She expected the front door to be locked when she tugged at the brass handle. But the door whipped open from the other side, propelled by a laughing couple who almost mowed her down in their enthusiasm to get to their car. Kendra stood in the doorway, stunned as they brushed by her and mumbled excuses.
One step into Monroe’s and she froze again. From speakers she didn’t know she still had, Bruce Springsteen wailed. A stock-car race flashed on one TV monitor, a baseball game on another. Glasses and mugs clanged and loud voices of fifty or sixty people echoed with toasts and laughter, and somewhere, in the distance, she smelled…barbecued chicken.
Kendra ventured a few steps through the door. Had she fallen asleep in the bathtub and got stuck in a really vivid dream?
A total stranger tended the bar. A woman she’d never seen waltzed through a cluster of tables and chairs carrying an old brown drink tray laden with glasses. And, as though her eyes weren’t playing enough tricks on her, Jerry and Larry Gibbons were over in the corner, flirting with some girls, sipping ice-cold brews from the brand-new tap.
Kendra tried to breathe, tried to think. How had he done this? How had he—
“Well look what the…” Deuce’s chocolate gaze traveled over her, pausing at the floor. “…dog dragged in.”
Newman skittered across the hardwood toward him, but Kendra tugged his leash. She opened her mouth, but before she could utter a sound, Deuce was next to her, sliding one solid, strong arm around her waist. His face dipped close enough for his lips to touch her hair.
“Don’t tell me,” he said, the musky scent of him mixed with beer and barbecue filling her head. “You were worried I couldn’t handle the nine o’clock rush?”
The only rush she felt was a bolt of electricity charging from her head, down her body and leaving a thousand goose bumps in its wake. “I was worried you had no clue how to close up.”
“We’re not closing for hours, Ken-doll. And I hope you’ll stay for the duration.”
She looked up at him, her razor-sharp brain taking an unexpected vacation. Words, praise, criticism—anything intelligent—eluded her. Everything except the heart-stopping desire to kiss him. And that was not intelligent.
“How did you do this?” she managed to ask.
“Word spreads. It seems Rockingham is still a very small town,” he said, his eyes glinting in a tease.
She glanced at the patrons, two deep at the bar. “And, apparently, a thirsty one.”
She was enough of a professional to appreciate the revenue flow. And enough of a competitor to be more than a little bit jealous.
She sniffed. “What’s that smell?”
“Profits,” he whispered, that mighty arm squeezing her waist even tighter. “You smell revenue on the rise.”
“I smell barbecue chicken.”
“Oh that,” he laughed, guiding her closer to the bar. “You know JC Myers owns The Wingman now?”
She assumed the ownership of Rockingham’s favorite barbecue joint was a rhetorical question and didn’t answer.
“He agreed to provide some emergency assistance.”
“What emergency?”
“A munchie emergency. You can’t serve gallons of alcohol and no food.” He waved a hand toward the crowd. “We’ve got to keep these people happy.”
“There’s food in the back,” she said defensively.
He rolled his eyes. “Granola bars and cupcakes.”
“Muffins,” she corrected.
“Not exactly sports-bar food.”
Newman pattered around her and she scooped him up protectively, before she wandered farther into the fray. She saw some familiar faces from around town, and plenty of new ones. Who were all these people and why had they suddenly shown up?
“Who’s tending bar?” she asked.
“You don’t remember Dec Clifford? My old first baseman?”
As if she’d ever noticed anyone on any team he played on besides…the pitcher. “Vaguely. I didn’t realize he was still in Rockingham.”
“He’s a lawyer in Boston now,” Deuce told her, his hand firmly planted on the small of her back, making sure those goose bumps had no chance of disappearing. “And over there is Eric Fleming, outfielder. But now he’s in commercial real estate in New Hampshire. That’s Ginger Alouette serving drinks. She was a track star in high school, if you don’t remember. She lives in Provincetown. Most of these people still live on Cape Cod—I just had to dig them up.”
