace tilted her head to the side and wrinkled her nose.

  "I know it doesn't make any sense, but those are the only two things I can think of that would make him do this. What I don't get is, why it has to be here."

  "Well, don't make yourself crazy worrying about it." I'll just make myself crazy wondering if I'll ever work up the nerve to do this again.

  "I know. But, Grace, your dinner plans are ruined. I feel like such a jerk." She dropped into a chair at the tiny kitchen table and cradled her head in her hands. Her voice was muffled by the long fall of her hair. "Todd is the jerk. The last-minute jerk."

  Grace let out a breath and shrugged mentally. "It's okay. Really. The whole evening probably wasn't a good idea to begin with."

  "Shut up. It was a great idea, and it would've been a great dinner if that sauce in the fridge I stuck a finger into was anything to go by." Sarah grinned out at her from between spread fingers, hiding her face. Then she jumped up out of the chair— "Wait a minute!"—and sprinted out of the room. Grace heard a drawer open and papers rattle, as if subject to a frantic search. "Aha!" And then Sarah was dancing back into the kitchen, a set of silver and gold keys on a ring dangling from her pointed finger.