by Tara Janzen
“Why don’t you just ask me to slit my throat and get it over with?” Both of her eyebrows rose this time, adding emphasis to her question. “All that’s standing between me and your property is a couple of grand in back taxes. If I give you a job, you’ll make that before the Fourth of July.” She conveniently left out the part about needing a miracle to stay afloat, let alone pay his taxes.
“A guy’s got to eat too.”
“Hah!” She gestured at the array of dirty dishes in front of him. “Tell me about it.”
He decided to appeal to her sense of logic. “Stevie”—he leaned forward, resting his hands on the table in a show of honesty recognized all over the world—“I’ll get a job whether you hire me or not. Since you have the most to lose, I thought I’d offer my services to you first.” Sometimes Hal amazed himself with the line of bull he could concoct out of nothing. “And I was serious about the Australian trip. If you’d like to go someplace else, just say so. I have connections all over the world, and most of them owe me.” That part was pure fact. She’d have to search pretty damn hard to find a spot on the map where he didn’t know somebody with strings to pull.
He’d answered a number of questions with his soliloquy, and hit them all dead center. The bit about offering services was weak, but then he thought she could pay his taxes again without blinking an eye. She knew it would have been a fight to the finish. Her scrambling to pay her bills and still put some extra aside. And the Australian trip—if anyone else had made the proposal, she would have laughed them out of the kitchen. But his story, completely true or not, had confirmed what she already knew about men like Halsey Morgan. They lived off the grace of the gods and a long and loyal network of friends, where money never changed hands but favors did.
Stevie leaned back in her chair and gave him a critical once-over. She’d hired a few people in her time, and not one of them had hit her with a come-on like his, or a smile like the one he was using to charm her socks off. For a fleeting moment, she wondered how much that smile could mean to her in dollars and cents. Then she wondered for another, and another, while she took in the sensual angles of his face, the hard line of his jaw, the wind-blown look of his hair, and finally she came to a conclusion: He was pure bar bait if she’d ever seen it. She could easily imagine the hordes of women coming to flirt with him, the corresponding hordes of men coming to pick up the women—and all of them glued to their bar stools by his wild stories. It was a hard image to let go of, and that left her with only two problems.
“What’s to keep you from paying off the taxes and running out on me midseason? Probably to Australia,” she voiced the lesser concern.
“They call it risk, Stevie Lee. How much are you willing to risk on a handshake and a chance to get out of here?”
Coming from the biggest risk taker of them all, his words held a challenge, and a dare. She thought again of another year trapped in Grand Lake, looking at the same old pine-covered mountains. She thought of other mountains, mountains with forests of rhododendrons and cedar, and her own adventuresome spirit rebelled. Then she thought of her second problem—herself.
Twice she’d fallen prey to his blue eyes and golden good looks. Twice he’d effortlessly confused her with his special brand of sensuality. And twice she’d bounced back. Could she keep doing it? Or better yet, could she avoid it all together?
One look told her the latter was asking too much. She might be hardened against love, but she wasn’t blind. But then love was different from, well, sex, she thought.
Love was definitely different from sex, and she’d never had one without the other—at least on her side of the bed. Kip had lived by a separate set of rules, or maybe he’d been in love with everybody at the same time. Who knew? And who cared?
You’re straying from the point, Stevie. A little voice in the back of her mind gently reminded her of the business at hand. Right, she thought, where was she? Love, sex, and Halsey Morgan.
No! The voice screamed, an alarm went off, and Stevie jumped in her chair.
Hal lurched back in his. Sweet Allah! All he’d asked for was a job. If she thought about it much harder, she was going to blow a fuse.
“Friday, four o’clock.” She didn’t give herself a chance to change her mind, because above all, she couldn’t afford not to hire him. “Saturday will be twelve hours. Sunday and Monday another twelve apiece. It’s Memorial Day. You’ll ‘bar back’ this weekend, and we’ll split tips. Okay?”
