in there getting drunk or stupid. At least not on my watch.”
Low and inside. Strike one.
“That’s true, but…” Slowly, he crept around the side of the desk toward the fancy white shutters. “Aren’t you just a little bit curious about what I’ll be up to out there?”
“Not in the least. I expect it’ll be you and the empty bar for most of the night. Pretty dull stuff.”
A slider. Strike two.
He opened the shutters with one flick, giving a direct shot through the mirror that hung over his newly assembled beer taps. “I’d think a girl who’d spent so many hours with her face pressed to the heat register just to hear the boys in the basement would be naturally voyeuristic.”
He heard the slight intake of breath just as he turned to see a screen full of jibberish. She opened her mouth to speak. Then closed it with the same force with which she snapped down the lid of the laptop. A soft pink rush of color darkened her pretty cheeks.
“Come to think of it, I’ll work at home tonight.”
Steee-rike three.
“That’s not necessary.” He grinned at her, but she was already sliding a handbag over her shoulder.
As she opened the door, she tossed him one last look. There was something in her eyes. Some shadow, some secret. Some hurt. As quickly as it appeared, it was gone.
“Good luck tonight,” she said, then her pretty lips lifted into a sweet, if totally phony, smile. “Call me if you get hammered with the big nine-o’clock rush.”
When the door closed behind her, the room seemed utterly empty, with only a faint lingering smell of something fresh and floral mixed with the aroma of coffee.
Taking a deep breath, he turned to the California sequoia, ready to remove it for spite. But that would be childish.
Instead, he looked through the two-way mirror in time to see Kendra pause at the bar to check out the newly assembled beer taps. She touched one, yanked it forward, then flinched when it spurted.
She bent down, out of his view for a moment, then arose, a coffee mug in hand. Pulling on the tap again, she tilted the mug and let about six ounces of brew flow in, expertly letting the foam slide down the side.
She lifted the mug to the mirror, offering a silent, mock toast directly at him. Then she brought the rim to her mouth, closed her eyes, and took one long, slow chug. Her eyes closed. Her throat pulsed. Her chest rose and fell with each swallow.
And a couple of gallons of blood drained from his head and traveled to the lower half of his body.
When she finished the drink, she dabbed the foam at the corner of her mouth, looked right into the mirror and winked at him.
THE TASTE OF THE bitter brew still remained in Kendra’s mouth several hours later. She’d walked Newman, made dinner, reviewed her inventory numbers, puttered around her bungalow, and even sunk into a long, hot bath.
But no distraction took her mind off Deuce Monroe. Her brain, normally chock-full of facts, figures and ideas, reeled with unanswered questions.
How could she get through six weeks of this? Where would she get the fortitude to keep up the cavalier, devil-may-care, I-don’t-give-a-hoot acting job she was digging out of her depths? What could she do to make him go away? What if he discovered the truth about what happened nine years ago?
There were no answers, only more questions. The last one she asked out loud as she opened Diana’s door for a third time to gather up Newman. “Why does that man still get to me after all these years?” The dog looked up, surprised.
“I’m lonely, Newman,” she admitted. “Let’s take another walk.”
Newman never said no. He trotted over to the hook where Diana hung his leash.
Sighing, Kendra closed the slider and wrapped the strap around her wrist letting Newman scamper ahead while her gaze traveled over the wide beach. In the moonlight, the white froth sparkled against the sand, each rhythmic crest rising over the next in an unending tempo.
It had been a night much like this one, on a beach not three miles away, that Kendra Locke had given her love, loyalty and virginity to a boy she’d adored since first grade. And now, so many years later, that boy was at her café, driving away her customers, changing her plans and upsetting her peaceful existence.
“And he probably doesn’t have a clue how to close the place,” she told Newman, who barked in hearty agreement. “What if he screws up?” she asked, picking up her pace across the stone walkway to her beach house. “He doesn’t know how to cash out or power down the computers.”
Newman barked twice.
“I agree,” she whispered, tugging his leash toward her beach house. “We better do what we can to save the place.”
In ten minutes, she’d stripped off her sweats and slipped into khaki pants, an old T-shirt, sandals and, oh heck, just a dash of makeup. She rushed through the process, not wanting to change her mind, but definitely not wanting to arrive too late and find the café abandoned, the back door open, the computers still humming.
Kendra navigated the streets of Rockingham, mindful of the ever-growing population of tourists and locals. Something huge must be going on because even the tiny parking lot behind Monroe’s was full. She finally nailed a parallel parking space a block away, and it was already ten-fifteen when she and Newman hustled down High Castle Boulevard toward Monroe’s. He’d probably bailed by the time the Gibbons brothers left, around eight-thirty.
She expected the front door to be locked when she tugged at the brass handle. But the door whipped open from the other side, propelled by a laughing couple who almost mowed her down in their enthusiasm to get to their car. Kendra stood in the doorway, stunned as they brushed by her and mumbled excuses.
One step into Monroe’s and she froze again. From speakers she didn’t know she still had, Bruce Springsteen wailed. A stock-car race flashed on one TV monitor, a baseball game on another. Glasses and mugs clanged and loud voices of fifty or sixty people echoed with toasts and laughter, and somewhere, in the distance, she smelled…barbecued chicken.
Kendra ventured a few steps through the door. Had she fallen asleep in the bathtub and got stuck in a really vivid dream?
A total stranger tended the bar. A woman she’d never seen waltzed through a cluster of tables and chairs carrying an old brown drink tray laden with glasses. And, as though her eyes weren’t playing enough tricks on her, Jerry and Larry Gibbons were over in the corner, flirting with some girls, sipping ice-cold brews from the brand-new tap.
Kendra tried to breathe, tried to think. How had he done this? How had he—
“Well look what the…” Deuce’s chocolate gaze traveled over her, pausing at the floor. “…dog dragged in.”
Newman skittered across the hardwood toward him, but Kendra tugged his leash. She opened her mouth, but before she could utter a sound, Deuce was next to her, sliding one solid, strong arm around her waist. His face dipped close enough for his lips to touch her hair.
