At Your Service

by Amy Jo Cousins

  Lifting her free hand in the air and raising her brows, she mouthed the words, If you can't beat them... at him and blew him a kiss.

  "Better hang a sign 'round his neck, Gracie. Try, This Table Reserved!"

  The loudest guffaw ringing out behind her seemed to come from Tyler himself. Funny man.

  Two hours later, he was still smiling behind the bar, overflowing with even more good humor than usual. Grace wondered what he was up to. He seemed to be taking every opportunity to touch her in little, lover-like ways, brief caresses of her hands or face, quick kisses on her fingertips or anything else he could get his hands on. And if he winked at her any more often, he'd get a cramp in his eye.

  She called out her order and enjoyed the moment of standing still while she waited. When Tyler slid the drinks onto her tray, she flushed at the sight of his fingers sliding off the glasses, wet with condensation, and immediately felt silly.

  "And what are you thinking that makes you blush, love?" Even his voice was seducing her, damn it.

  Grace looked up in time to see, over Tyler's shoulder—and what distracting shoulders—what looked like, but clearly could not be, the Taco Bell Chihuahua arcing through the air over her party's table. She blinked hard and squinted.

  "Grace?" She knew confusion was written all over her face as she stepped away from the bar. "What is it?"

  "Flying... dog?"

  Before she took three steps, however, yet another object was launched over the table. This time the missile seemed to be a large ball of pink cashmere, topped with a pile of fluffy peach hair. Seconds later, all hell broke loose.

  High-pitched yapping noises from beneath the table confirmed the canine presence. The pink and peach ball of fluff landed on a man in a blue suit talking on a cell phone, and started shrieking, "You killed my Poopsie! My Poopsie!" Chairs clattered to the floor as men and women jumped to their feet and rushed to the battle.

  "Hold it!" Grace dove into the fray and laid hands on any- thing she could grab. Something clocked her in the temple; she strongly suspected the suit of fighting back with his only weapon. She came up from the floor with a wildly flailing woman in one hand and a terrorized, near-sobbing man in another. People pressed closely around her. "Back off! Everyone sit down!"

  Placing herself squarely between the combatants, she kept her hands fisted in both shirtfronts. Out of the corner of her eye, she sensed Tyler standing a few feet away, glowering at everyone, a growling Chihuahua trapped in his hands.

  "You—" she shook the businessman "—stop crying and tell me what happened. You shut up," she added to the strawberry-blonde, who seemed to being having a difficult time remaining upright. She let go of the man, needing both hands to prop up the tipsy woman.

  "She... she attacked me," he stuttered, stuffing his shirt back inside his pants and then drying his eyes on his cuffs. "And that was after the rat jumped in my lap. What kind of place is this?"

  "Poor—" hiccup "—Poopsie."

  "She's hammered," came a helpful voice from the crowd.

  And everything slid into place.

  She silenced the crowd with a few sharp words, sent Anita running to the kitchen and started explaining.

  "We have no, let me repeat, no, rodent problems at Tyler's. We do however seem to have a small problem with dogs tonight, no pun intended." Tyler lifted the still yapping dog in the air and Grace saw a few smiles. Feeling like Hercule Poirot at the end of an Agatha Christie novel, she continued. "Someone—" she stared pointedly at the woman who looked about to collapse into a liquid pool "—apparently thought her little darling should enjoy the party tonight, and things seem to have gotten a little out of hand."

  "Nice going, Marlene," someone shouted.

  She exhaled deeply. The mutters surging through the small crowd appeared to be shifting focus to the dog smuggler. From the back of the house, she saw Anita approaching, an enormous tray balanced on her shoulder.

  "To make up for any momentary interruption to your evening, Tyler's would like to offer everyone a drink on the house, and Anita is here with a fabulous selection of treats from our amazing chef. I know you all enjoyed your dinners. I can promise you that you will absolutely love your desserts." Several women turned immediately and descended on Anita, who looked frightened at their stalking approach.

  "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to get our friend Marlene here some coffee. And a cab."