“Okay.” Hal grinned in appreciation. The lady did know how to make a decision, and he liked that in a woman, and in a friend. He didn’t know what “bar back” meant, but he was sure he could handle anything she threw at him. Anything, he silently reaffirmed, in case his luck changed.
“I’ll tell you right now, the day shifts are taken,” she continued. “One of my brothers will be coming home from college. He’s got a girlfriend, so he likes his nights free. Is that a problem for you?”
“My love life has been pretty weak lately,” he confessed with another one of his hundred-dollar smiles.
“Fine.” Stevie kept her voice strictly business. She could have told him he’d have his pick of the litter when the ladies of Grand Lake got a look at him, but she didn’t. “I pay five bucks an hour plus tips. I don’t pay overtime, so if you’re going to run to the labor board, tell me now and I’ll get somebody else.”
“No running. I promise.”
Stevie accepted his word without a second thought. She knew he wasn’t the type to expect the government or anybody else to solve his problems. She’d only told him to lead up to the trickier condition of his employment.
“Well, that’s fine then”—she lowered her gaze, sent up a small prayer, and forged ahead—“there’s just . . . uh . . . one other thing—about last night. No kissing.”
“No kissing?”
Hazarding a quick glance at him, Stevie nodded.
“You mean like no kissing between you and me?”
Another tilt of her head confirmed his description of the situation.
With effort, Hal kept himself from laughing out loud. His cool little cucumber wasn’t so cool after all. He already knew he was going to lie, but he took his time, leaning back in his chair and watching a faint pinkness steal up the creamy curves of her cheeks. Her hands were clasped together in her lap. Her eyes were glued to an unknown spot on the table.
Keeping a straight face and a sincere tone, he agreed to her impossible condition. “Sure, Stevie. I can see where we could cause a lot of trouble for ourselves if we were always sneaking around kissing. You and me, necking in the back room, lingering long after the customers left. Yes. Yes, I can see that you’re right.”
Unfortunately Stevie also saw—every single situation he described. But he’d agreed, and that was the important thing. A part of her felt immense relief—and a part of her felt immense disappointment.
Four
Hal shoved his hands into the sudsy water for the millionth time, covering each of the whirring brushes with a highball glass and a collins glass respectively. At least that’s what he thought they were. “Bar backing,” he discovered, meant dishpan hands and a lot of running back and forth to the storeroom for more liquor.
Doug, Stevie’s brother, piled three more beer mugs onto the tiny space holding too many other dirty glasses, and Hal barely caught a toppled snifter.
“Sorry.” The younger man grinned sheepishly. “Good catch, though.”
“Thanks.” Hal couldn’t afford any more bad catches. Immediately after his first miss of the evening, Stevie had called him into the back room and explained her policy on broken glassware—You lose it, you bought it.
“A case of Bud for the cooler,” she yelled above the noise as she passed him on the left.
Hal started to move. Doug shoved two more dirty glasses at him and Hal hesitated, wondering if he could make it to the storeroom, unload twenty-four bottles of beer into the refrigerator, and get back before he went broke.
&nb
sp; “Gin for the well?” Doug asked, smiling at him from the other end of the bar.
Hal knew he could get the gin. But could he do it without plowing into Stevie again? He eyed the eight feet of distance to the hall where the well liquor was stored, all the time washing glasses as if his life depended on it, trying to get ahead, timing his move to avoid colliding with her as she worked both ends of the bar.
The evening had started out quiet enough, with just a few locals coming in for a beer and a little bit of gossip. But at about eight o’clock the weekenders had arrived, and it had been chaos ever since.
Go! he said to himself. Hal dashed into the hall, grabbed the gin, and returned in time to catch a couple of glasses that were falling into the sink. He knew from experience that every time he lost one in the sink he had to clean out the broken glass or risk turning his hands into hamburger meat. At this point, he didn’t have time to clean out the sink.
Washing away, he wondered how Stevie and Doug did it. Like a finely choreographed dance, they worked around each other, mixing drinks and drawing beers while keeping up a steady stream of chatter. On top of all that, they kept the cash register ringing, calling out tabs and making change—but not much change.
