“Okay, so you remember some things. But if we had a contest, I’d win.” Why she’d admit that the night meant so much to her, she wasn’t sure. Probably because the game was fun. His hands were fun. That last kiss was way more than fun.
“Care to exchange more memories, sweetheart? I’m really looking forward to the historic reenactment of…” He paused for a moment.
Bingo. She had him. “You don’t remember the date.”
“I do. Of course I do. It was June. Before the All-Star break.” He dragged his hands up and down her spine, closing his eyes as though he was memorizing the feel of her, and for a moment she thought she might melt right into the sand. “June twelfth,” he said. “A Friday night.”
“I’m in trouble,” she said with a laugh. “You’re starting to scare me.”
“I told you, I remember everything.”
“The date and the style of my bra. Hardly everything.”
He pulled her close again, putting his mouth up against her ear. “I remember what you said afterwards.”
I love you, Deuce Monroe. I’ve always loved you and I always will.
Her heart really did stop, then it thundered in double-time against her chest. She waited for him to repeat her declaration and knew she couldn’t deny it.
“You said…” His breath tickled her ear. “‘I can’t wait for the next time.’”
Yes, she’d said that, too. Maybe he didn’t remember the whole I-love-you-forever-and-always part. She could hope.
“Guess what, Miss Locke?”
She backed away from his treacherous lips and looked at him. “What?”
“I think I out-remember you.”
“Not a chance.” Was there?
“What did I say to you when you left?”
She regarded him, looking for clues in those eyes. How could she forget? But she had? She had no memory of his last words to her. “You said, ‘See ya later, Ken-doll.’”
He shook his head. “I win. I’ll pick you up tonight after the bar closes. Say, midnight?”
“What did you say?” she asked, trying to ignore the voice in her head that was screaming yes, I’ll be ready at midnight! “When we said goodbye, Deuce. What did you say to me?”
“I’ll tell you tonight. Or better yet…” he grinned at her the way he did right after he left some poor kid at the plate not knowing what had hit him. “I’ll tell you tomorrow morning when you wake up.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
EVERY TIME THE FRONT door of Monroe’s opened, Deuce glanced up from the almost empty bar, expecting to see Kendra. Not that he really thought she’d come down to the bar to speed up the closing process so they could get to the beach…but he hoped. His blood simmered at the thought. She wouldn’t back out, would she?
After all, a bet was a bet.
At eleven o’clock, only two stragglers sipped beers and watched the end of a Celtics game at one end of the bar. The medieval game-playing twins had abandoned their jousting to work a couple of girls at a table, but they’d already closed their tab. A few other tables were ready to call it a night.
Very soon, he could close up and collect on his bet. At the sound of the great door creaking open, he turned to see Martin Hatcher pulling off a bright-green trucker cap as he entered.
His eyes lit up at the sight of Deuce. “There’s my favorite knuckleball man,” he said, ambling over to the bar.
“Kind of late for you, isn’t it, sir?” Would the Hatchet Man settle in for a few hours? Not that Deuce wouldn’t enjoy the conversation, but tonight he wanted to close as early as possible.
Martin slipped onto a barstool and crossed his arms. “I’m retired, son. So it’s no longer a school night for me. How about a draft?”
“Coming right up.” Deuce poured the golden liquid, tilting the glass to create the perfect head. “Here you go, sir.”
Martin raised the glass in salute. “Lose the sir, Deuce.”
Deuce laughed and leaned on the bar. “You’ll always be the voice of authority to me, Martin.”
The glass halted halfway to his mouth as his lips twitched. “I’ve never been the voice of authority to you, Deuce. You always marched to your own…authority.”
Then he drank. One of the bar patrons held up a twenty and Deuce cashed them out and said good night. Two down, a few to go. He moved back down to where the ex-principal sat.
“Been to any more practices?” Martin asked.