  So saying, Grace slung the woman's limp arm around her shoulder and half walked, half dragged her over to the wail station and poured her into a chair.

  "Nice crowd control," came Tyler's voice from behind her.

  "Thanks. Always better to cough up some free drinks than have people talking about your 'rat' problem."

  "True, but this woman is beyond over-served. How'd you let that happen?"

  Barely noticing that the tension, just beginning to drain from her muscles, surged right back into place, she snapped back at Tyler, "I didn't. She ordered two whiskey rocks in three hours, and no one else bought one for her. She should be fine. What else did you have to drink tonight?" The last she barked at the intoxicted woman.

  "I jus' had a li'l." Marlene's tongue seemed to be getting in the way of her mouth.

  "A little what, Marlene?"

  "A li'l of everything," she giggled, and then frowned. Grace thought she was trying to look stern. "Some people don' know howda finish their drinks. S'a shame." She shook her head woefully.

  "What's the commotion?" Sarah popped up next to them, drying her hands on her apron. "Sounded like World War Three out here."

  "Well, little Miss Marlene here has apparently been sucking down the dregs of every cocktail she found abandoned within reach for the last three hours," Grace told her.

  "Gross."

  "Yes it is. And the rest we can pretty much blame on her little rat dog here."

  Tyler raised the dog again, Marlene sucked in a deep breath—preparing to roast me, no doubt—for the rat comment, and Poopsie decided she'd had enough. She turned her head and bit the only thing in reach. Tyler. Who promptly dropped the dog and grabbed his wounded hand.

  "Goddamn it!"

  "Poopsie!"

  "Not again," Grace muttered as she lunged after Marlene. The woman was trying to throttle Tyler. Grace thrust a hand in the fluffy peach hair and yanked, hard. Marlene spun around swinging.

  "No fighting!" Still conscious of the other patrons in the bar, Grace trapped the crazy lady's arms at her sides and aimed her low shout directly into one bcjeweled ear. "There is no fighting in my bar. Do you understand me?" she demanded.

  In the back of her mind, she knew that Tyler and Sarah could both hear her instinctive claim to ownership and authority, but she couldn't be worried about that. She knew for herself what her words meant.

  The woman stopped struggling and arched her neck back to hiss spitefully.

  "This isn't your place. He's the owner here." Her lascivious eyes lowered in an attempt at flirtation toward Tyler. "You're just a waitress."

  Shoving the woman back into the nearby chair, Grace loomed over her, power and pride and anger racing through her veins like a flood of cold fire, until her eyes burned in a mask of ice. Leaning forward, she pressed the woman back with the sheer force of her presence. She thrust one finger to within millimeters of Marlene's red nose.

  "When I am on the floor, it's my house. And J do not tolerate brawling in my house," she enunciated slowly and dis- tinctly. Marlene's eyes were fixated on the stabbing finger. "Are we clear on that? Because if not, I will become the waitress who will call the cops on you for drunk and disorderly."

  The woman nodded. It seemed all she was capable of.

  Still hot, Grace turned and fixed Tyler in place with the same finger, his mouth open with words she would not allow to tumble from his lips. "And you..."

  He shut his mouth.

  "You should know better than to think that I would let something like this happen." The hurt she'd ignored at his earlier, blaming words ca
me back to her. Echoes of her mother and Charles, accusing her of causing them trouble rang in her mind. She'd thought he knew her better. And in her guilty knowledge that his ignorance was due to her duplicity, she struck out. "How could you even think that I would allow anything to hurt your business, to hurt you, if I could possibly prevent it? I would never do that. Never."

  Dropping her arm, she stood still, breathing heavily. She was surrounded by the silence of shock, in Sarah, in the drunken woman, in Tyler.

  And in that silence, another sound crept on mice feet into her awareness. The sound of trickling water, rising from the floor beneath her feet, barely audible under the rollicking music of the Clancy Brothers. She looked down.

  Poopsie stood spread-eagled over the toe of her right shoe, looking guiltily up at her as pee streamed over leather. The dog let out an apologetic whine.

  "Grace."

  She held up her hands.

