"Ty, I have business to attend to."
"Private business or the glad-handing variety?"
"A little corporate social mingling."
He gave her a lopsided smile. "So take me with you. I wouldn't mind meeting some of Gravers Bend's movers and shakers."
"Fine," she agreed. "But when you’re trying to stay awake over aperitifs I want you to remember it was your idea .”
Kurstin was surprised to see Jon-Michael deep in conversation with Mildred Bayerman, the only female to sit on the board of directors at Olivet Manufacturing. Curious, but unwilling to interrupt, she steered Ty to a table on the opposite side of the dance floor where her father sat with three other board members and their wives. Reaching it, she performed introductions.
Ty watched as Kurstin systematically charmed everyone at the table with a vivacity that appeared to be as natural to her as breathing. Her vibrant red dress brushed his pant's leg as she turned to the man on her other side.
"How is your granddaughter doing, Mr. Thompson? Is she still taking ballet?"
The guy’s face lit up and he pulled out his wallet. Kurstin moved closer in order to admire the photographs the older man showed her of a small, freckle-faced kid in a pink tutu. Then she turned her attention on the three people seated on the other side of Thompson. "Hello, Mr. Roley, Mrs. Roley. How is the golf game going? And how are you doing, Mr. Lorenz? Are you saving a dance for me this evening? I haven't had a chance to do the Twist since you and I won the contest at the St. Paddy's Day dance."
The man hopped up with an enthusiastic offer right on the spot, and Kurstin turned to Ty. "Excuse me a moment, won't you?" she murmured and allowed the board member to lead her to the floor. Ty observed her animated dance with the older man for several moments before turning back to the people at the table to exchange small talk.
Patsy Beal had just joined him when Kurstin and the Lorenz guy returned to the table. Kurstin gave her a warm smile.
"Congratulations," she complimented the realtor. "You have pulled off another outstanding party." Then hooking an arm through his and flashing a mischievous smile his way, she added, "And thank you so much for introducing me to Ty."
"It was my pleasure." Pasty glanced around. "I have not seen Hayley this evening. She could not make it?"
"No, I'm afraid she had to work. And speaking of missing persons, where is that husband of yours? I haven’t seen him tonight either."
"Oh, he's around somewhere," Patsy replied vaguely. "I have been so busy it is hard to keep track."
Kurstin laughed. "Given the amount of work you put in, I suppose he might as well have stayed at home for all he'll see of you tonight."
Patsy murmured something noncommittal and then glanced at her watch. "You will have to excuse me. I just wanted to stop by for a moment to check on Ty and make sure he did not feel neglected. Now that I know he is in good hands, I really must have a few words with the pyrotechnics expert." She hurried off.
Standing with Kurstin by the pool a short while later, Ty found himself paying more attention to her expressive face than the fireworks exploding against the dark bank of clouds in the sky. He paid only the scarcest notice as the pyrotechnics tinted those clouds an ever-changing palette of jewel tones. The photos of her he had found online had not done her justice. They hadn't conveyed a fraction of her enthusiasm or charm. Seducing her would definitely not be a hardship.
Resisting the impulse to rush the seduction might prove to be the difficult part.
Kurstin leaned into the mirror in the ladies' room a short while later and smiled with unabashed good humor at her high color. Small wonder she was flushed: her heart was dancing, her pulses fluttered, and excitement skittered along her nerve endings. And to think she had not wanted to come tonight.
She blotted the sheen from her T-zone and reapplied her lipstick. Standing back, she fluffed her hair with her fingertips, tugged the bodice of her scarlet dress more firmly into place, and surveyed the overall result.
Not bad. And who knew...
If she played her cards right, she just might get lucky tonight.
Looking up from the series of sketches he had drawn on the tablecloth when the wine list card would not hold them all, Jon-Michael's voice trailed off in mid-explanation. "Oh, hell, Mildred, I'm sorry," he said, recalling where they were for the first time in fifteen minutes. "I must be boring you to tears."