A lawyer from Boston, a developer from New Hampshire and Ginger from P-town. They’d all come to see him—to work for him.
“I’ll get real staff soon,” he promised. “I just wanted to get open as soon as possible and so I had a little help from my friends.”
He was still the draw, not Monroe’s Bar & Grill & Wannabe Cyber Café. Deuce was the main attraction and, suddenly, with sickening clarity, she faced the truth. He could make this work. He could make a raging success out of the bar…and she’d be doing Seamus a disservice by trying to fight it.
“I can’t believe you brought a dog in here,” he said, reaching for a quick pet of Newman, who nuzzled into Kendra.
She’d never dreamed the place would be packed, or Newman would have stayed home. As she would have. “I thought you’d…” Be all alone. “Need some—”
“Company?” he asked with a grin.
“No, just help.” But that had been ridiculous. He had all the assistance he needed. She looked pointedly at the black screens of her computers. “How did you figure out how to get all the systems down?”
“I just installed a glycolic cooling unit, a CD player and a satellite dish, Kendra. It didn’t take a Harvard degree to turn off a bunch of computers.”
The comment jabbed her right in the stomach. She swallowed a hundred retorts and looked away. He had no idea what he’d said, and she could hardly zing him anymore for incompetence. He had it all going on, and more.
“Would you like a drink?” he asked, as they reached one empty barstool. “Dec, remember Jack’s little sister? Get the lady whatever she likes. It’s on the house.”
Jack’s little sister. That’s what she’d always be to him. Not the owner of this establishment. Not the woman he’d deflowered a decade ago. Not…anything. Just Jack’s little sister.
“On the house?” She allowed him to ease her onto a barstool. “I am the house.”
He just laughed, leaning so close to her ear she thought he was about to plant a kiss on her neck.
“I believe you’ve already had a sample of our new draft selection, right, Ken-doll?”
She just looked at the bartender, vaguely remembering a younger version of his face that had no doubt spent hours with the baseball boys in the basement. She’d been so blinded to anyone but Deuce. “I’ll just have a soda, please,” she told him.
And then Deuce was gone. A whisper of “Excuse me,” and the warmth of his body disappeared from behind her. She fought the urge to turn and watch him work the crowd. Instead, she cuddled Newman in her lap and gratefully accepted the cold drink for her dry throat.
“He’s absolutely adorable.”
Kendra turned to see the familiar, friendly face of Sophie Swenson, her hostess and right hand at the café. Sophie held a glass of white wine—in a stem glass—and her deep-blue eyes glinted with excitement.
“Yeah, he’s adorable,” Kendra assured her, with a disdainful glance back at Deuce. “But he knows it.”
Sophie let out a soft giggle. “I meant the dog.”
“Oh.” Kendra couldn’t help laughing as she pulled Newman higher on her lap. “Well, Newman knows he’s adorable, too.” She narrowed her eyes at Sophie, noticing the flush on her pretty cheeks, the way her gaze darted around the crowd. Would her most senior employee want to slide over to the Dark Side now? “You want to switch to a new evening schedule, Soph?”
Sophie shrugged and settled into the barstool. “If the action stays like this, I might. I mean is Monroe’s going back to being a bar? What ab
out the expansion plans?”
Kendra let out a long, slow sigh. “I have no idea,” she admitted. “I just wish he’d go back to where he came from.”
“He came from…here.” Sophie’s eyes were without humor. “I mean, his dad owns the bar.”
Kendra’s shoulders slumped slightly. “I own half of this bar.”
Sophie raised a surprised eyebrow.
“Internet café,” Kendra corrected, burying her fingers in Newman’s soft fur and scratching him. “And I’m not going to walk away because the mighty Deuce has come home.”
Sophie’s gaze moved from Kendra to Deuce, then back to Kendra. “He’s crazy about you.”
Her heartbeat skidded up to triple time. “I doubt that.”
“He hasn’t taken his eyes off you since you walked in here.”
