The Perfect Bargain

by Jessa McAdams

  It took a moment for Sloane’s eyes to adjust to the dim pub light. Would it really be asking too much to add a few lights in there? Once her sight adjusted, she noticed the regulars. And the regulars noticed them. It seemed as if every eye in that place was fixed on them.

  “Take a picture,” Paige muttered.

  Sloane elbowed her. “Be nice. And stop complaining.”

  “If you want me to stop complaining, I’m going to need a drink.” Paige broke away from the group and strutted to the bar with a smile on her face, like she did in every bar they’d ever entered. And, as usual, the rest of them followed her.

  “Hallo! Hal-lo!”

  Sloane turned just as Ned reached her side, a big, semi-lecherous grin on his face. “Well, well, who’ve we ‘ere, lass? More American beauties, is it?”

  “Excuse me?” Dylan asked, unaccustomed to a thick brogue.

  “Go away, Ned,” Sloane said.

  “Wha’? Ye’ll no’ give me name to yer friends?”

  “Nope.”

  Just then Galen appeared from the back, a box of beer bottles on his shoulder. His step slowed when he saw Sloane and her friends. She smiled. He did, too.

  “Ned, lad, go on with you,” he said sternly.

  “Ah, Galen,” Ned whined. “What’s the good of having a pub, then?”

  “To drink your pints, that’s what,” Galen said. “Off with you now. Donna bother the lassies.”

  “Lassies,” Tori purred. “I love the way they talk.”

  “Well hello,” Paige said as she watched Galen move to their end of the bar.

  “Down, girl,” Sloane warned her. “That one’s mine.”

  Paige blinked. Her mouth gaped. “That’s him? That’s your guy?” She grabbed Sloane’s arm and squeezed. “Sloane, he’s gorgeous!”

  He was gorgeous in a totally sexy, totally Highland sort of way. “Don’t look so shocked.”

  “But I am. I mean, look at him,” Paige said, giving Sloane’s arm another squeeze.

  “Ouch,” Sloane said and peeled Paige’s fingers from her arm.

  Paige leaned in. “Please tell me you tapped that,” she whispered wistfully, not taking her eyes from Galen.

  “I tapped that,” Sloane whispered back, and Paige groaned with approval.

  “Hello,” Dylan said. She’d already stepped up to the bar. “You must be Jamie. I’m Dylan.”

  “Ah…Galen,” Galen said and put the box of beer down.

  “Galen, of course,” Dylan said, and laughed hysterically, turning back to her friends, pink with embarrassment.

  “Yeah, okay, all right, let me talk,” Sloane said, and elbowed her way through the three of them to the bar.

  “Ah, there you are,” Galen said. He reached for her across the bar.

  Sloane looked at his hand, then at him. He motioned for her to come near, and when she leaned across the bar to him, he slipped his hand to her nape. “Hallo, hen,” he said, and before she knew what was happening, he pulled her close and kissed her. When he lifted his head, he winked.

  Sloane was aware of the regulars’ shouts of approvals, of the fluttering and muttering of her friends behind her back. But all that faded into the background with the delight of that kiss.

  He smiled directly into her eyes, just as she’d expect a boyfriend to smile, and said, “I’ll just finish here and come round and say hello to your friends, aye?” He picked up the beer box and moved back down the bar, removing two and setting them down before customers.

  “Hen,” Tori said, and folded her arms across her middle. “What’s that all about?”

  Hell if Sloane knew, but whatever it was, she liked it. She liked it a lot.

  Chapter Ten

  The dark haired woman, Paige, kept eying Galen as if she suspected him of a crime. Dylan smiled dreamily at him, and Victoria was far more interested in the three bottles of whisky he had placed before them. “You must try our fine Highland whisky,” he offered jovially. “But donna get guttered, aye?”

  “Why not?” Paige asked saucily.

  “I choose this one,” Dylan said, and pointed to the Royal Lochnagar, a single malt made in the Highlands, and watched as he poured tots for all of them.

  “Go then. Have a seat at Sloane’s favorite table. I’ll come ’round and join you.”

  “Oh look, we can see the goats from here,” Victoria said as the women made their way to the just-vacated table beneath the window.