  "Not now." Deep breaths. "Anita can cover my tables. I'm going for a walk. To cool down."

  Grabbing a handful of beverage napkins off the bar and some ice wrapped in a towel, she stepped slowly out of the puddle of dog pee, turned, and stalked out.

  Outside, the cool night air was a soothing hand on her skin, gently stroking the heat away. She exhaled slowly, breathing out her anger and frustration with herself, and held the lumpy, cold towel to her temple. It was ridiculous to let herself get this worked up. All this trouble over a dog. At the thought of Poopsic she sighed and dropped her glance to her shoe.

  She walked away from the lights of the doorway and over to the curb, where she sat in the even darker shade of a tree whose night-shadowed leaves blocked the light of the street-lamps. Dipping a napkin into a puddle left in the gutter by the recent rain, she began carefully blotting her shoe, patting automatically as her mind wandered and ached, overwhelmed with tiredness and guilt.

  I should have noticed what was going on. Tyler was right. Even if I didn't know how it was happening, i should have noticed before now that that woman needed to go home. Not to mention my stellar lack of observation in regard to the canine invasion that had apparently been going on right in front of me. And I would have, too, if I weren't spending so much of my time mooning over Tyler and worrying about my own problems. I wasn't doing my job, because I was too wrapped up with myself.

  Which wasn't fair to Tyler, the one person who'd done nothing but help her. It wasn't fair to his family, either, every one of whom was putting in time at the restaurant on top of their own jobs.

  She braced her elbows on her knees and slared into the street.

  Maybe it would be better if she left. Better for everyone.

  Matters would, of course, become extremely hectic at the restaurant without her, but wasn't that simply going to be even more true the longer she stayed? The more important she became to Tyler, and the more responsibility she took on at the pub, the bigger the gaping hole left behind once she was gone. And that she would be gone, soon, was not a question but a certainty. Her business, her business, needed her. She refused to watch everything her grandmother had worked for be frittered away by her mother and Charles on parties and clothes and easy living. She refused to let fear of them make her as irresponsible as they were. That, she would not allow.

  She pushed herself to her feet and wiped the grit off her palms.

  It was time to tell the truth.

  She'd been dreading this moment for so long that the decision to confess was like finally getting stuck in the arm with a hypodermic needle. The pain was so much less overwhelming than the anxiety leading up to it that it actually felt like sweet relief. It was time to stop being such a scaredy-cat. She would tell Tyler. He would forgive her or he would not. Either way, she would leave. She could send one of her staff over to replace her, wages to be paid by the Haley Group, because she knew she owed him a debt and she would repay it. And maybe someday, when she had more of a grip on her life, she could come back. To see how things were going without her. To say hi.

  Yanking the heavy front door open, she stepped inside the pub and headed straight for the bar. This was too important, and she didn't trust herself to wait.

  She was pulled up short by a clutching hand on her sleeve and turned to find Anita desperately blinking back tears.

  "Sweetie, what is it?"

  "I—I—I need—" the girl gulped and dragged her sleeve across her wet eyes "—and...and there's a man...who won't—" she snuffled "—and the dog is still..." She wailed, "Oh, Grace, please help me!"

  Grace glanced at the bar and spotted Tyler holding off a siege of his own. He had two pitchers and six pints filling under the taps, three shakers on the bar rail, awaiting shaking and dripping condensation from their contents, and two blenders running for frozen margaritas. She caught his eye, and had no problem reading his lips.

  Help her! Please!

  "Okay," she said, turning a bright grin on the hyperventilating Anita. "Deep breaths. Let's get this all straightened out. I'll take care of the dog and the man who won't...whatever. You just go get what you need."

  Teary thanks, a small, grateful smile, and Grace was back in the thick of things. "I need to talk to you," she told Tyler in the middle of one trip to the bur for more cocktails.

  "I know. Me, too. Later?"

  She nodded and threw herself back into the fray.

  Restaurants being restaurants, and all the same no matter where they are, needing a moment to talk to the boss was as much a guarantee of high-volume business as ordering something to eat during the first live minutes of quiet after ten hours on the floor. The customers kept streaming in the front door, and although Grace was happy to hear the symphony of profit playing on the cash register bell, her own plans swirled right down the drain with the excess beer spillage under the taps.