Deuce shook his head, but Martin’s look stopped him. He could never fudge the truth with the Hatchet Man. “All right. One. Well, two.”
Martin released a soft, knowing chuckle. “How’s the elbow doing?”
“Not bad, actually.” He rubbed the tender spot, and blessed the workouts he’d been secretly doing every day. “I can actually throw a knuckleball again. But man cannot live by knuckleballs alone.”
“Keep working out and you can play again.”
“I can play now,” Deuce said defensively. “It’s the lawyers who blackballed me from baseball, not the doctors. I’d need more P.T., but…” his voice drifted away. “Anyway, I’m a barkeep now.”
“You can’t stay away from a ball field,” Martin said with a wry smile. “I remember that was the only way I could really get to you. Detention, suspension, parental call-ins, nothing worked but keeping you off the field.”
“That was where I wanted to be,” Deuce agreed. “Although detention had its side benefits. That’s where you find the cute bad girls.”
Martin laughed at that and sipped some more draft, then glanced around. “But not your business partner,” he mused. “She never did anything bad.”
But she would. In an hour or two.
“Where is Kendra?” Martin asked.
Hopefully, slipping into something…easy to slip out of. “She only works days. I cover the nights.”
“Interesting arrangement,” Martin mused. “How’s that going?”
“We’re working on some changes.” Deuce flipped on the water to wash the last of the glasses as a burst of laughter erupted from the Gibbons’s table. Maybe they were getting ready to take the ladies home for a wild night of medieval sportsmanship.
“As I understand it, Kendra was already working on some changes for Monroe’s. Did she tell you about them?”
Deuce looked up from the sink. “Of course. I’ve seen all the plans.”
“What do you think?”
The truth was, he thought that her plans were great. But he also could make a sports bar profitable. Deep inside, he hoped for a compromise, but couldn’t imagine her agreeing to it. “Jury’s out.”
Martin sipped. “She’s been working on the whole cyber café and artists’ space for a long time.”
“Two years,” Deuce noted. “That’s how long she’s been part-owner of this place.”
“Oh, no, Deuce. She’s really been at Monroe’s for nearly ten or more.” Martin’s gray eyes looked particularly sharp. “Since she was first in college.”
Why did Deuce get the idea he was being worked by the principal? “I remember,” he said, turning to stack the clean glasses.
“But then she dropped out.”
Deuce froze at the odd tone in Martin’s voice. Was he accusing him of something…or was that just residual fear of the principal teasing Deuce. He reached for more glasses, clearing his throat. “She said she had a bad break-up.”
When Martin didn’t respond, Deuce looked up. The man wore the oddest expression.
“You know women,” Deuce said, the old awkwardness of sitting in the principal’s office sluicing through him. “They get…weird.”
Martin just nodded, then slid his glass to make room for his elbows as he leaned toward Deuce. “I’d hate to see her unhappy again.”
What was he saying? “Do you think my being here is making her unhappy?”
Martin frowned. “Did I say that?”
“Well, what are you saying?” Deuce demanded.
“I’m saying that she has—or
had—big plans for this place and I happen to know they don’t include a sports bar.”
Staring at the man, Deuce searched his mind for a reasonable explanation for Martin’s strange message. Then the truth dawned on him. He started laughing, which made the old Hatchet Man’s eyes spark like cinders.
“Martin, I’m not going to coach the high-school baseball team. You can’t psyche me into it with guilt over Kendra’s café plans, sir.”
“You call me sir again and I’ll write you up, son.” He winked and pushed his empty glass forward. “What do I owe you?”
Deuce shook his head. “Truth is, I owe you, Martin. That one’s on the house.”
“Maybe I’ll see you at practice this week. I’m working the grounds.”
They both knew he would.
When the last glass was clean, the register was cashed out and the night’s draw was tucked into the pouch, Deuce locked the drawer in Kendra’s office and pocketed the keys. As he pushed the chair back from the desk, his foot bumped into something soft.