  Galen sighed. He walked down to the end of the bar, poured a whisky, and passed it across to Lazlo, who had finished making the sandwiches Galen would sell this evening. “Mind the bar for a bit?” he asked.

  “Aye, course,” Lazlo said, and tipped the whisky Galen had given him, downing it in one long swallow.

  Galen poured himself a whisky, too. He was going to need it. He paused to look at the group of women, all of them attractive, and certainly garnering a lot of attention in his wee watering hole. Sloane’s hair was up again, her buttons buttoned. The girl in the yellow dress, with her beautiful hair loose about her shoulders, had been buried under that bloody cardigan.

  He was prepared to do his part, for the money if nothing else. The refrigerator was a real problem, and Galen was increasingly aware that as far as repairs went, that was only the tip of the iceberg. So if Sloane wanted a pretend boyfriend, a pretend boyfriend she would have. He would ignore the small voice in him that protested, that said this was wrong, that this was much more than a job, that he’d breached his safe-distance emotional barrier.

  Galen sat in the chair next to her and slung his arm around her shoulders, pulled her in close, and kissed her cheek. Sloane flushed, but she settled in against him. Tonight, lads and lassies, Sloane Chatfield will play the role of the doting girlfriend. “A toast,” he said, lifting his glass. “To the bonniest Americans I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

  “That’s so sweet,” Victoria said as they clinked glasses. The women sipped. Victoria and Dylan grimaced. Paige, however, was a tough little cookie and nodded approvingly.

  “So this is your pub?” Paige asked, glancing around.

  “Aye, it is.”

  “It’s nice,” Dylan said.

  “It can do with a wee bit of work,” Galen said. “Sloane and I have plans to spruce it up.”

  “Really?” Paige looked skeptically at Sloane.

  “Oh aye, indeed,” Galen said jovially. “We’re thinking a coffeehouse.”

  Paige’s eyes widened with surprise.

  “It’s true. Gairloch is in desperate need of one,” Sloane said, and looked at Galen sidelong. “He agrees. Don’t you, sweetie?”

  Ah, so he was sweetie now. “Of course,” he said, and kissed her temple. To the women he said, “That’s what I love about this lass. She’s full of grand ideas. A right proper Starbucks, she said.”

  Sloane laughed a little and shot him a brief, but pointed look. “He’s always joking around. I did not say Starbucks. He did.”

  “Sloane does have great ideas,” Dylan agreed. Her cheeks were flushed.

  “Well.” Paige’s gaze was riveted on Sloane. “You’ve obviously talked a lot about it. Sounds like a lot of planning for someone who is on vacation.”

  “Not really,” Sloane said, and turned her attention to the serious study of a cuticle. “It’s what I do.”

  “And we spend all our time together,” Galen said. “Canna get enough of this one.” He rubbed his hand on the top of her head.

  Sloane grabbed his hand and yanked it down and held it tightly, digging her fingernails into his palm. As if that would stop him.

  “She’s been helping me around the pub,” he added. “Couldna do it without her.” He winked at Sloane. “I’m going to make a barmaid of her yet, I am.”

  “A barmaid.” Victoria laughed as if that were preposterous.

  “Aye, a proper one, with a short skirt and shirt with a lower neck than this one,” he said, gesturing to her buttoned collar.

  Sloane smiled. But her eye
s were sparkling with something other than laughter. Ire, he supposed.

  “But she’s not a barmaid,” Victoria scoffed. “She’d make a terrible barmaid.”

  “Who says?” Sloane asked. “Maybe it’s a new me.”

  “I adore the new you,” Galen said, and nuzzled her ear.

  The women stared at him, speechless. Galen was beginning to enjoy this immensely. He could imagine any number of things he might say, any number of ways he might cause Sloane a wee bit of trouble, because somehow, it made this pretend game more palatable to joke around. But at just that moment, his sister-in-law Reeny walked in through the door.

  She was dressed up, and she paused just inside and stared at Lazlo behind the bar. Galen could see her smile melt into confusion, and as she glanced around, her dark brown gaze landed on Galen. She looked surprised, and then her brows dipped into a frown as she started toward him.

  “Pardon,” Galen said and stood up. He slipped his hand from Sloane’s. “I best see about the bar.”