  By 2:00 a.m., she was exhausted, cranky and craving sleep with a need bordering on psychosis. She'd sent Anita home more than an hour earlier, with instructions to make some decaffeinated tea, perhaps with a slug of whiskey in it, watch some terrible late-night television and go to sleep. She'd also promised that the girl would never have to go through another night like this one.

  Stripping off her apron and depositing it on a small table, she trudged up to the bar to turn in her checks and cash.

  "Paperwork for Anita and me checks out, Tyler."

  "Great. Thanks," he replied, bent over his own drawer and stack of charge slips. After a second, the flatness of Grace's voice registered with his tired brain and he glanced over his shoulder.

  She'd slid herself onto a bar stool and rested her cheek on one hand, and promptly fallen asleep. Crossing to her, Tyler could see the bruise on her temple, and her fragiiely bluish eyelids fluttering restlessly He knew her well, enough to be certain that she was telling herself to open her eyes, that she was still awake. He cursed her mentally for working herself to this point of exhaustion, until the obvious corollary occurred to him.

  You jerk, he thought with rising embarrassment, she's only doing it for you. And you let her drain herself dry right in front of you. Some boyfriend—some boss—you make.

  He stretched out a hand and brushed it gently over her hair. Strands had escaped from all over the elegant twist she'd made of her heavy blond hair. The loose waves skimming her cheek would tickle if she were awake.

  Softly, he pushed the hair out of her face and brought his hand back to trace the slight arch of her brow. His Grace. He'd seen her at every hour of day and night, and in a mad variety of situations. Seen her face animated with every emotion, and every moment was printed indelibly on his memories.

  Brows lowered, eyes narrowed to mere slits, jaw clenching rhythmically with enormous anger and yet supreme self-control.

  Eyes narrowed again, this time because she was laughing, and her free expression of joy shone in her face in a wide grin that flushed her cheeks and crinkled her usually invisible laugh lines.

  The special looks, reserved for Tyler alone, that melted like liquid wax over his skin, b
ringing the heat instantly to the surface, mirroring Grace's flush as she saw each time how immediately he responded to her eyes.

  Her free hand rested on the bar. Tyler placed it gently in his own. He could feel where the warmth of her hand had left its heat in the smooth varnish of the wood bar.

  "Grace."

  "Mumph."

  "Grace."

  "Awake."

  "You're asleep." He pressed a twenty-dollar bill into her lax palm. "Go home. You still have the spare key. There's a cab out front. I'll be right behind you."

  "Hmm. 'Kay," she mumbled, and then slowly pried her eyes open. "What's that?"

  "Bedtime, baby."

  He walked her to the door, wrapping her in her jacket and then watching as she shuffled her way to the waiting taxi. The cab pulled away from the curb and he locked the door behind her.

  The click of the lock fell muffled into the dying silence of the room. A soft rattle from the back heralded the dumping of a fresh tray in the ice machine. The everyday noises of the building continued. The hum of the spinning brushes for glass-washing behind the bar. The near-subliminal rumbling of the high-tech, smoke-eating ventilation system. Even the jukebox still floated Billie Holiday at low volume throughout the room. Only, to Tyler, it all seemed as flat as three-day-old 7Up.

  I'm in love with her.

  In the quiet bar, with all of the life fled from the room, just because she was gone, it was achingly clear.

  I am in love with Grace.

  As important as everything else in his life was, his family, his business, it all paled in comparison with this overwhelming need he felt: to love her, take care of her, and know that she would always be there to look him straight in the eye and love him back.

  Fifteen minutes later—paperwork be damned—he shoved his spare key into the lock to his home and snapped it open. Kicking off his shoes as he went, he arrowed straight to his bedroom.

  The flood of warmth at the sight of Grace curled up in his bed stopped him at the door. With one arm flung across all of the pillows and the other hand snuggled carefully beneath her cheek, she laid claim to the space as if she belonged there.