The two exerted a very subtle pressure on the customers for tips. Any money coming over the bar was fair game, and if the amount given was close to the amount owed, the change went into a brandy snifter on the shelf behind the bar, no questions asked. The ancient custom of Arabic baksheesh, Chinese squeeze, reached new heights at the Trail’s End Bar.
“Damn!” Doug jerked his bloody hand away from a broken beer mug. “Take over, Hal, I’ll be back in a minute. Stevie! Band-Aids still in the top drawer?”
“On the left.”
Take over? Hal looked up with a sinking feeling. He had to be kidding.
A man edged his way between the customers seated at the bar. “Two gin and tonics.”
Hal quickly shoveled ice into the two glasses he’d just pulled out of the rinse water. He set them on the bar and ran his fingers over the bottles in the well, searching for the gin. Faster than he’d dared to hope, he found it. The Trail’s End operated without the constraints of a jigger, so he poured away, guessing the amount. A couple of quick shots out of the soda gun and he’d served his first two drinks.
“Five bucks,” he said to the man, making another guess.
The man handed him six, his first tip.
“May I have a Manhattan, please.” A petite blonde sidled up to the bar and graced him with a smile. “You must be new in town.” She leaned in closer, revealing an impressive cleavage.
Hal didn’t have time for the view. He also didn’t have any idea of what went into a Manhattan. He glanced toward Stevie, looking for help, but she was working about eight drinks of her own.
“What’s in it?” he asked the blonde, using his forearm to wipe a stream of sweat off his brow.
“Oh, I don’t know. A splash of this, a splish of that.” She laughed and leaned in even closer.
“Can we get another couple of beers here?”
“Ask him if he’s got any wine, honey. Any red wine.”
“I need an Old Fashioned, make it two, and a . . .”
“. . . another of the same, barkeep. And put some booze in it this time.”
Hal was losing it. He looked to Stevie again, and found her staring at him, strangely and intensely, her gray eyes narrowed almost shut, her mouth pulled into a tight line.
“One Manhattan coming up.” Doug stepped back in, whipping a glass up on the bar. “We’ve got the house wine—red, white, or pink. Take your pick. Hey, Mac, if I put any more booze in them, you’ll be crawling out of here. Hi, Tim. You and Georgia still drinking the same Old Fashioneds. That pegs you for a cheesehead every time.” He laughed, hands flying, easily working his way through Hal’s disaster.
Before Hal could get back to his suds, Stevie swept by him. “I want to see you in the back room. Now.”
Again? he thought wearily. How in the hell was he supposed to meet her in the office without the whole inventory of glassware becoming history, and his night’s wages becoming nonexistent. His eyes darted to the side, then behind him to the liquor shelves. An empty space! He grabbed a bunch of glasses and shoved them on the shelf, buying himself a minute. Taking ten more glasses with him, a finger in each, he half-ran through the hall and into the back room.
“Yeah?” He stood in front of her desk, chest heaving. A new rivulet of sweat ran down the side of his face. He used his shoulder to wipe it away, clinking the glasses and almost losing a beer mug.
“A bartender,” she began, her voice low and strained. “A helluva bartender, you said.”
“Yeah,” he said, only half-listening. Most of his attention was focused back at the bar, waiting for the crash.
“This deal was supposed to be based on trust, and one day into it you’ve already proven how little I can trust you.”
Hal squinted at her through yet another stream of sweat. “Could we talk about this later? I’ve already lost a couple of glasses, and—”
“Five glasses, Hal. You’ve lost five.”
She’d been counting? he thought. “Whatever, if I don’t get back out there, Doug is going to get swamped.”
“Not likely. He’s a bartender. I don’t know what you are, but a bartender you ain’t.”
The last thing he needed at this point was a rundown of his abilities or the lack thereof. The whole absurd situation sparked his anger.
“And that’s no bar out there.” He waved his arm behind him, toward the front of the house. “It’s a zoo!” A wineglass flew off of his little finger and crashed to the floor.
