Down Deep

by Kimberly Kincaid

  No matter how hot that wicked smile of his had just made her.

  Still, an odd memory surfaced from the back hallways of her brain, keeping her feet rooted to the bar mats when she’d been about to turn away. He’d done this last year, too, ordering two shots for each one he’d taken, and something in his stare made her say, “You know, in addition to having a flair for serving up copious amounts of liquor, I also happen to be a kickass listener.”

  “Do you.”

  Gamble didn’t elaborate, simply shifting his huge frame against the ladder back of the bar stool where he’d slung his leather jacket, and God, she should’ve known he’d make her work for it.

  “Sure.” Kennedy shrugged, studying him through the low light of the bar. “People come in here all the time, getting all lubricated and needing an ear to bend. Listening goes with the territory. In case you feel like unloading whatever’s on your mind.”

  “Who says I’ve got anything on my mind? Maybe I’m just here to get all lubricated,” he said, and she let him know he wasn’t the only one with a dark smile by allowing one corner of her mouth to kick upward.

  “You talk a good game, but I have eyes. A guy comes into my bar and orders expensive tequila, then only drinks half of what’s in front of him, there’s no way there isn’t a story there. I’m just wondering if you need to tell it.”

  A muscle tightened beneath the heavy stubble on Gamble’s jaw, just the slightest pull and release before his expression went blank again. “Thanks for the offer, but the only thing I need right now is another two shots of tequila.”

  “Suit yourself,” Kennedy said. At least she’d tried. “But if I pour it, it goes on your tab.”

  He followed her stare to the untouched shot of tequila that looked like it was going to stay that way, pulling out a twenty along with his credit card and placing both in front of her. “I told you, I’m good for it.”

  Sliding the card and the cash off the bar, she headed to the alcove housing both the register and whatever extra barware they could fit on the shelves built into the open space. She carefully stored Gamble’s card and the tip in their designated spaces before turning to fill his order for liquid crazy, but she’d barely made it three steps from the alcove before a voice stopped her in her tracks.

  “Hey. Hey, sweetheart!” A guy wearing a meticulously pressed button-down shirt, a dark gray vest, and a pair of glasses that all but screamed “world’s biggest hipster” snapped his fingers twice in rapid succession. “What does a guy have to do to get a little service around here?”

  Kennedy’s heart skipped faster in her chest, although she made certain not to let it show as she turned toward the guy, who—judging by his glassy eyes and balls the size of Canada—had clearly gotten a head start drinking at a different bar. He hadn’t been there thirty seconds ago. She was sure of it. She made it a point to do regular head counts on her patrons and their locations after midnight, when the crowd was thinner but also potentially stickier. Although the finger-snapping thing made her want to tell him to kiss her sugar-sweet ass, guys like Hipster Dude were mostly harmless. Definitely not worth the effort it took to tell them off, or the flak she’d take for the bad service. Even if this douche canoe deserved it.

  “Welcome to The Crooked Angel,” she said with a perfectly cordial smile she knew didn’t come within a nautical mile of her eyes. “What can I get you?”

  “What craft beers have you got?” Hipster Dude asked, and Kennedy listed off a few before he chose the cheapest one.

  “Did you want to pay as you go, or start a tab?” she asked, praying he’d go for door number one. She’d already sprung their cook, Marco, and her fellow bartender, Javier, for the night since they were within an hour of last call, plus, she still had to keep an eye on tall, dark, and tequila over there in the corner.

  “The view in this place doesn’t suck,” the guy said, giving Kennedy a leering once-over that made her reconsider telling him to kiss her ass. “I’ll start a tab.”

