And Deuce had been a total chicken scumbag and never called her, not once, afterwards. Even though he’d wanted to. Really wanted to.
But it couldn’t be Kendra, he decided as the hostess scooted away. Back then Kendra was weeks away from starting her junior year at Harvard. Surely the Hahvahd girl with a titanium-trap brain and a slightly smartass mouth hadn’t ended up managing Monroe’s. She’d been on fire with ambition.
And on fire with a few other things, too. His whole body tightened at the memory, oddly vivid for having taken place a long time and a lot of women ago.
This Locke must be a cousin, or a coincidence.
He leaned against the hostess stand—another unwelcome addition to Monroe’s—and studied the semi-circle of computers residing precisely where the pool table used to be.
Someone had sure as hell messed with this place.
“Excuse me, I understand you need to speak with me?”
Turning, the first thing he saw was a pair of almond-shaped eyes exactly the color of his favorite Levi’s, and just as inviting.
“Deuce?” The eyes flashed with shock and recognition.
He had to make an effort to keep from registering the same reaction.
Was it possible he’d slept with this gorgeous woman, kissed that sexy mouth that now opened into a perfect O and raked his fingers through that cornsilk-blond hair—and then left without ever calling her again?
Idiot took on a whole new meaning.
“Kendra.” He had absolutely no willpower over his gaze, which took a long, slow trip over alabaster skin, straight down to the scoop neck of a tight white T-shirt and the rolling letters of Monroe’s across her chest. All lower-case.
The letters, that was. The chest was definitely upper-case.
A rosy tone deepened her pale complexion. Her chin tilted upward, and those blue eyes turned icy with distrust. “What are you doing here?”
“I came home,” he said. The words must have sounded unbelievable to her, too, based on the slanted eyebrow of incredulity he got in response. He took another quick trip over the logo, and this time let his gaze continue down to a tiny waist and skin-tight jeans hugging some seriously sweet hips.
He gave her his most dazzling smile. Maybe she’d forgiven him for not calling. Maybe she’d stay on and work for him after he took over the bar. Maybe she’d…
But, first things first. “I’m looking for my dad.”
She tucked a strand of sunny blond hair behind her ear. “Why don’t you try Diana Lynn’s house?”
Diana Lynn’s house? What the hell was that? Had he gone to assisted living or something? “Is she taking care of Dad?”
That earned him a caustic laugh. “I’ll say. Diana Lynn Turner is your father’s fiancée.”
“His what?” Men who’d had pacemakers put in a year ago didn’t have fiancées. Widowed men with pacemakers, especially.
“His fiancée. It’s French for bride-to-be, Deuce.” She put a hand on her hip like a little punctuation mark to underscore her sarcasm. “Your dad spends most of his days—and all of his nights—at her house. But they’re leaving tomorrow morning for a trip, so if you want to see him, you better hustle over there.”
Deuce had been scarce for a lot of years, no doubt about it. But would his father really get engaged and not tell him?
Of course he would. He’d think Deuce would hate the idea of Seamus Monroe remarrying. And he’d be right.
“So, where does this Diana Lynn live?”
She waved her hand to the left. “At the old Swain mansion.”
He frowned. “That run-down dump on the beach?”
“Not so run-down since Diana Lynn worked her magic.” She reached into the hostess stand and pulled out some plastic menus, tapping them on the wood to line them up. “She has a way of livening everything up.”
Oh, so that’s what was going down; some kind of gold digger had got her teeth into the old man. Deuce hadn’t gotten home a moment too soon.
“Don’t tell me,” he said with a quick glance toward the pit of computers to his right. “She’s the mastermind behind the extreme makeover of the bar.”
“The bar?” Kendra slid the menus back into their slot and looked in the opposite direction—toward the bar that lined one whole wall. “Well, we haven’t been able to close long enough to rip the bar out yet.”
He didn’t know what word to seize. We or rip or yet.
“Why would you do that?”
She shrugged and appeared to study the bank of cherry-wood that had been in Deuce’s life as long as he’d lived. He’d bet any amount of money that the notches that marked his height as a toddler were still carved into the wood under the keg station. “The bar’s not really a money-maker for us.”
Us, was it? “That’s funny,” he said, purposely giving her the stare he saved for scared rookies at the plate. “Most times the bar is the most profitable part of a bar.”
His intimidating glare didn’t seem to work. In fact, he could have sworn he saw that spark of true grit he’d come to recognize right before some jerk slammed his curve ball into another county.
“I’m sure that’s true in other business models,” she said slowly, a bemused frown somehow just making her prettier. “But the fact is, the bar’s not the most profitable part of an Internet café.”
He choked a laugh of disbelief. “Since when is Monroe’s an Internet café?”
“Since I bought it.”
He could practically hear the ball zing straight over the left-field fence, followed by a way-too familiar sinking sensation in his gut.
“SINCE YOU what?”
He didn’t know. Kendra realized by the genuine shock in those espresso-colored eyes that Deuce had no idea that she and his father shared a two-year-old business arrangement. She’d never had the nerve to ask Seamus if he’d told his son. In fact, she and Seamus Senior had politely danced around the subject of Seamus Junior for a long, long time.
But it looked like the dance was about to end.
“I bought Monroe’s a while ago. Well, half of it. And I run it, although your dad still owns fifty percent.” All right, fifty-one. Did Deuce need to know that little detail?
“Really,” he said, thoughtfully rubbing a cheek that hadn’t seen a razor in, oh, maybe twenty-nine hours. Giving him the ideal amount of Hollywood stubble on his chiseled, handsome features. It even formed the most alluring little shadow in the cleft on his chin.
She’d dipped