“Six.”
Dammit. Six.
“Zoo?”
“A three-ring circus. We need more help,” he said, all the while pushing the glass into a pile with his foot.
“More help? And just where do you propose I put them? Hanging from the ceiling by their feet?”
The lady had a smart mouth—and a damn good point. But he wasn’t in any mood to concede. “Then we need to expand.”
“Hah! I can’t even afford what I’ve got!” With that, she stomped by him and back into the fray.
Hal’s chin slumped to his chest. He wasn’t ready. He needed a time-out, a minute to catch his breath and get his bearings. But Stevie Lee didn’t pay overtime, and she didn’t give regulation breaks. What he really needed to know was what in the hell went into a Manhattan and all those other drink orders they’d thrown at him. Cussing under his breath, he marched after her.
A totally demoralizing situation awaited him at the bar. Doug was leaning on the cash register, joking with the customers and casually sipping a beer—and there wasn’t a dirty glass anywhere. He’d even gotten to the ones stacked on the liquor shelf.
The younger man grinned when Hal approached. “Are you having fun yet?”
Hal felt a smile tug at his mouth, despite his exhaustion. “I don’t dare. She’d probably charge me for that too.” The lady was well out of earshot, deep in the crowd with a bar tray piled high with glasses. His glasses, he thought with a surprisingly proprietary attitude.
“She’s not all bad, really. She’s got a sweet side, or at least she did before Kip ran out on her.”
An instant zing of curiosity snapped Hal’s gaze up to Doug. “Her ex-husband?” he asked, not at all liking the way it sounded.
Doug shrugged. “Some guys just can’t be happy with one woman, I guess. Not me though. See the little redhead in the booth over there?” He pointed to the far side of the bar. “Her name is Francine. She belongs to me. I thought you should know.”
Through the thinning crowd, Hal saw the spoken-for Francine. Strawberry-blond curls framed an impish face dusted with freckles. Clear blue eyes sparkled with mischief. Something she said caused her friends to burst out laughing, and Hal figured Doug had his work cut out for him.
So did he. He’d never had trouble impressing a woman before,
but then up until a week ago, he’d never met Stevie Lee Brown. He searched the room again, and found her talking with a group of lumberjacks. Her eyes had lost their sparkle hours ago, but her mouth still curved into quick, fleeting smiles as she spoke to her customers. A soft, worn pair of jeans loved every one of her curves, up the slender length of her legs to the slight swell of her hips. At her waist, the Dynamite shirt took over, hugging and outlining her back and the fullness of her breasts. The lady was doing things to him that kept him awake at night, and he needed his sleep.
“The guy must have been crazy,” he muttered, more to himself than to Doug, but the younger man answered.
“ ‘TNT’ isn’t such a bad guy. He just couldn’t settle down.”
Hal shot him a quizzical glance. “ ‘TNT’?” he questioned. He didn’t have a sister, but if he had, he sure wouldn’t take such a friendly attitude toward a man who’d cheated on her. Once again the thought seemed incomprehensible.
“Yeah, like in dynamite. That’s his car Stevie drives. Or it used to be anyway. I guess it belongs to her now.”
Dynamite. Against his will, Hal’s gaze drifted back to Stevie and her red shirt, and suddenly it didn’t look quite as sexy as he’d thought.
“That Kip.” Doug chuckled. “He’s something. Really loves a good party. Hell, Kip loves a bad party. He and Stevie sure made the rounds when they were young.”
Two things bothered Hal about Doug’s reminiscing: The past tense verb in front of “young,” and the thought of Stevie “making the rounds” with a groping party animal. He’d heard enough.
But Doug was just getting warmed up. “You should have seen their wedding. It was the biggest thing to hit this county in twenty years. Must have been two hundred people there, practically everybody in town. And the cars”—a wistful note crept into his voice—“Kip knows everybody with a hot car on the Western Slope. It was the first time I ever sat in a Porsche!”