  “Great.” She bit her tongue to keep from punctuating the sentence with “kill me now”. She filled Hipster Dude’s order, then Gamble’s, then got started on the various breakdown tasks she could do while the bar was still open. Track by track, songs filtered down from the overhead speakers, measuring the passing time in bass lines and catchy lyrics. Kennedy divided her attention between her work and her remaining customers, serving up a couple more crappy beers to Hipster Dude and cashing out three of the seven people still lingering over one last game of darts. Gamble ordered two more pairs of shots, doing only one of each and leaving a total of four completely untouched on the bar, and the whole thing sparked her curiosity more than it should. But he was a quiet drunk—if he even was drunk, because, God, it was impossible to tell—so Kennedy let him be.

  She lifted a tray of clean pint glasses to the shelf beside the alcove, her shoulders and back both squalling in protest despite the fact that her body was well-used to the rigors of running a bar and grill. But between the five hours she’d burned in the office on paperwork, the four more she’d already spent in the front of the house with one more to go, and the last two dozen nights she’d spent in the exact same way, her muscles were a tight, tangled mess. Kennedy didn’t mind the work; hell, she’d busted her ass for the privilege of an honest living. She did take exception to the reminder that she had physical limits, though. She hadn’t clawed her way out of one of North Point’s shittiest neighborhoods by being weak.

  Why the hell had Gamble ordered eight shots of tequila and only done four?

  Kennedy’s chin hiked at the utterly random thought, and, okay, she officially needed to toughen up. Yeah, she’d put in a ton of hours lately, and more yeah, Gamble’s drinking habits had leaned toward the bizarre tonight. But she couldn’t blow what little energy she had left worrying over either. She had a bar to manage, and she took her job at The Crooked Angel as serious as a sledgehammer.

  And that meant nothing was going to stand in the way of her closing down her bar for the night, nice and quiet.

  Business as usual.

  2

  “Okay, everybody, last call! Drink ’em or dump ’em, because it’s time to go home.”

  Kennedy’s voice echoed through the bar, working its way under Gamble’s skin. She had the sort of voice that was caught between velvet and gravel, kind of like a muscle car at a low idle. You never knew if it would purr or scream, but no matter what, you could count on it being sexy as fuck.

  Christ. With a thought like that, he must be drunk.

  Grabbing his jacket, Gamble pushed off from the bar and turned toward the bathroom. He’d had the good sense to walk the four miles from his apartment to the bar. Humping it had never hurt a guy, and he’d responded to way too many drunk driving accidents not to know what an epically stupid move that was. The trip home would still take long enough to make things uncomfortable if he didn’t hit the head before he left, though, so he made his way past the pool table and down the narrow corridor by the side door. The bar was eerily quiet without the overhead music on, although the chatter and footsteps of the half-dozen stragglers Kennedy was herding toward the front door kept things from total silence. An ache knifed through Gamble’s chest as he thought of the four shots of tequila still sitting on the bar, and he let it settle between his ribs, nice and hard.

  Five had gone out. One had come back.

  Funny how a seven-year-old wound could still bleed.

  He shook his head and tamped down the memory. He’d have plenty of time to let his ghosts have their way with him once he got back to his apartment. For now, he needed to pay his bar tab and get gone. Being vulnerable in public, in any sense of the word, wasn’t part of his game plan. He might’ve taken strides toward getting obliterated tonight, but he wasn’t all the way there yet. He’d save the most hardcore part of this little ritual for when no one would be around to see it.

  Including Kennedy, who was far more perceptive—not to mention far more provocative—than
anyone should be. At least, as far as tonight was concerned.

  Gamble finished up in the bathroom and made his way back down the long stretch of the hallway. This section of The Crooked Angel was the only part of the place he hated, mainly because the hallway led to a section of the game room with limited visibility to the rest of the main dining room. He had six strides to go before he’d reach the corner that would give him eyes on the bar, and he’d only covered three before his senses tripped into red alert.

  “Okay, buddy.” Kennedy’s voice sounded off from around the blind corner. “You’re all cashed out and you’re the last person in here. It’s time to go.”

  “I have a better idea,” came a male voice Gamble instantly recognized as belonging to the dickhead with the vest and the over-styled hair who had been a couple stools down from him at the bar, and his fingers knotted into fists at his sides. “Why don’t you bring that fine ass of yours just a little bit closer so we can have some real fun?”

