by Mia Malone
“Short,” she said.
Lee. Of course, it would be. Jenny might not meddle with his life, but Lee would, and apparently had.
“Huh,” he said.
“I’m sorry, was she wrong to send me here?”
“Do you have any experience?”
She blinked, and a small smile twisted her lips briefly, but it stayed in her eyes. Joke was suddenly glad he stood behind the bar because the way it lit up her face made most of the blood in his body move south.
“Ancient experience,” she said. “It’s how I paid for school.”
Well, shit. He didn’t have the energy to train someone from what surely would be virtually scratch.
“My ex liked cocktail parties,” she added. “He did not like mixing drinks.”
Okay, that sounded marginally better. And he or Tug could probably step in if someone felt like going crazy.
“Get behind the bar and make me a Cuba Libre,” he ordered.
Her brows went up, and a flash of annoyance passed over her face.
“Really? You want me to make you a rum and coke?” she asked.
So she knew one drink, at least.
“Maybe not,” he conceded. “What would you suggest?”
She looked around the place, and that brief grin made her lips twitch again.
“Looks like a place where drinks aren’t ordered too often, but if you want, I could make a wicked Bloody Mary.”
Spot on. She’d just picked what was virtually the only thing anyone ordered except for beer, wine, and shots. Besides, how much could someone mess shit up in one shift?
“Can you work tonight?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Okay then. I’m Joke, and you can do a trial run tonight. If it works out, you have a job. If not, you still get paid for the shift.”
Her brows went up in surprise.
“That easy?”
“Life’s supposed to be easy,” he said and narrowed his eyes when her face closed down. Ah, he thought. Baggage, like everyone else. “Let’s get the paperwork done, you start at six,” he said calmly.
The guarded look was back in her eyes suddenly, and she bit her lower lip.
“Any chance we can do it without paperwork?”
“Nope,” he said casually.
She watched him in silence for a while, and he let her. Something was going on behind those glacier-blue eyes, and then she straightened as if she’d made her mind up.
“I –” She pressed her lips together and restarted. “I have a small problem.”
“Is that small problem with the law?”
“No.” The answer came immediately, and her chin went up. “I’d just appreciate if we could keep my name off the records, that’s all.”
“My friend Mac happens to be the chief of police in this town. What’ll he find if I ask him to check you out?” he asked, wondering what the hell she could have done.
Her jeans were clean and seemed new, and her simple, drab tee had a print which shared in one word that she apparently was a trophy. She was a lot younger than him, he thought, but still old enough to have stirred up some serious shit over the years. She just didn’t look like it.
“That I have a restraining order against a man who was let out of prison a month ago.”
Jesus. That had not been what he expected.
“Was he in there because of something he did to you?”
“Yeah.”
There was an ocean of hurt behind that simple word, and he leaned forward a little to look into her eyes.
“Your ex?”
“No.”
“Okay.” It was clear that she wasn’t going to tell him what had gone down, so he thought things through quickly and made his mind up. “My books are clean, babe. Don’t do things off the record.” Her shoulders slumped, so he went on quickly, “But I can make an exception. Let me take a copy of your driver’s license, call my bud. If your story checks out, I’ll find a way to keep you off the records.”
Her relief was almost palpable, and Joke wondered what the hell that man had done to her. She handed him her driver’s license. It was from Massachusetts, and it pissed him off.
“Ah, darlin’, why did you have to do that?” he sighed.
“Do what?”
“Try to pull one over on me,” he said and threw the piece of plastic on the bar.
“Pull what?”
Her acting skills were excellent, he had to admit.
“It’s well done, I’ll give you that, but I’ve been a barman all my life. I know a fake ID when I see one.”
“It is my perfectly legitimate driver’s license.”
“Nope.”
“Yes.”
He stared at her, leaned forward to look at the card, and straightened.
“Nope.”
“It totally is,” she snapped.
Did she think he was born yesterday? She glared at him, and he felt his brows go up. He saw anger and puzzlement, but not a hint of guilt or nerves.
“Outside,” he grunted and shuffled her toward the door.
***
Sissy
What in the hell?
I’d walked into the bar, nervous and trying to hide it, and a giant had suddenly appeared from behind the bar to stare at me. He was tall, and the arms he crossed over a ridiculously broad chest had more muscles than I’d ever seen on a man. Then our eyes locked and I lost myself in his calm, blue gaze. In spite of his size, he looked gentle, which was the reason I’d dared to ask if I could be employed off the books. He’d thought about what I said, processed it and come up with an alternative which was sensible but would still provide some protection for me, so I’d assumed I’d judged him correctly.
Then he’d suddenly gone off the rails about my driver’s license, and now I was being hauled out of the bar so fast I almost had to run to keep up with him.
“Turn,” he grunted, put a big hand on my jaw and moved my head around, so I had the sun in my face.
He held my apparently offensive license up next to me.
“What the hell are you doing?” I snapped.
“Well, fuck me,” he murmured.
“Are you insane?” I growled.
“Usually not,” a deep voice said, and the hand let go of me.
“Shit,” Joke muttered, and his eyes went over my shoulder.