Why did that fact send yet another shower of goose bumps over her? Kendra closed her eyes until it passed. “No, we’re just in an oddly competitive situation right now.”
Kendra stole one more glance over her shoulder. Ginger the track star-turned cocktail waitress gazed up at Deuce and giggled. Another athletic-looking man slapped him on the back.
But Deuce’s gaze moved over everyone and locked on Kendra. There was that secret smile, that cocky tease in his eyes. And, as it had since before she knew how to write his name in cursive, the old zingy sensation washed over her.
Oh, Lord, not still. Not at thirty years old. That incapacitating girlhood crush had resulted in nothing but sleepless nights and pillows drenched in tears. A lost opportunity to graduate from the finest university in the country. And she wouldn’t even think about the baby. She’d trained herself not to ever, ever do that.
Hadn’t she paid enough for the honor of worshipping at Deuce’s altar?
“Call it competition if you like,” Sophie said, yanking Kendra back to the present. “But that man’s got you front and center on his radar screen.”
“Well then I’ll just have to disappear.”
“That’s kind of difficult since you’re both working in the same place,” Sophie said.
“Not at all,” Kendra said, gathering up Newman with determination. “I work days, he works nights. And never the twain shall meet.”
Sophie tilted her head a centimeter to the right in a secret warning. “The twains are about to meet, honey. Hunky baseball player on your six.”
Clutching Newman, Kendra slid off the stool and took a speed course through the crowd around the bar. The back door was closest, so she focused on it like a beacon for a lost ship. If she could just get into the kitchen before he got to her, she could slip into the back parking lot.
She breezed through the storage area, ignored the surprised looks from the borrowed employees of The Wingman who were plating up chicken in the little kitchen, and flung the back door open into the night.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” she whispered to Newman, setting him gently on the concrete.
Newman sniffed at the corner of the Dumpster.
“No time for trash, Newman.” She tugged on his leash and led him along a brick wall through the side alley and to the main road.
Where she walked smack into one six-foot-two-inch former baseball player wearing that triumphant grin that used to melt her in the stands of Rockingham Field.
“The party just started, Ken-doll,” he said softly, placing those incredible hands on her shoulders and pulling her just an inch too close to that solid wall of chest. “You can’t run away yet.”
The definition of stupid, she thought desperately, is making the same mistake twice. And Kendra Locke, who’d scored a coveted scholarship to Harvard and masterminded the makeover of Rockingham’s version of Silicon Valley was not stupid. Was she?
“I’m not running away,” she insisted. “It’s too crowded in there for a dog. And I—” she cleared her throat. “I have to go home.”
“I’d like you to stay.” He dipped his face close to hers. She didn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t possibly think.
Deuce was going to kiss her. She opened her mouth to say something, something like “This is a bad idea,” but before she could manage a word, he covered her mouth with his.
She stood stone-still as his fingers tightened his grip and his lips moved imperceptibly over hers. He closed a little bit of space between them, his chest touched hers, his legs touched hers, his tongue touched hers.
Was she really going to do this? She, the former Mensa candidate and Rockingham High valedictorian? Could she be that foolish and wild? Could she dare let history repeat itself?
Opening her mouth, she did the only thing she could possibly think to do.
She kissed him back.
CHAPTER FIVE
KENDRA SLID HER ARMS around Deuce’s shoulders, which was all the body language he needed to completely close the space between them.
A soft moan rumbled in her throat as he tested the waters by grazing her teeth with his tongue. In that instant, it all came back. The magical kisses of an eager, sweet girl. The memory of that extraordinary night hit him as hard as the surf that they’d let pound them as they’d lain naked on the sand.
He touched the dip of her waist and skimmed his hands over the curve of her backside, hardening instantly against her stomach, moving automatically against her hips.
“Deuce.” He could feel his name tumble from her lips as she reluctantly broke the kiss. “Newman.”
Newman?
Then he realized the dog was parting them by pulling on his leash. He gave the leather strap a good tug. “Hey bud. Gimme a break.”