Bending over, he spied the nylon tote bag Kendra carried between work and home. She must have left it when they went to Fall River and forgotten to pick it up before she’d gone home.
Well, she had been distracted. He grinned at the thought, reaching for the bag. Did she really need it tonight? With one finger, he inched the zippered opening to see what it contained. A laptop, a calculator, some folders, a red spiral notebook.
Nothing earth-shattering.
Deuce took the bag with him to his car, sliding it behind the passenger seat and made a mental note to leave it with the keys on Diana’s table for her to find when she came over to walk Newman.
Correction. Tomorrow morning, Kendra would wake up in his bed. Then he could give her the bag in person.
He gunned the Mercedes’s engine and pulled onto High Castle with a sense of anticipation he hadn’t felt since his last opening day.
FROM BEHIND THE TWO-FOOT protection of a sand dune, in the nearly moonless night, Kendra heard the rumble of the Mercedes’s engine. Blue halogen headlights sliced into the night.
A trickle of guilt wound its way through her chest. Hiding out on the beach was a chicken thing to do, but if Deuce knocked on her door and melted her with that smile and annihilated her with that mouth…she’d be dead. She’d had all night to think about the “reenactment” he proposed, knowing full well he was basically asking her to sleep with him.
And, Lord have mercy, she wanted to say yes. Her skin practically ignited at the thought of giving in to the full-body ache he caused. She’d never say no if he had her out on West Rock Beach. Or in a bedroom. Or a car. Or the kitchen. Or…
The lights faded and she heard a car door. Kendra sank deeper into the sand.
She just had to keep avoiding him, and when Seamus and Diana returned, she’d tell them…what? She wasn’t sure yet. The bar was profitable, no doubt. But the cyber café revenues were up as well. She was no closer to “working it out” with Deuce—as Seamus had instructed—than the day this all started.
She was, however, closer to giving in to that toe-curling attraction that had blinded and stupefied her for, oh, twenty-odd years now.
She imagined Deuce rounding the side of the house, peering at her darkened, quiet beach bungalow. Would he give up then, or would he knock?
He’d assume she was dead asleep…or out for the night. Then he’d surely go back to Diana’s and slide the kitchen door open.
Newman would bark, so she’d know the coast was clear. After fifteen minutes, she’d sneak back into her house. Alone. Hungry. Achy.
Wrapping the blanket tighter around her shoulders, Kendra studied the C-shaped moon slice, surrounded by blackness and the smattering of stars that were always visible on Cape Cod.
Too bad she was a coward. They could have had one killer of a reenactment.
She closed her eyes and imagined his kiss, his hands, his breath in her mouth. A shudder quivered through her and she forced herself to listen for the noises to assure her he’d given up the idea and gone to bed. Alone. Hungry. Achy.
Why hadn’t Newman barked yet? She wanted to rise up on her knees and peer over the sandbank, but with her luck that would be the very second Deuce chose to scope the beach.
Behind her, the grass rustled. She clamped her mouth closed to keep from even breathing, assessing how close the sound of that footfall really was.
She sensed him—felt his presence, sniffed his scent—before she actually saw him. Then he was there, not ten feet from where she sat, standing on the crest of the mound. Her eyes had long ago adjusted to the dark and she could make out every detail of him. His powerful chest rose and fell with a deep sigh. He stabbed his hair with one hand, leaving a lock loose on his brow, then he shoved both hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, his gaze out to the sea.
Surely the hammering staccato of her heart would give her away.
But he didn’t seem to hear. He inhaled again, and closed his eyes as he let out the breath, shaking his head softly as though some thought amused or amazed him.
“Well this is just too damn sad,” he said quietly. “I want her.”
The admission drew a soft gasp from her throat, and he spun toward her, his surprise palpable even in the darkness. “Kendra?” In two long strides, he loomed above her. “What are you doing out here?” he asked.
