by Lori Foster
“No shit, Skeet,” Tony said. “Don’t kill our buzz.”
“Not killin’ our buzz. Just drivin’ home my point.”
Said point being that it was time to start working their way into some of Dallas’ better gigs. Of course, to get those gigs you had to have connections and public relations wasn’t exactly her strong suit.
Actually, people in general weren’t her strong suit. “No point to drive home. I’m not sticking to dive bars on purpose. As soon as I can get a foot in the door at the better places, I’ll make a move.”
“You’ve had three promoters hit you up in as many weeks,” Skeet fired back. “You want a foot in the door, you’re gonna need to actually talk to them.”
“And I told you—Rex and I can handle it.”
“Rex is a good guy and a helluva friend, but he ain’t a promoter or a manager. He’s a welder and an artist.”
“He’s also trustworthy and doesn’t fuck us around.”
“Skeet.” D wasn’t the most charismatic of the group, but when he pulled that low grumbly voice, people shut up and paid attention. “Give it a rest.”
“Buzz. Kill,” Tony added.
Lizzy grinned and dug her phone out of her purse. For all Skeet’s hounding, she knew he meant well and wanted the same things she did. Hell, she wanted it about thirty times worse. While the rest of the guys had trade jobs to help pay their bills, ringing up groceries at the local Aldi didn’t exactly set her inspiration on fire. “It’s gonna take a lot more than Skeet pushing me for better gigs to kill tonight’s buzz.”
She glanced at her phone and the unread text message plastered on her home screen.
Rex: Stuck doing overtime. I’ll try to make it, but if I don’t, you’re gonna have to deal with Vic the Dick.
Now, that was a buzz kill.
She thumbed through her passcode and flipped directly to her text app.
Nope. Still the same shitty message.
“What?” Still gripping his sticks, Tony sidled closer and craned his head for a look at her phone.
Lizzy killed the screen, turned her back and tossed her phone back in her purse before he had a chance to read it. The only thing worse than Lizzy dealing with Vic the Dick—AKA the bar owner—was sending Skeet, Tony or D to collect their cash. God knew, they’d tried that approach a time or two and still couldn’t manage to book any return gigs as a result. “Nothing. Just gotta take care of some business.” She schooled her expression the best she could and faced them. “I’m going to go settle up with Vic.”
D snickered, stretched his long legs out in front of him and crossed his boot-shod feet at the ankles. “Guess that explains the look.”
“What look?” She looked to Tony, then to Skeet. “I don’t have a look.”
“Yeah, you do,” Tony said. “Kind of like you’ve held a fart in too long and are gonna throat punch the next person who keeps you from getting somewhere private so you can let it out.”
“You got a shitty poker face, doll.” Skeet fired up a cigarette he wasn’t supposed to have lit in the building and exhaled a healthy amount of smoke on a chuckle. “You startin’ to see why someone with interpersonal skills might come in handy for us?”
“I’m starting to think the person I’m going to throat punch tonight is you.” She tried to make it come out like the badass she pretended to be on stage, but one corner of her mouth curled up in a smile she couldn’t hold back. Strolling past him, she punched him in the shoulder with an equally lame delivery. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, come see if I’m being hauled off in a cop car for attempted murder.”
All of three steps past the doorway, their laughter was swallowed up by the chaos of the lingering crowd and the requisite end-of-the-night strains of “Sweet Home Alabama.” As bars went, The Crow wasn’t the worst Lizzy had played. The single-story was a free-standing structure and big enough to hold a decent crowd—a necessity when a good chunk of your pay came from a cut of the door. That said, it was also the kind of place where the bouncers didn’t intervene unless more than two sets of fists were involved, and you definitely didn’t want to see the place with the house lights on. The scarred tables and floor stains highlighted by the neon beer signs showed plenty as it was, thank you very much.
Lizzy sidestepped a three-woman posse that’d circled a lone man left unprotected by his wing man—and almost tripped in her four-inch-heel boots.
Standing with his feet braced in a casual yet confident stance behind one of the many black pub tables was a man who turned the rest of the room’s predictability on its head. Dressed in tailored tan pants and a crisp white button-down with sleeves rolled up to show corded forearms, he looked like he’d just escaped long negotiations in a board room, and as tall and built as he was in the shoulders, every thread on him was probably custom-made. But where his clothes were the refined flip side to the rest of the room’s occupants, his long auburn hair and beard completely bucked the businessman stereotype, and his sharp features spoke of life experience learned the hardest way possible.
A powerful man. One who commanded attention with nothing more than a look.
And every ounce of his attention was locked on her.
A whole different buzz fired beneath her skin, and her steps slowed, a sexual awareness she hadn’t felt in years fueling the sway in her hips as she worked her way through the people between her and the bar.
“The crowd’s light tonight.” Vic’s gruff yet petulant voice ripped her attention from the stranger just in time to keep her from slamming into a table directly in her path. It took her a second to tag him behind the bar, half hidden in the shadows of one corner and counting out twenties. “Didn’t help you were late starting up the last set. We lost five big tables waiting on you and your guys to get back to work.”