I stared at him, and when I heard a chuckle behind me, I turned. Then I took a step back which pushed my backside against Joke, who put an arm around my waist to steady me.
Another man who was almost as tall as Joke and just as muscular stood in front of me. His hair was a little too long and his short beard liberally sprinkled with gray.
“Well, hello there,” the man drawled, and his gravelly voice seemed to vibrate through me.
“Huh-ey,” I squeaked and felt like kicking myself for sounding like a stupid teenager.
He was my age, and where the look in Joke’s eyes had been calm and gentle, this man’s pale gray eyes were cool and assessing. There was no doubt in my mind that he was incredibly capable of inflicting harm if you ended up on the wrong side of okay once he’d formed an opinion. Since I had nothing to hide, I stared back at him and waited.
Then he suddenly smiled.
“I’m Gibson,” he said.
“Okay,” I said stupidly, and his smile widened.
“How old do you think she is?” Joke asked, and I turned to look at him.
“You have my driver’s license, so you know how old I am,” I informed him.
“Gib,” he said, and held the license up so the other man could look at it. “Fake?”
Then I was shifted around again, and another strong hand moved my face toward the bright winter sun. And I got why Joke thought my license was fake.
I knew I looked younger than my age. Not younger in a way which warranted their ridiculous behavior, but I didn’t look fifty-one. I got that from my mother who had passed on incredible genes but also made sure I virtually bathed in
sunscreen my whole life, facts I’d thanked her for repeatedly in the last ten years.
“Huh,” Gibson said, and I wondered why this seemed to be the word du jour in a small nothing-town in the Rockies.
“Yeah,” Joke said.
“I’m fifty-one,” I said, moved my head to get away from the hand still holding my jaw, and took a step to the side, so Joke would let go of my waist.
Or, I tried to do both those things, and neither worked. They were not close enough to press up against me, and neither hold was tight, but I was surrounded in a way that felt oddly intimate.
“Are you pawing younger women in the middle of the street, Gibson?” someone chirped, and I turned to find the small, blonde woman from the diner standing there, looking at us.
Her brown eyes were laughing up at me, and the joy in them made it impossible for me not to smile back at her.
“He isn’t,” I said.
“Hand. Face,” she said. “Pawing.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But not younger.”
“Really?” She moved closer and squinted. “What the hell are you using?”
“A bar of soap and a tub of sunblock.”
“Huh.”
And there was that word which wasn’t a word again.
“Joke thinks my ID is fake,” I informed her, and to my surprise, she burst out laughing.
“Guys, back off,” she ordered, still sounding happy but there was a small snap in her voice, and the men both took a step back.
“Lee,” Joke started but she just looked at him, and he stopped speaking immediately.
“I’m Lee,” she said to me. “When do you start?”
She’d told me about the job, and seemed convinced I’d already gotten it, but I wasn’t sure anymore, so I glanced at Joke.
“Tonight,” he said. “Let’s go.”
The last was for me, and I knew this because he put a hand in the small of my back to propel us toward the door.
“Cool. See you later,” Lee called out, and as we entered the bar again I heard her say to whom I assumed was the gray-eyed man next to her, “I’m off, want to go home?”
“Haven’t pawed you since this morning, so yeah, I wanna go home,” Gibson asked, and his voice had deepened into a soft but still gravelly murmur.
A shiver went down my spine, and I tried to cover it up by turning toward the blonde man closing the door behind us.
“How old did you think I was?” I asked.
“Forty,” he muttered, and added almost defiantly, “Something.”
Forty? I looked younger than my age, but that was ridiculous unless the something he’d added was more than half a decade. Since I wanted him to employ me, I decided to not point this out to him.
“Do I still have a job?” I asked instead, trying to sound casual as if the whole exchange of words outside hadn’t been just a little bit odd.
“Yeah,” he said just as casually. “Where do you stay?”
“The motel over by the highway.”
He got a funny look on his face as if he didn’t know if he should laugh or scowl.
“Ah, babe, you can’t stay there.”
“Why not?”
It had seemed clean, and it was certainly cheap. I’d asked for, and gotten a room on the second floor, and there was a big dresser I could push in front of the door, so I’d be safe.
“They rent out rooms by the hour.”
Oh. Well, I guessed that explained the waterbed and the coin slot next to the TV. It also explained why they hadn’t asked me for an ID when I checked in, and accepted the name I’ve given them, which wasn’t my own. And hadn’t raised a brow when I paid in cash.
“I’ll be fine,” I said dismissively.
“Huh,” he said, and I thought I’d burst out laughing.
“If you want to make a copy of my driver’s license, then I could perhaps get it back tonight?” I suggested.
He held it up again and looked at it.
“Lovisa Parker,” he said slowly, struggling with my name like almost everyone did.
“Scandinavian ancestry,” I explained like I had so many times before. “You can pronounce it Louisa. Most do.”
“Louisa,” he murmured. “You don’t look like a Louisa.”
“My family calls me Sissy,” I heard myself say, and realized it was what I wanted to be called when I started my new job. “I’m not one, but if we could tell everyone it’s my name, I’d appreciate it.”