That was enough to kill the moment. Even though her blue eyes were darkened by the same arousal that twisted through him, Kendra backed up.
“Listen to me,” she said softly, but with a whispered vehemence that made him look hard at her. “I’m not the same girl I was back then.”
“No, you’re not,” he agreed, pulling her just enough into him so there was no doubt of the effect she had on him. “Now you’re a woman.” He traced his thumb along her jaw. “Smart, willful and…beautiful.”
She dipped away from his touch, the darkness in her eyes shifting from arousal to wariness.
“I’m smart all right,” she insisted, and he sensed she was telling this to herself as much as to him. “Too smart to…” Her voice drifted as she managed to untangle herself from his arm. “I’m going home now.”
He smiled at her. “I like you, Kendra.”
She backed up farther and gave him a dubious look. “What are you up to, Deuce Monroe?”
“You don’t trust me at all, do you?”
Her eyes suddenly widened. “Do you think seducing me is going to win you the bar? You think I’ll just back down from this fight because you swept me off my feet and into bed?”
The words punched him. “No.” Truthfully, the thought hadn’t even occurred to him. “I just…like you.”
Nothing on her face said she believed him.
“Why don’t you stay until I close up?” he suggested. “We can talk about the business, about how we can…figure this out.”
“You don’t want to talk.”
No, he didn’t. But he would. “Come on, Kendra. Stay. I can take you home later.”
Newman skittered toward the street, suddenly impatient with the conversation, and Kendra went with him as though she felt exactly the same. “Just lock all the doors when you leave. And put the cash in the green zipper case in the bottom drawer of the office.”
“Oh, yeah, I’ll put the cash in the office that doesn’t lock.”
“The desk does,” she said, reaching into her pocket. “Here.” She held up a key chain. “The little gold one locks the cash drawer. Leave it on Diana’s kitchen table and I’ll stop in and walk Newman in the morning.”
Maybe he’d leave them on his dresser so she’d have to come in his bedroom to get them. Maybe, if he hadn’t lost his touch, she’d be right there in the bed next to him in the morning.
He
reached for her hand. “I’d really like if you’d stay.”
She shook her head in warning. “My car’s right there,” she said. “Bye.”
Before he could get a grip on her arm, she’d taken off with the dog in tow, hustling down the street. Guess he had lost his touch.
He let his arousal subside as he waited in the street to see her get into a car and drive away. Pocketing the keys, he watched until the taillights disappeared at the bend away from the beach.
He touched his mouth, the feel of her lips still fresh. He was not done with her. Not by a long shot.
The front door of the bar flung open and two of his old teammates came bounding out, their laughter loud, their guts showing that beer consumption had replaced batting practice as their favorite pastime.
“Man, Deuce, it’s good to have you back.” Charlie Lotane pounded Deuce’s back. “This is going to be an awesome bar. You got the touch, man.”
“Ya think, C-Lo?” The old nicknames came back easily. “I was just wondering if I’d lost it.”
“Deuce, you are the man!” Charlie assured him over his shoulder. “We really needed a place like this in the Rock. Way to go, bro.”
“Thank God you came back, Deuce.”
Deuce watched them disappear down High Castle and suddenly wondered just what the hell he’d come back to prove. That he was still “the man” who could pack Monroe’s? That he was still the main event in town? That he could still see adoration in Jack’s little sister’s eyes?
Was he that shallow and insecure?
The door burst open again and he welcomed the distraction.
NEWMAN CURLED INTO the corner of Kendra’s living room, as at home in this beach bungalow as he was in Diana’s mansion. He was sound asleep by the time Kendra realized exactly what she needed to do in order get her head back on straight.
She needed to read her notebook.
She’d never been one to buy a diary, with a pretty filigree lock, or an embroidered design on the cover. It seemed so planned and pathetic, as though a formal diary somehow legitimized her longings. Plus, she’d known at a very young age that such a girlish item would be too tempting to Jack…and the thought of him sharing her diary with the boys in the basement still sent a rush of heat to her cheeks.
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