  He stepped away just in time to intercept Reeny.

  She tried to look around him on the right, but Galen matched her movement. So then she lurched left. Galen was faster. “All right, who’s the bird?” she demanded, and poked him in the chest. “And what does Lazlo know about keeping a bar?”

  “He can draw a beer as well as I can.”

  “Come on, who is she, you sly bastard? You’ve no’ said a word!”

  “A word about what?” He took Reeny by the elbow and wheeled her around. “They’re friends.”

  “Aye, well, the blonde one looked a bit too cozy to be called friend. You’ve no’ had a friend like that in an age.”

  “Ach, Reeny, who’s keeping score? Why are you here, anyway? Where’s Malcolm?”

  “He’s delayed in Inverness. Your mum has her book club. God knows whose skirt Owen is chasing. So I came for a drink and to help my favorite brother-in-law make a bit of money if he needed it.”

  “All under control,” he said, seating her at the bar. “Wine?”

  “Aye. The good wine,” Reeny said. “None of the cheap stuff you bring up from Glasgow.”

  “Thank you—that ought to sell a glass or two,” he said, nodding to the people around her. He got the wine from the cooler, and as he uncorked it, he glanced over his shoulder. Reeny was surreptitiously eyeing the Americans. No doubt she believed she had hit the jackpot of family gossip.

  When Reeny began to bump her gums, there’d be no end to the questions. What was it his mother had said just a month ago? “If you donna have an interest in women, how will you give me grandchildren?”

  “I have an interest in women, Mum,” he’d said with exasperation. “I’m no’ dead, aye? But I’ve no’ a moment to myself, have I?”

  “Your expectations are too bloody high, lad.”

  “Is that possible?” Galen had laughed. “Shall I lower them?”

  His mother had clucked and playfully slapped the back of his head.

  Galen filled a glass for Reeny, and when he turned back, he was chagrinned to see Sloane at the bar, too. She hadn’t noticed Reeny, but Reeny had definitely zeroed in on her like a heat-seeking missile. And she looked bloody gleeful about it.

  Galen steeled himself. He walked back to that end of the bar and placed the wine before Reeny. She ignored it.

  “Hey,” Sloane said, and she leaned across the bar, beckoning Galen with her finger. “Listen, I think you can take it down a notch.” She held up her finger and thumb to show just what she thought a “notch” was. She glanced apprehensively over her shoulder. “I mean, they’re all in, but they’re a little concerned about the barmaid thing. Oh, and they want more whisky.”

  “All in?” Reeny asked, her excitement about to lift her off the stool. “What does it mean, the barmaid thing?”

  Her question startled Sloane; she stared at a woman who was a stranger to her.

  “Sloane, meet my sister-in-law, Reeny,” Galen said. “Reeny, this is Sloane.”

  “Oh. Oh,” Sloane said and swayed backward. “Oh shit. I—” She suddenly stuck out her hand. “I’m Sloane Chatfield. It is a pleasure to meet you…Reeny, is it?”

  “It is.” Reeny took Sloane’s hand and pumped it with great enthusiasm. “You’re Galen’s bird, are you?”

  “Reeny,” Galen said, but his determined sister-in-law waved him off.

  “Bird? Do you mean…oh no.” Sloane laughed loudly. “No, nooo, no.”

  Reeny nodded. She reminded Galen of a tiger, slowly circling the little lamb she intended to feast upon. “Oh, then you’re friends, are you?”

  “You could say that. I’m from out of town—”

  “Quite a long way by the sound of it,” Reeny said.

  “Chicago. I’ve been coming here to use the wifi—”

  “So you’re the wifi hog!” Reeny cried gleefully.

  Sloane gasped and her gaze flew to Galen. “You told people that?”

  “Calm down, Sloane. And you as well, Reeny,” he said.

  The two women ignored him. They stared at each other. Galen noticed that behind Reeny, Paige had stood and was moving in their direction, and he stifled a groan. This was not good.

  “Christ, Galen,” Reeny said and managed to shift her gaze away from Sloane. She was grinning. “She’s a rocket.”

  “A what?” Sloane asked, sounding offended.

  “It’s a good thing,” Reeny laughingly assured her. “You must come to Sunday dinner, aye?”

