hands,” the woman said from the doorway, sunlight spilling around her, making her appear ethereal. But there was nothing angelic about her from her obsidian black hair that was loosely braided over one shoulder to the mystery behind her dark eyes as she stepped in.
His tongue felt rooted to the roof of his mouth for a moment. “Thanks.” He had thought that he’d never see her again. But now he realized how foolish that had been. The bracelet was worth too much money for her to simply walk away from it. But the realization that she’d tracked him down sent a chill up his spine to raise the fine hairs at the back of his neck.
His gaze moved from her face to her wrist and the band of pale skin where the gold cuff had been. She wore jeans, biker boots and a black leather jacket. With a start, he recognized the T-shirt beneath the jacket. Stagecoach Saloon. One he’d thrown to the crowd yesterday?
Seeing his apparent interest in her T-shirt, she opened her jacket wider and smiled. “Nice place you have here,” she said as she sidled up to the bar.
That’s when he noticed the backpack slung over her shoulder. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find out there was a gun inside it. Or that she was about to pull it on him.
“Thanks.” He fought to rein in his pulse as he waited for her to get down to the business of her visit since they both knew what it was. She had come for her bracelet. He didn’t have to wonder too long how she’d found him. He’d hit her with one of the T-shirts promoting the place. Maybe the one she was wearing right now.
He waited for her to ask, though, curious how she was going to explain taking his wallet. “We don’t open until eleven,” he said, finding he had to fill the deathly quiet that had fallen over the bar.
Tantalizing whiffs of her citrusy perfume drifted to him as she set her backpack on a stool and slipped onto the one next to it. She was taller than he remembered, slimmer, but no less striking. As she looked at him, he caught a flash of something at her neck. A gold pendant lay against her glowing olive skin. In its middle was a dark circle of black onyx—just like the one on the bracelet.
As she crossed her long legs and reached into a side pocket of her backpack, he put down the glass in his hand, slowly dried his hands and waited, the baseball bat he kept behind the bar within reach.
“I was hoping you might have a job opening,” she said as she took out a tube of lip gloss and applied it to the deep pink of her full lips.
Darby stared at her for a moment, uncomprehending. “You want a job?”
She gave him an amused look before she glanced around the bar, taking it in with a professional air. “I have experience.”
He just bet she did. Was it possible she didn’t remember him from yesterday? He certainly remembered her. No, he thought, she knows exactly what she’s doing. “Experience? As what? Bartender, waitress, barmaid?”
Her gaze settled on him with an intensity that made his pulse jump. “All three.” She said it with such confidence that he had to call her on it. Most of his patrons ordered a draft beer, a glass of wine or possibly a margarita. Every once in a while, someone would order something more upmarket, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know his cocktails or how to make them.
“Great,” he said. “Step behind the bar and make me a...mojito.”
She laughed, a pleasant tinkling sound that filled the empty room. “You call that a challenge?” she said, slipping off the stool to come around the end of the bar, forcing him to move down a few feet.
He watched as she nimbly picked up a clean glass, spun it in her fingers and reached for the fresh mint he had growing in the window. She adroitly used a pestle to muddle the mint to release its flavors, then added sugar and fresh lime juice, squeezing the lime with one hand as she poured rum with the other.
She didn’t measure the alcohol but he could see that it was dead on. Just like the soda water she added as well as the ice. As she poured the mixture into a shaker and gave it a few hard shakes, her gaze returned to him. Bartenders hated mojitos because they were time consuming, but she’d managed to make it in no time without even one misstep.
He watched her pour the drink into a glass, add the slice of lime garnish as well as another mint leaf, and set it on a bar napkin in front of him.
Her questioning gaze rose to his. “Aren’t you going to try it?”
“I don’t drink.”
She cocked her head at him, surprise in her expression.
At the sound of car doors slamming, they both turned as three twentysomething females came in. “Is it too early to get a drink?” one of them called out.
He started to say they didn’t open for another hour or two, when he felt her touch his arm. She motioned the women in with, “We don’t open for a while, but I could make you something.”
She moved to take their orders, performing the task with such efficiency that he couldn’t help but be impressed. He noticed that she also had a way with the customers. She was a born con artist, he thought, reminding himself how they’d met and what was at stake. She was only here for her bracelet.
The smartest thing he could do was to go upstairs, get her bracelet and send her on her way.
“So do I have the job?” she asked as she came back down the bar to where he stood.
Was that the way they were going to play this? He couldn’t help but be intrigued. His earlier feeling of excitement had reached a fevered pitch. He was having fun and enjoying himself.
She picked up the wet cloth, wrung it out, wiped down the bar and turned to look at him. Those dark eyes were killer. As his blood suddenly ran cold, he reminded himself that this woman could be something more dangerous than a pickpocket.
And yet, he knew he was looking at the most exciting woman he’d ever met. His heart pounded. His skin tingled. His pulse thrummed under his skin. This woman fascinated him and that was no small matter. All he could wonder was how far she would take this.
No way was this one of those stranger-than-fiction coincidences. She’d come here with only one thing in mind. Getting her bracelet back. So why not waltz in here and simply demand it?
Because, he thought as he looked into her eyes, she preferred subterfuge. She was a game player, and this was one game she apparently thought she could win. The woman had grit, he’d give her that.
His every instinct told him not to do it. “You want a job?” he repeated, knowing he’d be a damned fool to hire her. He’d have to watch her all the time to make sure she didn’t carry off the place. Or cut his throat in the middle of the night.
“You won’t be sorry.”
He wouldn’t bet on that. “I can only offer you four days a week, but no promises,” he said, telling himself he was taking one hell of a risk. “Let’s just see how it goes. Swing by tomorrow before noon and you can fill out the paperwork and start the next day.”
“Mariah Ayers,” she said holding out her hand.
“Darby Cahill.” He felt a jolt as he took her warm, silken hand in his. Her grip was strong, self-assured—just like her.
She
