place awfully clean. I’ve noticed.” She copied his movements, dainty hands sliding over the terry cloth. He tried not to imagine them sliding over his skin.
Restraint was a damned nightmare.
This, he remembered from his high school years. The more he had to think about not doing something, the more he obsessed about it. Abstinence in deed led to anything but in thought.
You thought so much about not doing something that it took over your life anyway.
But it had been pressed upon him from an early age that he had to be an example. His father was pastor of the largest church in Copper Ridge, after all. It wasn’t all bad. He’d believed in his father’s lessons. Back then, he’d believed that virtue was its own reward. He’d felt a kind of confidence, a direction that accompanied that belief. He had known who he was.
Then it had all bitten him spectacularly in the ass, and he’d turned away, hard and sharp. Now, he was firmly out of practice.
She matched his movements precisely, producing a very nicely folded towel. Which kind of irritated him. Not that he thought it was going to take her a whole lot of time to learn how to do such a simple task. But he wanted to cling to his irritation, and to his completely unfair thought that this job would be beyond her somehow. He wanted to hold on to his prejudice.
He had earned that prejudice.
“There,” she said, smoothing it down flat and placing it in a stack with the other towel. “I think I’ve got it. You don’t have to supervise me.”
“Good. Because I don’t have time.”
“You’re very busy,” she said, something in her tone irking him. He was certain it was designed to do that.
“I am. I have an entire bar to run. A lot depends on my presence.”
She lifted a pretty, bare shoulder. He swore that it had glitter on it, too. “It is your place. Your name is on the sign.”
“I’m also working out logistics for opening a new brewery.” He didn’t know why he’d told her that.
Actually, he did know why. There was clearly something in him—a part of him that wouldn’t die—that still wanted people like her—people who were born into a certain level of privilege—to understand that he was important, too.
“In Copper Ridge?” she asked, her tone genuinely interested.
“Yeah. In the old flour mill building, down by the beach.”
“That sounds nice. Is it going to be fancy?”
“My kind of fancy.”
“What’s your kind of fancy?”
“You put french fries on a plate instead of in a basket.”
She laughed. Unsurprisingly, her laugh sparkled, too. “Maybe because it’s by the ocean you can get a mechanical dolphin for people to ride.”
“A mechanical dolphin?”
“Yeah. To keep with the theme.”
“No one rides dolphins.”
“They would if they could.”
She placed another towel on the growing stack and smiled at him. All he could think was that he would like to eat her up. Which was inappropriate in every way, all things considered.
“Why don’t you go check on a table,” he said, his words coming out more harshly than he intended.
She shrunk back slightly, looking like a wounded puppy. He didn’t feel bad about it. He didn’t. “Okay. I will finish folding when I get back.”
“If you see something that needs doing, do it. That’s all I ask.”
He did not watch her go out into the dining room. He turned away, heading back toward his office, away from the bar, away from the kitchen. He had stuff to get done and he was not going to allow Sierra West to distract him any longer.
* * *
HER FEET HURT LIKE a son of a bitch. Tonight had been, without a doubt, one of the longest nights on record. And it wasn’t over yet.
She worked hard at the family ranch. But mainly, she managed the office. When she went out and practiced barrel racing, she was on her horse. It definitely worked her muscles, but it also fed her soul.
Right now, she was pretty sure her soul was leaking out the bottom of her feet, which she had certainly worn a hole through walking around the dining area of the bar.
Being a waitress—it turned out—was exactly as little fun as it had always appeared to be.
She supposed some people might enjoy it. They might enjoy interacting with tables full of people and making runs between the kitchen, the bar and the dining area. She, it turned out, did not.
Also, she had discovered that men were slightly different with her when she was serving them drinks, versus when she was drinking near them. Sure, they still flirted with her. But there was a different tone. It was stickier. It left a film over her skin, and she didn’t like it.
“You’re a precious, precious blossom, Sierra,” she muttered to herself as she bent to clear glasses off one of the tables that had just been vacated, before straightening and looking back over at the bar.
Chad, Leslie and Elyssa, the friends she’d been here with just the other night, were half draped over it. They didn’t usually hang out right at the bar, but Leslie had just broken up with her boyfriend and it looked like she was thinking of testing her odds with Ace.
She was grinning and giggling and working the duck face like she was trying to take a selfie, not talk to a guy.
Ace, for his part, didn’t seem disinterested. He was smiling. Smiling in a way he certainly hadn’t smiled at Sierra. That just wasn’t fair. Leslie was not less of a spoiled brat than she was. He should be mean to her, too.
But he wasn’t being mean. He was being...charming. When he handed her drink over the counter his lips curved up into a half smile that made Sierra’s stomach flip from all the way across the room. His dark eyes were glittering with intent. Wicked intent, even. Sierra could imagine that any woman on the receiving end of Ace’s attention would feel like the only woman in the room. Maybe even in the world.
Of course, he didn’t give her that kind of attention. He always acted like he wanted to stick her in the corner and cover her with a blanket so he could pretend she wasn’t there.
She realized she’d been standing there, frozen and staring, for way too long. She mobilized. Holding tight to her bin of dishes, she walked quickly back toward the kitchen, her focus fixed straight ahead.
“Sierra?”
She turned at the sound of an incredulous voice, just in time to see Elyssa and Chad walking toward her. Leslie was still on her bar stool giggling loudly at something Ace said.
“Are you...working here?” Chad asked, his