"Not at all." She gave him the smile reputed in company circles to make sharks clear a path for her out of professional courtesy. "I like your enthusiasm."
He was embarrassed by it. Mildred Bayerman was a tough old broad from the days when the description was considered a compliment. When she had cornered him demanding to know why he had quit Olivet's, he'd found himself bluntly informing her of his differences of opinion with his father. And when she asked how he would do things differently, he had told her.
Ad nauseam.
Face growing hot, he stood and forced his trademark charm-your-pants-off smile. "How about a spin around the dance floor?"
"Thank you, no." She looked up at him without bothering to return his smile. "What I would really like is to see a formal presentation of all these ideas for expansion. Present it at one of the board meetings."
"Yeah, I will have to work one up," he agreed and did not, by so much as a flicker of an eyelash, allow his expression to show his knee-jerk reaction, which was Don't hold your breath.
His father would have the proposal quashed before the minutes were even read and Jon-Michael was tired to the bone of having his expertise mocked as if he were a boy playing at being a grown-up.
Still, if Jon-Michael had Mildred’s backing Richard might find that tougher going—
"Make it soon," she commanded, and he smiled noncommittally then gave her a formal bow as he bid her good night.
The instant he left her table he strode straight out the door. Trying not to get too attached to the tiny kernel of hope unfurling in his chest.
Hayley looked up when the lounge's door opened. It was late and the bar was closed but she hadn't gotten around to locking up. Sliding her hand below the bar so the money she had been counting wasn’t the first thing the after hours visitor spotted, she flashed a quick look at the sawed-off oar handle to make sure it was in easy reach before turning her full attention to the newcomer ambling toward her out of the shadows. Then the breath she had not even known she was holding eased out of her lungs.
Jon-Michael.
His formal clothes were rumpled and his hair was windblown. She slanted him a sardonic look. "Slumming after the big dance, Johnny?"
He did not reply, just kept on coming. Rounding the end of the bar, he strode right up to her, slid his hands into her hair and gripped her skull. Tilting her head back, he stared into her eyes for a heartbeat, then slammed his mouth down on hers.
It was an angry kiss, fast, rough and carnal. The heat of his tongue against hers, the nip of his teeth sinking into her lower lip, knocked her off balance. Then, before she could orient herself to either accept or reject the unasked for kiss, it was finished and he was slamming out again as silently as he had entered.
Hayley sagged against the counter at her back, scrubbing her lips with the back of her hand, her gaze blindly fixed on the bills she held clutched in her fist. She tried to summon up a little righteous indignation, but instead felt an oddly exciting thrill of fear. If she had half a brain she would be demanding just who the hell he thought he was.
Instead, she stood there with her lips throbbing beneath the pressure of her knuckles, reliving the hint of neediness she had sensed beneath his anger.
And feeling as if her days of holding herself aloof from him were seriously numbered.
You dumb shit. You stupid, sorry-ass dumb shit. The words were a mantra chanting in Jon-Michael's brain the entire ride home.
He let himself into his second floor loft in the brick warehouse on Davis Drive, tossing the keys to the Harley in an abalone shell on the Stickley c
onsole table by the door. It should have been dead quiet this time of night in the heart of the industrial area, but the artist next door was entertaining again. Her headboard thumped rhythmically against their adjoining wall as she exhorted someone named Oh Baby to greater, deeper, harder efforts.
Seemed like everyone in the world was making time tonight except him. Jon-Michael walked straight across the room, and opening the window to the tiny fire escape landing, climbed out. He pulled his sax case out after him.
Flipping open the latches, he lifted the instrument out of its dense molded foam, fit the reed to its throat and raised it to his mouth to wet the reed. Then he lowered it to his lap again. And groaned.
Fuck. Why had he gone and kissed her? Not that he could bring himself to regret it. Still it was a tactical error. One he could not afford. He had merely been bored and lonely earlier this evening.
Now he was bored, lonely, and more than likely screwed.
