like to see that,” she said. “Okay, you’ve piqued my curiosity. I’ll stop by this afternoon. The MacLaines were looking for some high-end suggestions,” Lyndsay lied.
Moon stopped chewing and swallowed. “Keep me in mind for the installation. I could use the business.”
“Of course,” she promised.
Andy returned from the bathroom. Over the rim of her glass, Lyndsay saw the McAuliffe brothers gathering up to leave. Millie was busy with another table, so it was John who passed the two brothers each a white plastic bag and rang up their orders, which they paid separately. One of the brothers took his phone, touched the screen, then pressed it to his ear.
At the same time that the McAuliffe brothers were on the move, Andy approached John at the bar, leaning casually in to speak with him. The two men seemed to know each other. John still kept that level, guarded expression while Andy talked with his hands and grinned.
Both men turned and looked at her. Andy brazenly, without guile, and John surreptitiously.
They’re talking about me. It looked like Andy was going to bring John over to introduce him to her.
John’s gaze remained on hers. And even though his look was stoic, almost fiercely shielded behind lips set in a solid line and facial muscles gilded bronze and hard, his eyes told a different story. They searched her, up and down.
To her legs beneath the short dress. The thin T-shirt she wore beneath the leather jacket, and the high ponytail that bared her neck and collarbones to him.
Oh, no. Had she overplayed her role? All she’d wanted to know was his name. And to keep her cover, but he certainly didn’t look suspicious of her now.
He looked like he was interested in her. As a woman.
Swallowing, she glanced at her hands. She didn’t want to feel attracted to anyone. Not on an undercover assignment. Not during her big career break.
She glanced up again, and he took another long look at her, gazing directly into her eyes. She exhaled, not sure what to do. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling he gave her, on the contrary. But professionally, it could be dangerous.
Andy seemed to notice her torment. With growing realization, he stared from his friend to her. His friend noticed, too, giving Andy an irritated look, then turned back to the evident problem with his beer tap.
Quickly, Lyndsay turned to Moon and murmured, “Who is the guy behind the bar with Andy? What’s his name?” The more advance intel she had, the better for her to play her part. She was giving up on subtly, but this was typically lost on Moon, anyway.
“Who, John Reilly?” Moon asked.
Bingo, that’s all I need. “Yes, I guess that’s his name,” she murmured. “I haven’t been introduced to him yet.”
Moon shrugged, not looking too happy that her attention was on John Reilly instead of on him. “He’s usually in the kitchen when it’s busy.”
Indeed, two more contractor vans had pulled in. It seemed that everyone at the beach was getting ready for summer season.
“So he’s a bartender here?” Lyndsay murmured quickly. “Or is he an owner?”
“Owner.” Moon sighed and took a guzzle of his sports drink. “It’s a family business.”
Ah. So Margie must, indeed, be his mother.
Andy ambled back to their table. Lyndsay swallowed but stared steadily at him.
“Would you like to meet my friend John?” Andy asked her.
Act natural. She’d told Andy three days earlier that she’d wanted to meet as many people as possible in the area. I’m building my business from the ground up, she’d told him. That was part of her cover.
“Sure,” she replied in a neutral tone. “But I can see that your friend is busy now. Maybe another day.”
But Andy didn’t take the hint. He glanced at John, then sat at the table, placing his bag of chips and his pastrami on rye before him. “I’ve known John a long time,” he remarked. “Coached him in youth hockey back before I got married and had kids. He left for the military when he grew up.”
“Oh.” Lyndsay lowered her gaze to the remaining crumbs on her plate. Her own husband had been Army Special Operations. A Ranger. But no one needed to know that.
“John came home a few years ago,” Andy was saying. “But he came back different than he was before. He never used to be so quiet.”
She nodded, not saying anything. Maybe this explained what was going on with her. She couldn’t be personally interested in him. It was just that they had more in common than she’d realized.
“Well,” Andy said, sighing, “you’re leaving us tomorrow anyway, right? Unless Mrs. MacLaine accepts your design. And if she does and you come back, then maybe I’ll introduce you to John.”
“Sure.” She smiled at Andy. “We’ll do it then. And put in a good word for me, because he’s been giving me funny looks all morning.”
“I know he comes off as intimidating sometimes, but you don’t need to be worried about him. He’s a good guy, Lyn.”
“I’m not worried,” she said lightly, taking another sip from her iced tea. But her gut told her that maybe she should be. Across the room, John Reilly was staring at her, intently.
He hadn’t stopped staring at her.
* * *
JOHN REILLY STOOD with arms crossed, watching through the break room window while Lyn Francis roared out of his parking lot in her little black Audi. He could feel his eyes narrow the longer he watched her. He didn’t know what it was about her, but there had been something—something he couldn’t put his finger on. On the surface she seemed to have been making a business call in his parking lot—some sort of catalog that she was reading numbers from—but there was more to it than that. Something that set off his inner alarm bells. The more he studied her, the more curious he felt about her presence.
He stuffed his hands in his pockets. It wasn’t that she was attractive. She definitely was, but that wasn’t why he’d been watching her in the first place. Not the only reason, anyway.
The door opened suddenly beside him, and Millie, his mother’s best friend and their longtime waitress, moved inside as quiet as a ghost and began to wipe down the table. That was a reminder to John that he had other priorities to concentrate on. Lyn Francis wasn’t his business. The Seaside Bar and Grill was.
Gritting his teeth, John nodded to Millie, then headed out behind the huge, carved wooden bar that was the pride and joy of their small beach-restaurant business. John’s father had built the Seaside twenty-five years before. John had helped put up the shelves in the back, and he knew exactly, by feel, the spot where he had once secretly carved his initials. John was part of this place. He couldn’t just walk away, much as he sometimes wished he could.
The lawyer’s bill for his brother had come due today. John needed to meet with the bank and somehow scrape up the money to pay it. And on top of