She dropped part of the blanket on the sand and patted it for him to sit down. “Trying to avoid you.”
He blew out a laugh and settled next to her, then reached over and brushed a strand of hair she hadn’t realized fell on her cheek. His fingertips sent heat through her. “You’re awfully damn good at that.”
“Evidently I can run, but…well, you know.”
He laughed again. “You don’t have to hide, sweetheart. All you have to say is you’d rather not see me and I’ll understand.” He somehow managed to get closer, his body warmth far more effective than the blanket. “I won’t hold you to the reenactment.”
She nibbled on her lower lip, regarding him. “Anyway, we’re at the wrong beach.”
He smiled at her. “Let’s not get hung up with the particulars.”
She had no chance against this man. And, really, why fight it? The dark lock of hair still grazed his eyebrow, and under it, his eyes had the smoky, soulful darkness of arousal and desire. She could just smell the waves of his sexual appetite. Well, that might be a little of the Wing Man’s chicken, but for some reason, that smelled sexy, too.
“I’m pathetic,” she admitted, giving in to the urge to drop her head on his shoulder. “I even like the smell of barbecue on you.”
He responded by pulling her into a hug. “Yeah? Bet it’s nice mixed with the beer.”
Oh, Lord, she had no chance.
He let out a small, low sound of masculine approval, sliding his hand under her hair to pull her closer. “We had a good night,” he said softly. “About eight hundred dollars.”
“We had a good day,” she countered. “About six fifty.”
“What a team,” he chuckled. “Too bad we can’t figure out a way to work the same hours.”
She looked at him, knowing the kiss was inevitable. As he covered her mouth with his, she closed her eyes and let the sensations of warmth and want roll over her with the same force with which the ocean hit the sand.
“Oh, Deuce,” she whispered into the kiss. “You’re really messing with my plans.”
“Forget your plans, sweetheart.” His palm pressed the side of her breast and she ached for him to touch her.
“Is this the reenactment?”
“Mmmm.” Slowly, easily, he leaned her back on the blanket. “Could be.” He skimmed the rise of her breast, lingering on the pebbled nipple at the peak. “Remember that?”
A sharp, powerful bolt of desire stabbed through her, settling low between her hips and igniting the need to rock against him. “Yes, I do.”
He eased on top of her, letting her feel the hardness of his erect
ion as he spread his hand over her breast.
“Do you remember…” he kissed her hair, her eyelids, and slid his hand under the fabric of the cotton sweater she wore. “This?”
She gasped as the heat of his fingers seared her flesh, dropping her head back into the sand. She felt the grains crunch under her hair, and a sense of déjà vu flashed in her mind. “I do,” she managed to say.
“And…” He grazed her stomach and found the clasp of her bra. “This?” He laughed softly as he unclipped it effortlessly. “I definitely remember this.”
He kissed her again, parting her lips with his tongue, taking hers with authority. He tasted like mint, like soda, like…Deuce.
With his other hand, he pushed the sweater higher as their hips rolled against each other in perfect rhythm. Both hands on her, he spread the silken fabric of her bra and cupped her breasts, then lowered his head to suck her nipple.
Blood roared through her ears, deafening her to the sound of the sea. All she could hear was his ragged breathing, his whispered endearments, the sound of her own soft gasps with each flick of his tongue.
He traveled back up to her mouth, his whole body now covering hers.
She grasped the firm muscles of his backside, squeezing through the denim and pushing harder against him, vaguely aware of the sand that had somehow slipped between her fingertips.
Sand and Deuce. They belonged together.
With one hand, he unsnapped her jeans. She felt the fabric loosen, steeled herself in anticipation of his touch on her stomach. Still she quaked as his hand slid into her panties and a pleasure whipped through her.
“I remember this…” His tongue traced her mouth. “This sweet place.” He put his lips against her ear and his breath fired through her. “I remember exactly what it felt like to be inside of you.”
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