Light crowd her ass. Every single table had been full right up through their last song, and the waitresses had been hustling nonstop since Lizzy first fired up her amp. Then again, Vic was a sour fucker of the first order and always acted like the whole damned world was lined up and eager to screw him when, in fact, it was him plotting to screw everyone else.
She pushed the insanely hot guy out of her mind and closed what was left of the distance to the bar in what she hoped looked like a laid-back stride. “The only thing you lost tonight was about a hundred bucks worth of Fireballs.”
Vic paused in his counting and eyeballed her with one eyebrow cocked high.
For a second, Lizzy considered sliding onto a barstool in that ready-for-conversation way Rex always used, then remembered Skeet’s comment about her shitty poker face and ditched the idea. “Oh, come on. You slid any woman who talked to you for more than five minutes tonight a free one.”
One thing about Vic and his fragile ego—watching him puff up his chest like a disgruntled baboon while he huffed and puffed and grappled for a witty comeback was mighty entertaining. “Keeping women here is good for business. When my band can’t hold a crowd, I do what I’ve got to do.”
“Man, you can say a lot about tonight, but us holding a crowd isn’t one of ’em. Every table was full until after we walked off stage.”
Vic grunted and tossed a messy stack of twenties in front of her on the bar. “There’s your base.”
The too-thin pile of crumpled bills practically mocked her from the black Formica countertop. “The deal’s base plus thirty percent of the door.”
“Thirty percent of the door for a full house. Full house means the people stay. Not get up and leave before the night’s over. If I have to resort to Fireballs to hang on to what you and your band can’t, the cut’s null and void.”
See? This was why she didn’t deal with Vic the Dick. Or humans. Rex would’ve known better than to prod his delicate male ego. Hell, the little girl that lived with the single mom in the apartment next to Lizzy’s would have known better. “That’s bullshit,
and you know it. We’ve never had a clause like that in our bookings and, even if we did, the crowd stayed.”
“Now you’re calling me a slime and a liar?”
Fuck.
Lizzy forced herself not to fidget and ground her teeth together to bite back a good old-fashioned directive to tell the asshole where he could stick his accusations. In hindsight, maybe Skeet would’ve been a better person to pick up the cash because right now she was thinking a throat punch would be highly enjoyable even if she’d never shown an act of violence her whole life.
With no clue how to dig herself out of a hole and not end up one more bar short of places to play, she opened her mouth to start on damage control—but froze at the prickling awareness that swept down her spine.
“At a quarter to one, your man on the door was still tracking headcount coming in and out.” The deep masculine voice tinged with the barest Scottish accent registered all of a second before the ruggedly GQ man she’d ogled on her trek across the room moved in beside her. He clinked his empty tumbler onto the countertop. While he aimed an affable smile at Vic and his posture was outwardly relaxed, there was a heightened edge to his presence. A lethal dare barely masked by his easygoing facade. When he spoke again, his tone was just as poised and calm as before, but there was no mistaking the warning behind his words. “No reason to track counts unless you’re worried about being over occupancy, now is there?”
“Who the fuck are you?” Typical Vicente. Clueless and classless.
Though, considering the mystery guy had all but waltzed up and firmly inserted himself in the middle of her business without so much as a hi-how-are-ya, she couldn’t say she hadn’t thought the same thing.
Before she could say as much, the stranger slid his tumbler a little closer to Vic, pulled out a wad of cash from one pocket and flipped it open. He thumbed through the bills and peeled off a few hundreds. “I’m the man keeping you honest to the deal you booked. A standard base of $500 plus thirty percent of the door.”
This time it was Lizzy who almost interjected with a whole lot of What the hell?, but before she could draw a big enough breath to voice the question, her mysterious and seriously badass helper turned his head and gave her a look that made the question fizzle on her tongue.
Not a bad look, exactly. Yeah, it had a mother lode of a command behind it, but it was also comforting, too. An unspoken promise of protection and reward in exchange for the trust given.
And damned if the apprehensive knot that’d kept a stranglehold on her insides didn’t loosen enough to let her draw a liberating breath for the first time since she’d read Rex’s text.
The stranger’s mouth softened, hinting at the promise of a smile. A subtle acknowledgment of her response and an approval all rolled up into one. And wow—didn’t that just make her want to strut and preen even bigger than when she was on stage?
It was whacked. Absolutely, insanely whacked. Which kinda made her want to tell him where to get off on principle alone.
But before she could, he refocused on Vic and tossed his cash down on the table. “That’s to settle up my tab.” He nodded to the waitress quickstepping it after a pair of men who were likely trying to skip on their own tab. “She knows which one it is.” He paused just long enough to cock his head a fraction. “Now, are you gonna do the right thing and settle up with Elizabeth? Or do you want to screw yourself out of booking them again and the crowd they’ve delivered every time they’ve played here?”
What. The ever-lovin’. Fuck.
Who was this guy, and how did he know how well they’d performed here? Not to mention, no one called her Elizabeth. Not even her parents, and they’d been the one to pick the damned name, which just proved how poorly it fit her. She cleared her throat and straightened as tall as she could, well past ready to reestablish who was in control. At five-foot-eight and rocking four-inch thigh-high boots, most people backed down on height discomfort alone.