  Gamble froze, a fresh burst of adrenaline sharpening the blurry edges of his buzz. As badly as he wanted to barrel around the corner to pummel the shit out of this guy (and oh, he really. Really. Wanted to), he forced himself to take a split-second for a more tactical approach. Letting his impulses dare him into a situation he couldn’t see was dangerous on so many levels.

  Wasn’t that just something he knew by heart?

  He snuffed out his inner voice, silently stealthing forward until both Kennedy and the dickhead came into view. Her back was to Gamble, and—his gut sank—she must have been putting up stools on the customer side of the bar, because she was within arm’s length of the guy. Even though the dickhead stood with his back to the bar, he was too focused on Kennedy to notice anything else, and Gamble measured no less than a dozen variables with lightning-fast speed as she gave up an icy reply.

  “As tempting as that offer is, I’m going to pass. Door’s that way.” She gestured with a firm lift of her chin. “Don’t let it hit you on the ass on your way out.”

  “Come on,” the guy said, making a noise of disgust. “Don’t be so uptight. I’ve got something that’ll loosen you right up. Here, let me show you.”

  He reached out to grab her shoulder, and Gamble stepped forward without even realizing he’d moved. Not, it turned out, that Kennedy needed him to. The guy had no sooner made contact with her body than she’d swung her arm under and around his, pivoting to guide him face-first into the bar and capture his upper body in one of the fastest and most solid hammerlock holds Gamble had ever seen.

  “You’re touching something that doesn’t belong to you,” she said, the heel of her left hand pressing hard against the back of his shoulder and her right fingers curled around the wrist of the limb she’d wrenched behind his back. “If you want to keep this arm in one piece”—she tightened her grip and lifted until the guy let out a corresponding yelp—“then I suggest you take it, and the rest of yourself, out of my bar. Right now.”

  “Get your hands off me, you frigid bitch!” The guy struggled, then quickly stilled once he discovered how well that was going to work out for him. “I was trying to do you a favor.”

  Again, Gamble went to move, but again, Kennedy proved she needed zero assistance.

  “What was that?” she asked, applying another hint of pressure to the back of his shoulder, and the guy made a noise suspiciously close to a whimper.

  “Fine. Whatever,” he spat in concession. “I’m out of here. This place sucks, anyway.”

  Kennedy released her grip, but only enough to turn him away from the bar and maneuver him toward the door with a pointed shove. The guy opened the door with his free hand, and only then did Kennedy fully release his arm so he could stumble through it, pushing the heavy mahogany closed directly after him and flipping the deadbolt in precise, purposeful movements.

  “And don’t come back, asshole,” she muttered. Placing both hands on the door, she let out an audible exhale. Only then did her shoulders, which had been coiled tight and perfectly unyielding, release in a noticeable sag.

  An odd sensation Gamble didn’t recognize expanded behind his sternum, pushing words on a fast path past his lips. “Are you okay?”

  Tension yanked Kennedy’s spine into a rigid line, as if she’d been spring-loaded, and she wheeled around to face him, both fists up.

  “Whoa,” Gamble said, holding out his hands even though she stood halfway across the bar from him. Damn it, he knew better than to take her by surprise, especially when her adrenal gland had probably just tapped the fuck out. “It’s cool. It’s just me.”

  “Jesus!” she bit out, tacking on another, less ladylike swear that he’d fully earned. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  He examined her closely, his own adrenaline making his pulse pound against his eardrums. “Sorry. But, seriously, that guy was a dick. Are you alright?”

  “Of course.”

  Her answer came out too fast to be anything other than a default. Although he was tempted to throw the bullshit flag, one look at Kennedy’s hands made him pause.

  A person could master a game face or talk smack all day long. But hands never lied.

  And hers were shaking.

