see you there.”
She exhaled a long, grateful sigh of relief when he finally turned away and headed out the door—crossing paths with Liam Gilmore on his way in.
Sky’s brother glanced toward the bar, his gaze searching. Looking for Alyssa. He found her and was at her side with a few quick strides.
“I’m late,” he acknowledged, his breathless tone suggesting that he’d raced to get there.
“It’s okay,” she told him.
He took the bus pan from her and set it on the table. “You’re too understanding,” he said. “And I’m so lucky that you’re mine.”
Then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
* * *
Sharing a public kiss with Jason Channing had drawn more attention than Alyssa wanted. Now, barely more than an hour later, she was kissing Liam Gilmore in the same bar—with Jason Channing watching!
She pulled away. “Stop. Please.”
“What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong is that you’re making a move on my girl,” Jason said.
Liam scowled at the other man. “Excuse me?”
Jason slid an arm across her shoulders. “Honey bear, you said you were going to tell him that you’d finally found a real man.”
Liam’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
Alyssa stepped between the two men. “Diego was here and you weren’t,” she explained to Liam. “So I tagged Jason to fill in.”
“There was no one else around?” Liam’s tone was petulant.
“Only Jason and Gavin Virga,” she said, naming the octogenarian ophthalmologist who was a Friday night regular.
“So why’d you pick him?” he asked again, glaring at Jason.
Alyssa nudged Liam toward the bar. “Go ask your sister to pour you a beer,” she suggested.
He did so, but only after shooting one last narrow-eyed stare at Jason.
“I appreciate you pinch-hitting tonight,” she said to Jason. “But now that Diego’s gone, you can go, too.”
“I haven’t paid for the coffee.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I figured it was the least I could do to thank you for playing along.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth, lingered. And when his lips started to curve, as if he was remembering the kiss they’d shared, her own started to tingle.
She pressed them firmly together and reminded herself that “Charming” had probably kissed most of the women in Haven at one time or another, and she shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that one spontaneous lip-lock had made any kind of impression on him.
“It wasn’t much of a hardship,” he assured her.
She picked up the bus pan again. “I’ve got to, uh, get this back to the kitchen.”
He didn’t object as she slipped past him.
The dishwasher took the pan from her with a nod of thanks, but Alyssa hid in the kitchen for another minute—just long enough to catch her breath and give her heart a chance to beat normally again.
It was just a kiss.
A kiss that had meant less than nothing to both of them.
And yet...
She lifted a hand to her mouth.
And yet she’d felt so much in those few seconds that their lips had been connected. More than she’d ever felt from just a kiss. More than she’d ever felt with any other man.
“Alyssa?”
She started, her hand dropping from her lips as she turned to Sky. “Um, yeah. I’ll be right out.”
“Actually, I was going to tell you that you could take off early, if you want,” her friend said. “Most of the tables are empty now and there are only a few stragglers left at the bar.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“I’m sure. And you’ve had a rather...eventful night already,” Sky said, her tone tinged with amusement.
“That’s one word for it,” she agreed. “But I should talk to your brother before I go.”
“Liam’s cool—it’s the other one who looked as if he was going to pop a vein in his head when he saw my brother kiss you.”
“Jason?”
“For a moment, I thought fists were going to fly—and then I would’ve had to ban my own brother from the bar for a year.”
It was a harsh punishment, but one Duke insisted be meted out to anyone who dared to throw a punch inside his establishment. Which might be why, in the eight months she’d lived in Haven, Alyssa had never heard about anyone fighting inside Diggers’—although rumor had it that Doug Holland’s bar privileges had been reinstated only at the end of January, a full year after he’d given Jerry Tate a black eye for suggesting that his wife was stepping out. Sky had given Alyssa the background on the situation, explaining that Jerry had clearly been baiting the other man, because anyone who knew Doug’s wife knew there wasn’t another man in town who would want her.
She followed Sky back out front, surprised to discover that Jason had again taken a seat at the bar.
“I didn’t expect you’d still be here,” she said, glancing warily toward the opposite end of the counter, where Liam was sipping a beer and chatting with his sister.
“What kind of a man would leave his beautiful girlfriend alone in a place like this on a Friday night?” he countered.
“The kind of man who isn’t really dating the bartender,” she suggested.
“But that’s not what you wanted Diego to think, was it?”
“Diego’s probably halfway back to Elko by now,” she pointed out.
“Still, I figured I should stick around in case he came back.”
“I think—I hope—he finally got the message tonight.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Jason said. “You were sending out some pretty mixed signals.”
“What do you mean?”
“First you kissed me, then you kissed Gilmore.”
She managed a weak smile. “Yeah.