But this guy? He still had two or three more inches on her and only eased a little closer. As if her shift in stance was due to discomfort and he was ready to step between her and Vic. “Pay the lady. No point in dragging this out when you know it’s the right move. You don’t and you’ll not only cut yourself short a solid band, but other bands will find out what you did and think twice about playing here.”
Vic’s face turned a bright red not even the dim lighting could hide, and he huffed out one of those uncomfortable sounds only a bully backed in a corner could make. He pinned his gaze on Lizzy. “A word of advice. Your new guy’s got the common sense of a thug. You want to keep booking gigs you’ll go back to Rex for a middle man. No one’s gonna want to deal with this dick.” He punched open the register, snagged a stack of pre-counted bills and tossed it next to the first stack she still hadn’t touched. “Eleven hundred. Your cut of the door.” His attention volleyed to the man beside her then back to Lizzy. “You let me know what your plans are for this asshole and I’ll let you know if your spot in July’s still good.”
With that, he slammed the register drawer shut and stalked away.
Lizzy watched.
And waited.
And tried like hell to keep the cocktail of rage, praise and outright fear mushrooming up in her chest from spewing all over the seemingly unfazed man next to her. She made it until Vic and his flat ass disappeared into the back office. By some miracle, her first words came out surprisingly restrained. “Tell me you’re a friend of Rex’s and not some stranger who not only just squarely stuck his nose right in the middle of my business, but knows enough details of my bookings to make me seriously uneasy.”
There was no hint to the smile he shot her this time, the sheer devilment behind the curve of his full lips potent enough to make the most hardened woman giggle like a little girl. “Don’t know anyone named Rex, lass, so we’re gonna have to go with door number two. Though, I wouldn’t let the fact that I knew how much you’d booked the gig for tweak you too much. Vic’s not the most creative guy. Every band that’s worth a damned gets the same deal.”
“And you know about bands and their going rates because...”
“Because I know music and I know bar owners.” He faced her fully and held out his hand. “Axel McKee.”
Damn, but the man’s voice was a weapon. Rich, deep, and made all the more intoxicating with the accent. But that was nothing compared to his presence. To the raw, masculine energy emanating off him and the startling focus behind his brilliant green eyes.
He kept his hand steady. Patiently waiting for her to take what he offered.
A crossroad moment.
How she knew it, she couldn’t say, but she felt it in her bones. Intuited the gravity of the situation the way prey recognized a predator had marked them as a target.
And yet, rather than run, she lifted her hand and pressed her palm against his.
Oh. Holy. Hell.
A shiver she didn’t have a prayer of containing moved through her and her breath hitched with all the subtlety of a woman who’d just felt a man’s lips on the back of her neck for the first time.
His fingers tightened around hers. A tangible testament that he’d felt and witnessed her response, which in itself should have mortified her. Instead the deepened connection resonated through her like a tether in the middle of straight-line wind.
“Lizzy Hemming.” The quaver in her response and the sexual rasp that went with it slapped her well-honed sense of self-preservation back into place, and she tugged her hand free with an awkward abruptness. “Though, you appear to already know that.”
“Everyone in this bar knows your name.”
“True, but not one of them saw fit to saunter over here and put my band’s income at risk.”
His smile really was a killer. Quick and loaded with mischief. “Vic’s an idiot, but he’s not that stupid. You covered a week’s worth of hourly wages for half of his staff o
n his cut of the door alone, and the way he’s trained his bartenders to short people on most of the drinks, you put him squarely in the black for the rest of the month. The last thing that’s gonna happen is you losing a booking.” He cocked his head the same way he had with Vic, only without the dangerous vibe behind his eyes. “Now, if you’re ready to stop playing gigs like this, that’s a whole different conversation.”
Every DEFCON alarm hardwired from past experience went off at once, blaring with enough decibels to nearly make her outwardly wince. As lead-ins went, it was a smooth one, but she’d learned the hard way what trusting smooth talkers earned you. Especially the hot ones. “How exactly is it you know Vic, but he doesn’t know you? And what do you mean, I know music?”
“I know Vic because—bad business man or not—he books good bands, and I make it my business to keep an eye out for good music in and around Texas. I know music because I love it. Have my whole life.”
“You make it your business why?”
His expression shifted. Narrowed with a shrewdness that made her feel as though he’d easily peeled away all her armor and studied the raw woman underneath. “You’re a guarded woman, Elizabeth. Why is that?”
“No one calls me Elizabeth. It doesn’t fit. Never has.”
One look. Ruthless determination behind his eyes and an uncompromising firmness to his lips. “It fits you perfectly. You’re just afraid to wear it.” He held her gaze a second longer as if to make sure his words sank in, then kept going. “Vic’s known for the move he tried to make with you. When I overheard him trying it tonight and heard the frustration in your voice, I moved in because bullies piss me off.”
“I would’ve handled it.”
“Sure, you would’ve. But you hate doing it. I knew it the second you stopped looking at me and shifted your attention to him. Plus, you handling it would’ve robbed me of the chance to hand him his ass.”