She snorted, straightening the hem on her black tank top, even though it didn’t need straightening. “I’m afraid you have the wrong end of the stick, babe,” she said, repeating his earlier endearment back to him. “Maybe other women routinely lose their alcohol-ridden minds over you, but I’m not going to be one of them. All I want from you is a paycheck.”
“Then why are your cheeks so pink?” he asked, reaching out, dragging his thumb over her cheekbone.
She shivered, a flash of lightning shooting down the center of her bones. It rocked her, rattled her, shook her to her core. It was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. The problem with Ace was that he was different. He was nothing like those boys she had dated in the past. The silly frat bros who were barely edging into their twenties and were more interested in the care and keeping of their own biceps than they were in dealing with a girlfriend.
They were shallow, silly, they didn’t have the kind of intensity Ace radiated without even trying. Of course, she wasn’t entirely certain that was a negative. She wasn’t sure she liked Ace’s intensity. But it touched her. Deep, way down deep, in places no one had ever touched before.
With nothing more than a look and a brush of his thumb against her cheek.
It was problematic if nothing else. And she had enough problematic without adding him to the mix.
“Pure, unmitigated fury,” she said, taking a step away from him. “That makes my cheeks pink without any kind of maidenly excitement, or whatever it is you’re imagining I feel for you. News flash, not maidenly. Not excited.”
“I’ll try not to lose any sleep over that. Be here tomorrow, five thirty.”
“I’ll be here. And I’ll work hard for you, I swear it. By the end of the three weeks you’re not going to be able to deny me the job, Ace Thompson. I’ll wait tables, pour drinks, do dishes and mop floors. I’ll do all that with a smile on my face. But I will never beg. You have a good night, now.”
Heart pounding so hard she thought it might beat its way straight through her chest, she turned from him and walked out of the bar.
What had happened in there was nothing. Just her extended bout of celibacy beginning to show. It had been a while since she’d broken up with Mark. Closing in on a year and a half. And even then they’d been hit and miss since he’d lived and worked in Portland and she’d been in Copper Ridge. So yeah, tonight’s bout of hormones was perfectly understandable.
The fact of the matter was, with everything happening in her family, and her having this job, she really didn’t have the energy to go looking for another relationship.
You don’t actually need a relationship.
That was true. But she’d never really been a random hookup girl. Her relationships had never been intense, but they had been monogamous, and pretty long-lasting. When they died, they always died natural deaths. In the case of her and Mark it was all long-distance stuff. She was never going to move to the city to be with him, he was never going to come to Copper Ridge to be with her. And once they’d both realized that, there hadn’t seemed to be much point in continuing on.
She was regretting that now. Because a well-worn relationship would have been nice right about now. She could have driven up to Portland for a while, spent a few nights with him. She could have distracted herself.
She wondered, for a moment, if it was worth calling Mark up to see if he was still single. To see if he wanted her to come visit.
Except she had a job now, so she couldn’t just take off and go wherever she wanted to.
And the bigger problem was, she didn’t want to. Because she didn’t want Mark.
She let out a long breath, then inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of salt and pine. She was attracted to Ace. That didn’t mean she wanted him. Not in a serious, real way. She had one shot at this job. If she could prove that she could do it, then maybe other people in town would take her more seriously. Maybe they would hire her. If she was ever going to be self-sufficient here, then she needed to get some job experience that extended beyond the West family ranch, and she knew it. Moreover, at this point it was about pride. Ace didn’t think she could do this. All of those rejected job applications meant that most people in town didn’t think she could do this. They might like her, they might respect her family name, but they didn’t think she was capable of being anything more than the daughter of Nathan West.
Suddenly, she felt like she was standing on the edge of a hole. A void containing all of her achievements. Or rather, not containing them. She wondered if she had any. She’d gone to college, but her father had paid for it. She’d gotten a job only because it was assured due to her family connections.
She put her hand on the handle of the truck door that wasn’t hers.
She gritted her teeth, tears stinging her eyes, determination lashing her like a whip. The bottom line was, whatever she felt for Ace shouldn’t matter. Because it wasn’t as important as her future. She was going to prove to him that she could do this job, and that she could do it on her own merit. She wasn’t going to let anyone make her feel ashamed.
She wasn’t going to play these games with Ace, wasn’t going to let him touch her again. Wasn’t going to allow herself to touch him.
She was a waitress right now. And that meant that she was determined to be the best damn waitress in all of Copper Ridge.
IT WAS JUST about noon by the time Ace got himself out of the house and to the grocery store. He had a few hours before he was going to check in at the bar and he needed to get some things for his house that extended beyond beer and ranch dip. Like, chips for the ranch dip.
He walked slowly through the store aisles, basket in hand as he perused the shelves. He stopped, turning toward the produce, toward the heads of lettuce stacked all bright green and pointless. He supposed he should probably eat vegetables. Going to the store was always weird. Because he saw things in it that were reflective of a life he could hardly remember anymore.
Liar. You remember it perfectly.
For a while, he’d lived in a house that was well stocked with this kind of healthy stuff. Salad and tomatoes, and all manner of stuff that was good for you but tasted like dirt. He supposed that had also been true of his childhood home. His mom had always had things like that around the house, but he’d figured when he grew up he wouldn’t have to eat it anymore.
At that stage of his life, he hadn’t factored a wife into the equation.
He turned away from the lettuce. He didn’t have a wife anymore. Therefore, he didn’t have salad.
“Ace?”
He turned around, the impact of recognition hitting him like a punch to the gut when he saw the person behind him. “Hayley,” he said, shock being worn away by a rush of guilt the moment he spoke his little sister’s name.
“I haven’t seen you in... It’s been way too long.”
“You know where I work,” he said.
She
