turning instead to Steve Shaynor, owner of the local feed and tackle. “How about you, Steve? You ready for another Dewar’s?”
Steve scowled at the younger man. “You got a customer,” he growled, and then, in a stage whisper the back row of an amphitheater could have heard, he hissed for extra clarification, “The girl.”
“I believe they mean me.”
She had the voice of a torch singer, and Max felt it wrap around him like a coil heater. He turned to her, resigned to the inevitable the instant he saw the humor in her up-tilted eyes and the wide unabashed smile. No question about it. He wanted what he saw.
Picking up a cocktail napkin, Max reached across the bar to set it in front of her. Her gaze fell to his forearm, bared by rolled-up shirtsleeves, and lingered there. He barely resisted a Cro-Magnon urge to flex his muscles.
Holding her gaze, he asked, “What can I get you?” “Seagram’s. On the rocks. With a twist.”
She named a call whiskey. Expensive. Smooth. Strong. Definitely not for the faint-hearted.
Look all you want, Max, old buddy, but don’t touch. Remember you’ve sworn off.
Deftly pouring her drink, he set it in front of her. “Enjoy.”
“Thank you.” She raised the glass before he could turn away. “Here’s to good luck. May she continue to smile.”
“Continue?” Picking up a clean bar towel, Max wiped out a shot glass—proper bartender behavior—but his eyes never left hers. “Have you been having a run of good luck lately?”
“Obviously.” She tilted her head. The curtain of straight hair fell like a dark-chocolate waterfall, and her comment emerged half flirtatious, half factual. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
Max laughed outright. She was something.
He leaned forward, folded his arms on the bar and said, “That may be luck…or just bad taste in drinking establishments.” He’d lowered his voice so the regulars—who were all ears at the moment—wouldn’t hear. Smiling into the amused brown eyes, he added, “If you need anything else, just whistle.” Briefly his gaze dropped to her scarlet lips.
Taking his bar towel and his shot glass, Max turned away from temptation. Smart move, he congratulated himself, expelling the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
So long, gorgeous, he thought, not without regret, certain his evening bartender, Dave, would arrive before she was ready for her second drink.
Damn.
D.J. realized she was staring after Maxwell and mentally shook herself. Raising the drink he’d set in front of her, she was shocked to see that her hand actually trembled.
Well, for Pete’s sake! she thought disgustedly.
The man had thrown her totally off course. And she never lost focus when she was on a job. Never, never!
Taking a sip of the drink she had ordered simply to fit in, D.J. grimaced and tried not to cough. She wanted Maxwell’s attention again, but not because she was gagging at his bar.
Setting the drink aside, she looked up to watch Max confer with another man who’d entered the area behind the bar. Facing her direction, the second man was in the process of tying an apron around his waist when he saw D.J. His eyes glinted with clear, un-complicated interest, and he hitched his chin toward her. Max glanced back.
D.J. caught her breath. If you need anything else, just whistle.
Her lips slipped into pucker mode, but Max turned away again before she could generate any sound.
After another few words with the bartender, who had obviously come to take his place, he called goodbye to the regular customers and left.
D.J. stared after him in dismay. He was leaving? At…she checked her watch…barely four-thirty? That was not the plan.
So much for a knock-’em-dead dress and killer shoes whose only victims at the moment were her poor, pinched toes.
Sticking her thumbnail between her teeth, she started chewing. Dang, she hated failure, even little failures. Granted, she could spend the evening pumping the guys at the bar for information, but that would be admitting that Max Lotorto had gotten the best of her on the very first day.
She took her thumb out of her mouth as the new bartender headed her way, an inviting smile on his classic hottie face. D.J. smiled only vaguely in return. Grabbing her purse, she took out several dollars, tossed them on the bar next to her barely touched drink and stood.
You snooze, you lose, Daisy June.
It was a plain fact that no one got anywhere by mulling her options over and over. Sometimes you had to act first, mull second.
If you need anything else, just whistle….
As she sauntered from the bar, D.J. puckered up and blew.
Max walked the seven blocks from his work to his home with a sense of purpose, thinking only about the night ahead. As much as he could, he kept his mind on images that were safe, like the inch-thick Black Angus sirloin and the ice-cold Olympia beer—still the best beer—that figured heavily in his evening’s plans. And a muscle-relaxing soak in a tub that would, he decided, be as steaming hot as the brewski was cold.
And a cigar. Yeah.
A smile curved his lips. One of the mellow Cuban beauties he’d ordered off the Internet for his birthday.
If his plans seemed more suited to a phlegmatic retiree than a thirty-two-year-old virile male who could just as easily have been planning a night of outrageous sex, well, so be it. The one thing Max did not want to think about tonight—not even for a little while—was the lady in red. Too tempting. Too complicated. Strictly off-limits.
For the past several months women had ranked low on Max’s list of priorities. Not that he would lack for female company if he wanted it. On the contrary, he knew that women were never very far away.
What he’d lacked in his life up to now was purpose. He’d made money; he’d traveled the world. He’d played hard with few regrets when the mood struck. But he had never felt a driving reason to get up every morning, to be responsible all day, to live for something larger than his own interests.
He had a reason now. He had four.
Unconsciously Max increased his pace, anxious to end the day and begin the evening.
Turning up the cracked cement path leading to his front door, he felt his shoulders begin to relax for the first time all week. To say the past three months had been chaotic was an understatement. Every day he’d felt like he was juggling balls that refused to stay in the air. As of yesterday, though, thanks to a goddess named Ella Carmichael, Max had finally been able to restore order to his home life. Tomorrow he would begin in earnest the extensive remodel he planned on the restaurant and bar he had recently purchased, but tonight…
Max grinned. Ah, tonight his biggest dilemma would be deciding whether to eat first or take his bath. Fitting his key in the front lock, he turned the knob and opened the door to his sanctuary.