He grinned, and it changed him so much I struggled to keep my mouth from falling open. I’d thought he was handsome with his sharp features and blonde hair in a stubby ponytail, but when he smiled, he was absolutely gorgeous.
“Sissy,” he murmured, and another shiver suddenly went down my spine. “Works for me.”
“Okay,” I said, again trying for casual but only achieving breathless. “I’ll be back at six,” I added, trying for businesslike this time, which I thought I’d pulled off credibly.
His grin widened, and he nodded.
“Six, babe.”
I turned and walked out of there, wondering if I’d gone insane.
***
I had four hours until I was supposed to be back at Oak for my shift, and only a small bag to unpack, so I sat on my bed and wondered what to do. I checked my email, but neither of the girls had responded to the one I’d sent that morning, although they were still in school, so I’d have to wait until later before I could expect anything from them. I missed them so much it hurt, and I’d only been gone for a few weeks. How would I last until Easter break? Maybe I could ask Dante if I could see them somewhere over a weekend?
“Please,” I whispered. “Please let this be a safe place.”
Wilhelmine was an anonymous town like so many others. Small enough so strangers behaving weirdly would be noticed, but big enough to have a small police station. If I could make sure no one knew where I was, then I hoped the girls could visit for the summer. Or, as much of the summer as my ex-husband agreed to.
We had joint custody, but I knew that if I upset Dante, he could easily apply for full custody. I knew this because he‘d told me so, and added, “Don’t for a second think that I’m joking, Louisa.” I’d talked to my lawyer, and he’d said that if we ended up in court battling for custody it would cost a lot of money and it could go either way. His advice had been to keep Dante happy, which was partly why I’d given up the house I’d rented and left. I’d told the girls I’d stay away until the school year was over. Cady needed to focus on her last year and had seemed mostly relieved, but Mimi was just fourteen, almost fifteen… God. My breath hitched when I thought about my baby.
I’d take a walk around the small town. Anything was better than sitting on a squishy waterbed in a worn-down motel room with my arms wrapped around myself because I had nothing else to hold on to. Hating that man.
Chapter Two
Sissy
I tucked my tee into my jeans and tightened the belt, planning to use my next day off to buy some new clothes. I hadn’t packed a lot when I left home, and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The slacks and pastel-colored blouses which were a staple in my wardrobe back in Boston would not do well in a bar like Oak. Luckily I’d packed a stack of tees in mostly dark colors and wearing them with my black jeans had been just the thing for a bar on the classier end of biker.
I’d slid into the routine quickly enough, and the familiarity of it after so many years had been surprising but also felt nice. I’d grown up in a community where my parents went to a place like Oak, although a lot less classy, and I hadn’t lied to Joke when I told him I’d paid for college working behind a bar. I told myself it wasn’t a lie to simply omit mentioning the years before college. I wasn’t even sure how to explain those years to myself, so I wasn’t quite prepared to talk about them with Joke.
“Bygones,” I murmured firmly to myself and slid a couple of bracelets over my left hand.
Then I pulled my hair back in a high ponytail like I had every ni
ght since I did my trial shift at Oak, and walked down the stairs, passing the offices without looking at the overly friendly and fairly sleazy young man working there. I thought about my first night at Oak while I drove the short distance to the laid back and friendly place I’d found so unexpectedly.
Joke had stared at me when I walked in, and his eyes slid up and down my body briefly, making my belly clench a little. He didn’t comment on my appearance and instead calmly introduced the other bartender, a short and stocky man answering to the nickname Tug.
“Hey,” I said and waited while he watched me in silence for a few beats.
Tug didn’t look at all like the tall, brawny bar owner standing next to him. He seemed to be a few years older than Joke, and those years had piled up around his waistline. The thinning gray hair was pulled back in a long, neat braid at the nape of his neck. His nose was a bit too big for his face, or perhaps it just seemed to be because of a slightly receding jawline. Then his eyes met mine, and I couldn’t stop my brows from going up on my forehead. I’d never seen eyes so blue before in my life, and I wondered if Tug against all odds was wearing colored contacts. The thought made me smile because there was no way the jeans and Harley-tee wearing man would use any kind of contacts at all, tinted or otherwise.
“Yikes,” he grunted.
“Tug,” Joke said warningly.
“Gonna sell a lot of booze that one,” Tug said with a small grin.
“Tug,” Joke repeated.
“Just sayin’.”
There hadn’t been time to continue the discussion, which was a relief because Joke did in no way look happy. Instead, I’d been thrown straight into selling beer and whatever the customers asked for. Joke helped me in the beginning but it was a slow night, and except for the mystery which was the cash register it wasn’t difficult.
Somewhere in the middle of the shift I almost dropped my first bottle. If I had, I was pretty sure no one would have blamed me because the man who walked in was without a doubt the most stunningly beautiful man I’d ever seen. His grayish hair wasn’t long enough to tie back but it reached his collar at the back, and curled slightly. The way he moved straight up toward the bar showcased his lanky body, and when he leaned over it to hand something to Joke, I got a good look at a backside that undoubtedly had been created by divine powers. Then he turned his head slowly toward me, and a lazy grin spread on his face.