enthralling...dangerous.
What had he been thinking hiring her? If Lillie found out the truth... He’d opened the door to this stranger, knowing what kind of woman she was.
No, he corrected himself. He didn’t know just how dangerous she could be—but he might find out the hard way. He knew he had to try to find out everything he could about her before it was too late. He couldn’t jeopardize the saloon because of some silly infatuation with an outlaw. Even one as beautiful as Mariah Ayers.
And yet as he started back toward the ranch, he couldn’t wait until tomorrow when he and Mariah would work together for the first time. His heart began to pound. He kicked his horse into a gallop. He liked flirting with danger. He only hoped it didn’t get him robbed—or worse—killed.
THE NEXT DAY, Darby heard the rumble of Mariah’s motorcycle coming up the road. He glanced at his watch. She was early for her first shift.
He had to admit he was a little surprised she’d taken the ruse as far as she had. He’d thought that once she had her foot in the door—knew he lived upstairs over the bar—she would break in and take the bracelet. If she could find it.
Because of that, he’d taken it off his bedside table and hidden it in a place he thought she’d never think to look. He told himself she could have it back anytime. All he wanted was for her to ask for it—and to give him some kind of explanation. In truth, he knew that as long as he had the bracelet, Mariah Ayers wasn’t going anywhere and he liked that for now.
Last night, though, he’d lain in bed waiting for her. He’d opened the windows and left the back door unlocked, and then he’d lain awake, listening for the sound of her motorcycle in the distance until he’d fallen into a restless sleep and awakened with a start at the sound of the back door slamming.
His heart had taken off at a gallop, thinking it was Mariah. Instead, he realized it was morning and the sound he’d heard was Billie Dee coming in early to get her lunch menu planned.
Now, showered and ready, he stood behind the bar, waiting for Mariah to park her bike and come in the back door. He actually felt nervous. When he felt a draft from the back door being opened, he waited for the sound of Mariah’s voice. Instead, he heard Lillie’s.
What was she doing here? As if he had to ask. She’d come in because this was Mariah’s first day. He shook his head. What did she think? That he would hire someone just because she was a beautiful woman?
“I see you’re ready for work,” Lillie said as she slipped up on a stool. “Just heard Mariah pull in. Is that motorcycle her only means of transportation?”
“I wouldn’t know.” But he suspected it was.
“Going to make it hard to commute come winter—if she’s still here,” his sister said.
He didn’t take the bait. “We mostly need her for this summer and fall so it should be fine.”
She was eyeing him again as if trying to see into his brain—or was it his heart?
“What are you doing here?” he asked, sounding more irritated than he meant to.
“Can’t a loving sister stop by the business she owns with her loving brother?”
“You and I both know why you’re here,” he whispered as he heard Mariah come in the back door. He hurried off to introduce her to Billie Dee, but when he reached the kitchen, the two were already in deep conversation about cooking.
“This girl knows her hush puppies,” Billie Dee said with a laugh as she turned back to the stove.
“We were talking about those little round cornmeal dough balls they’d cook and toss to puppies,” Mariah said.
“I know what hush puppies are.” He sounded even more irritable.
“Sorry, you were frowning at me so I thought you were confused.” A smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Rough night?”
He wasn’t going there. “I just wanted to make sure you knew which locker was yours and check to see if you needed anything before your shift.”
Mariah looked toward the metal lockers in the corner. “I’m betting the empty one without a name on it is mine.”
He sighed.
“Thanks for trying to make me feel comfortable on my first day, really. But I have what I need.” She indicated her backpack, the same one she’d brought with her that first day. The same one he thought might hold a gun. “Well, almost everything,” she added and met his gaze.
“So have you ever had Texas gumbo?” Billie Dee was asking Mariah.
“With okra and tomatoes and big, fat shrimp in a rich brown file broth?”
The cook laughed. “You have been to Texas.”
“I’ve been a lot of places.”
Darby, seeing that Mariah was making herself at home, said to no one in particular, “I’ll be in the bar.”
* * *
“I DIDN’T ASK YOU what I should wear for work,” Mariah said as she entered the bar a few minutes later. The cowboy looked as if he hadn’t slept much last night. That should have made her feel better than it did. After all, she wasn’t innocent in all this, was she?
“I went by what all of you were wearing yesterday. Is this okay?” Holding out her arms, she turned in a circle, knowing she looked good in the Stagecoach Saloon T-shirt and slim blue jeans that hugged her curves. From the look in Darby’s eyes, he thought so too.
She’d pulled her wild mane of dark hair up and wrapped it with the colorful scarf she’d been wearing at the Chokecherry Festival. She couldn’t miss that split second of recognition she saw on Darby’s face. Like yesterday, she wore the pendant with the circle of black onyx in the center of the gold at her throat. It was something else that she never took off.
Her hand went to her bare wrist and she quickly pulled it back, the missing bracelet an ache. When she saw the cowboy looking at the pendant, she lifted it from her skin to turn it in her fingers. “You like it?”
“It’s pretty. Onyx, right?”
She nodded, still running her fingertips over the stone. “My grandmother gave it to me. For luck. And,” she said with a laugh, “to ward off the evil eye.”
“The evil eye?” he repeated.
“I come from a very superstitious family. If you wrong someone they can put the evil eye on you. Once the curse is on you, well, it’s almost impossible to get it removed. Often you take it to your grave. At least according to my grandmother. Just better to always wear the evil eye pendant to counteract evil.”
“Almost impossible?” he said, looking as if he wasn’t sure he believed any of what she was saying.
She laughed. “Do you have a curse