  “I’m going to go behind the bar and get some water,” Gamble said, kicking his boots into motion before she could protest. Of course, he should’ve known she’d do it once she recovered her wits two seconds later.

  “You don’t need to do that. I’m really fine.” She put her hands on her hips and watched him with all the attention and accuracy of a sniper as she followed him briskly behind the bar, and, huh, he hadn’t pegged her as quite so territorial. Still, all the tenacity on the planet couldn’t save her from her own physiology, so he was going to have to spin this just right in order to get her to breathe.

  “Who said the water was for you?”

  Ah, that got her. She stopped short on the bar mats. “What?”

  “I’m thirsty,” he said, taking two of the oversized cups they used for sodas and filling them first with ice, then water, before handing one over to her. “Might not be terrible for you to throw back a little water, either. It helps with the adrenaline letdown.”

  Kennedy sighed. “You’re not going to let it go unless I do, are you?”

  “Probably not. You might as well go on and humor me.”

  “Fine.” She lifted the cup to her mouth for a sip. “Good?”

  “Better,” Gamble corrected. “The way you handled that guy was pretty impressive.” Not to mention ridiculously hot, but he’d keep that little nugget to himself.

  Her brows disappeared beneath the heavy fringe of her bangs. “You saw the whole thing?”

  “It was a little tough to miss,” he said, and she shrugged in concession.

  “A pretty standard curb-toss. They’re an occupational hazard from time to time.” Her words were perfectly steady, even though her hands still weren’t—a fact that she must have noticed, because she busied them with another sip of water. “I’m surprised you didn’t jump in and try to help.”

  Gamble let himself smile, but only for a split second. “You didn’t need me to. Still, if it’s all the same to you, I’m going to stick around to walk you to your car.” When Kennedy pinned him with a high-level frown, he added, “Not that I don’t think you can handle yourself. Clearly, you can. But you’re not fucking bulletproof, and you pretty much put a wrecking ball to that guy’s ego. On the off chance he decides to wait in the shadows to give you a hard time, there’s safety in numbers.”

  She paused, but then surprised him with, “Fine. But I’m only agreeing because I’m too tired to argue with you. And if you stick around, you’re helping me put the rest of these bar stools up.”

  “Deal. Let’s get started.”

  Kennedy exhaled for the first time in ten minutes. When faced with fight or flight, she’d go with fight every single time and twice on Sundays. That still didn’t change the fact that the adrenaline was a bitch to manage. Add to it that she hadn’
t needed to forcibly boot anyone from The Crooked Angel in over a year—even then, Javier had done the actual handiwork—and she was definitely out of practice with the defenses that had once been daily survival skills.

  You sure you’re not going to get soft on me if you move out of the neighborhood, sis?

  Setting her shoulders despite the ache that was making a comeback now that her nervous system was (sort of) returning to business as usual, Kennedy spun toward the pass-through at the far end of the bar. Gamble followed her to the customer side, taking a decent-sized draw from his water before putting it out of the way, shrugging out of his leather jacket, and grabbing the nearest bar stool. She had to admit, having him stick around and walk her to her car was smart from a strategic standpoint, and his quiet, steadfast presence calmed her down.

  Even if the way he’d trusted her to handle herself had revved her way up.

  “So,” Gamble said, yanking her back from crazytown as he turned the stool in his grasp upside-down and put it on top of the bar. “How did a woman like you end up managing a place like The Crooked Angel, anyway?”

  “A woman like me,” Kennedy repeated, treating the stool in front of her to an expert flip.

  If Gamble had caught the steel in her tone, he didn’t show it by backing down. “Yeah. Something tells me they don’t teach hammerlocks like that at Remington University.”

  She released her bar stool to cross her arms over her chest. “Are you saying I don’t look smart enough to have a college degree?”

  “I’m saying you look like you have a story,” he qualified, and her muscles burned with a fresh shot of fatigue.

  “Yeah, well, I’m not about to tuck you into bed with a glass of warm milk and tell it to you.”