Eleven
When Ragged Edge retook the stage after their break the following Wednesday, business tapered off at the bar. Even as Hayley cleaned up the counter below the bar, she could not help watching Jon-Michael. He had ignored her for the past several days.
Which, fine, was just as well. But if she lived to be a hundred and six she swore she would never understand what went through that man's teeny-tiny brain.
Lucy came up and slid her tray onto the bar and her rear onto a vacated stool. The pink had washed out of her hair and she had substituted a couple packages of Berry Blue Kool-Aid for the black portion in honor of Independence Day. Her nose stud was a ruby and her satin push-up bra white. The look had gone over big ever since its debut Friday night. Everyone loved a patriot.
She gave her order then blew out a breath. “Man, I am whupped.”
Hayley assembled and delivered the tray of drinks. As she was washing odds and ends a while later, she heard a familiar voice call her name. Kurstin stood with an attractive man down the bar.
Hayley grinned. "Hey there, stranger. Give me a minute to finish up here and I will be with you. Grab a stool." She rinsed the last of the glasses she had washed by hand because the dishwasher was still in operation when they had run out, then turned it upside down in the tiny drainer.
Wiping her hands on a towel, she walked down the bar to where Kurstin and her escort sat. She flipped the towel over her shoulder. "We’ve been ships in the night lately, girl," she said. “I’m glad to see you." Extremely glad, for with their different schedules they had hardly seen each other at all for the past several days. She dropped coasters on the bar. "You must be Ty," she said to Kurstin's companion. "I'm Hayley Prescott." Flashing a big smile, she reached over to shake his hand. "What can I get you?"
The story of my career, sweetheart. Exultation rushed like champagne bubbles through Ty’s veins. This was the reason he was here. This woman with the rich brown hair and the hundred-dollar smile was responsible for wooing him from the civilized side of the contiguous United States to this little backwater burg on the Other Coast.
Not her damn BFF. He wasn’t sure how it had happened, but somehow he had gotten so hung up on maneuvering the luscious blonde toward her seduction these past few days that he had damn near forgotten his goal.
But it—she—was standing right across the bar from him and seeing her in the flesh affected him like a thump upside the head. He hauled his shit together in a red hot hurry. So, no, thinking with his dick was a mistake he would not repeat. Kurstin was a means to an end. That was all she was.
Hayley was his goal.
Hayley glanced down the bar a while later to see Kurstin momentarily alone and joined her. "Where is New McHottie?"
"Men's room." Kurstin cocked a golden eyebrow. "And you do know your cultural reference is woefully out of date, right?"
"Yes, well, not all of us are blessed with your facile knowledge of up-to-date television entertainment," she retorted cheerfully. "Or, oh, give a rip." She gifted her friend with a toothy smile. "But speaking of blessed, I’m tickled to see one of us having her wish fulfilled." She hesitated, then admitted, "Okay, maybe I'm just the teensiest bit envious as well. But still, I am happy for you."
When Kurstin gave her a blank look, Hayley snorted and said, "How soon we forget." She leaned closer to elaborate in a low voice, "To get laid? Wasn't it just—what?—Monday we had that conversation? Now, granted, your Ty isn’t a construction worker, but still, not a bad night's work for someone who thought she knew every man in town."
Kurstin laughed but then confessed in equally low tones, "It wouldn’t have been a bad night's work…if I had had that particular wish granted. But it hasn’t happened yet. The chemistry is definitely right. But for some reason he is being depressingly gentlemanly about the whole thing."
Hayley's head went back. "That rat bastard!" she said in faux shocked undertones. Slapping the bar with the flat of her hand, she leaned closer to her friend. "Where have all the bad boys gone? There are sure as hell none to be found when you really need one. I tell you, this never would have happened to the heroine in a Ranch Romance."
"I know. Reality bites."
"Whoa.” She blinked. “You must be distressed if you're reduced to using vulgar slang. Still and all," she offered as she straightened up and busied herself neatening items both on and below the bar. "If the way he watches you is anything to go by, it is only a matter of time. At least you have strong probability on your side. That's nothing to sneeze at." She shot Kurstin a hopeful look from beneath her lashes. "I don’t suppose he has a brother, does he? One with a yen for adventuresome sex?"