  “Reeny,” Galen said sharply.

  “Oh, thanks, but I couldn’t,” Sloane said quickly. “My friends are here now—”

  “So what?” Paige had appeared, hearing the invitation. “We’re talking about going to that resort to get spa treatments. You can miss that, Sloane. It’s not like you don’t go to get a spa treatment about once a week at home.”

  Sloane flushed and muttered, “I do not go once a week for spa treatments.”

  “Galen, what’s the matter with you, lad?” Reeny asked. “Donna you want your mum to meet your friend?”

  “I donna suppose you’d allow me to do it on my own terms,” he said drily.

  “No.” Reeny shifted her attention to Sloane. “The family and friends come together every Sunday after Galen’s mum comes back from the kirk. Come around one.”

  “No, really, thank you so much, but I don’t think—”

  “She’ll be there,” Paige said, leaning over Sloane’s shoulder. “Hey, Galen, how about some more of that whisky?”

  “I’ve no’ been round to see yer mum in an age,” a male voice said.

  How in the hell had Galen missed Ned? He had sidled up to Reeny and had his arm draped companionably around her shoulders.

  “Aye, of course, Ned, you come, too. We’ll invite the whole American lot, aye Galen?”

  “Who, us?” Paige asked.

  “Aye, all of you. We’ll have a proper barbecue.”

  “I’ll come with the guitar,” Ned said excitedly.

  “Donna get carried away now, Ned,” Galen warned him.

  Paige looked at Sloane and shrugged. “Could be fun. Local flavor and all that.”

  “I thought you wanted to see the resort,” Sloane said.

  “We can do that anytime. It’s not as if we have an itinerary.”

  Stricken, Sloane looked to Galen for help. Alas, he couldn’t help her. His mother was famous in Gairloch for inviting half the village on Sundays. Now that Reeny had met Sloane, there was no avoiding it. “Aye, come,” he said.

  He sincerely hoped he would not regret it.

  …

  The Americans left just after eleven o’clock, holding each other up. Sloane gave Galen a little wave of her fingers as she went out.

  The pub emptied out shortly after that, and Galen finished the clean-up at half past midnight. He nudged Molly out of her bed in the back room and closed the door to the pub. There was a full moon out, and he hitched the collar of his jacket up around his ears and shoved his hand
s in his pockets to begin the walk home. He followed the path around to the front of the pub—and saw Sloane sitting in the metal chair. Molly had found her, too, and had pushed her nose up under Sloane’s hand. Sloane was absently stroking her head. “Long night?” she asked.

  “A long night, a good night.” Galen was happy that he actually made a little money for once. “Where have your friends gotten off to?”

  “They’re all in bed. Jet lagged, you know. Where is your sister-in-law?”

  “In bed. Guttered, you know.”

  Sloane laughed softly.

  “She had a grand time of it,” Galen said.

  “Right…Galen, I’m so sorry,” she said earnestly. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble with your family. I mean, how will you ever explain this?” she asked, gesturing between the two of them.

  He shrugged. “I suppose I’ll tell them the truth.”

  She gasped and came to her feet. “That I propositioned you?”

  “No? Then I’ll tell them you’re the new barmaid.”

  Sloane tilted her head to one side. “How about you tell them I’m the new bookkeeper?”

  He smiled. “They’d never believe it. There’s no’ enough money to count.”

  “I could be the new sandwich maker. I make a mean PB and J. And I can slap cheese on bread as well as that kid you have coming round.”

  “Aye, and what would Lazlo do? Nothing left to do around here but shear sheep.”

  “You’re right,” she said, and furrowed her brow, pretending to concentrate.

  Galen reached around her head and removed the claw that held her hair up. Her hair fell to her shoulders, and he held a strand of it, rubbing the end between his finger and thumb.

  “We won’t come to your mother’s,” Sloane said softly. “That’s so invasive, and honestly, I would die if someone did that to me. Jesus, I would die if someone did to me everything I am doing to you, but you have to believe me, I never thought it would go this way when I got the stupid idea—”

  “Lass, it’s all right.”

  She hesitated. “No, it’s not,” she said, as if she needed to explain to him just how rotten it was. “It’s awful. Just tell Reeny we had a conflict—”