"Is that what you're into, adventuresome sex?"
“I’m sure I could be, given half a chance. Problem is, no one has ever offered me the opportunity to find out."
Ty returned from the men's room as the band was breaking for their second intermission. Jon-Michael joined them and Hayley watched through narrowed eyes as he draped himself over the corner of the bar and managed to carry on a conversation with his sister and her date while ignoring her presence entirely, except for a curt order for a club soda. She slammed it down in front of him and took herself off to attend to the break rush.
The two barmaids had borne their loaded trays off to their respective tables and the crowd around the bar had thinned when Hayley was hailed by a masculine voice. She looked up to see Joe Beal standing on the other side of the bar. His hands thrust in his pant's pockets and his dark eyebrows drawn together in a frown, he regarded her soberly across the space separating them.
"Hey," she said with guarded congeniality. She actually liked the guy but was scrupulously careful not to encourage what was surely a temporary infatuation on his part. "Want your usual?"
"Please."
She felt his gaze on her as she poured a jigger of rum over ice and filled the glass to the top with Coke from the soda gun. Wiping off the bottom of the glass, she handed him his drink and accepted his money.
Joe crowded close to the bar as she turned back from the cash register and leaned in to eliminate even more distance between them. "Hayley," he said in a low, earnest voice. "I heard something tonight I think I should pass on to you."
"Yeah? And what is that, Joe?" Since he often hung around initiating conversations, Hayley only attended to this one with half an ear. She gave him a vague, distracted smile as she restocked her supply of cocktail napkins.
"The night clerk over at the Inn told me the day clerk took eight new reservations this afternoon within the space of an hour and a half."
"Uh huh. That's good, isn't it?" She wondered if her supply of limes would last through the evening or if she should cut another one.
"No, it's not good at all. Hayley, pay attention."
She looked up. "I am paying attention," she insisted and gave him another polite smile. "You said the motel took a good number of reservations today. It’s their peak season and they are the only game in town. What is so unusual about that?" Yes, one more. She picked a lime from the fruit bas
ket.
"The clerk said two of the reservations were for a Senator Jarvis from New Hampshire and staff. Three more were from journalists from different east coast newspapers. Another three were reserved in the name of eastern seaboard television stations."
The lime dropped from her suddenly nerveless fingers to roll silently across the floor.
If Ty had not happened to have Jon-Michael in his sights the moment the other man's head suddenly snapped up and his entire body tautened like a hunting dog on point, he never would have known something was up. Almost as quickly as Kurstin's brother went on alert, he relaxed back into his sprawl across the bar's countertop, leaving Ty to question the validity of his own instincts. All the same, he casually turned his head to follow the sight-line Jon-Michael's gaze had taken.
And saw Hayley down at the far end of the bar. Staring at the man across from her as if she might puke her guts up at any minute.
Ty glanced back at Jon-Michael, but the sax player had propped his head in the palm of his hand and was teasing his sister with lazy good humor as if nothing out of the ordinary had just taken place. Hell. For all Ty knew, nothing had.
Except...he didn't believe it. Something was in the wind.
And if he wanted to be in a position to find out exactly what it was, he had better quit messing around and step up his plans for Kurstin McAlvey.
Jesus, she had turned white as a sheet. Jon-Michael took the curve too fast then eased up slightly on the throttle as he leaned into the turn. The Harley's headlight cut a swath through the star-studded darkness and wind roared in his ears.
It was as if every drop of blood had left her face. One minute she had been paying a distracted sort of attention as Joe Beal leaned forward to yammer something in her ear, and the next her head had snapped up while every bit of her natural color drained from her cheeks.
He cut the bike's engine and coasted down the drive to the old man's estate. He gave Hayley's window in the darkened mansion little more than a passing glance. He was pretty sure he knew where he would find her.
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