“Thanks, Sarah. She’ll be out front.” Another pause, and this time when Tyler ran his eyes over her, Grace could feel the heat in them from across the room. “Don’t worry. She won’t open that smart mouth to argue. Thanks again.” He hung up the phone.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but—”
“Shut up and sit down.”
“I am perfectly fine at the hotel.”
“Grace.”
The single word had her shutting up and sitting again. Tyler let out an audible sigh and pressed his fingers against his temples, shaking his head. When she worked up the nerve to meet his eyes again, she saw that all the anger had drained out of them and a calm sympathy remained.
“Grace, when I hire someone, I like to think that they’ll be able to go home and get a decent night’s rest before coming back to work the next day. At that hotel, you’re as likely to get your throat slit as sleep through the night. Now, Sarah’s going to meet you there and you are going to check out this afternoon. We’ll figure the rest out later.”
To her horror, Grace felt the tears fill her eyes again. She blinked them back. The thought of not having to sleep on nerves’ edge at every sound in the hallway was something she’d never thought to be so grateful for. But she wouldn’t cry, damn it. She stretched a hand toward him across the bar uncertainly. She let it drop after a moment, her palm resting flat against the silken grain of the wood.
“Thank you.” She hoped he could hear the sincerity in her words.
After a moment she looked down at her hand, feeling the break of the visual connection with Tyler like the sudden snapping of a taut cord. Would she ever get over the sheer presence of this man? As she watched, both of his hands came sliding over the bar to rest on top of hers, and the sudden catch of breath in her chest made it clear that, no, she might never get past this. His fingers curled around the sides of her hand to tug gently upward on her palm, pulling her hand toward his mouth.
“Don’t thank me, Grace. I try to take care of the people I like. And I like you.”
She felt his breath on her knuckles. Glanced up. Tyler’s eyes were heavy-lidded as he watched his thumbs trace small circles on the backs of her hands. Then his eyes met hers and a slow grin slid over his face as he leaned to kiss her fingertips.
“Just get your butt back here as fast as you can.”
She jerked her hand from his, turned and sprinted out the door.
When Grace had jogged up to the front of the hotel, she’d spotted Sarah at once. Her long, dark hair wasn’t teased high enough to fit in this area, the makeup too subdued, the skirt too long and the blouse not nearly tight enough.
I must have stuck out like a blinking neon light, too, she thought.
“I can’t believe you’ve been staying here, Grace. You’re braver than I am, that’s for sure,” Sarah said as she hustled them both up to Grace’s room and began a ruthless packing of her belongings.
“Are these sheets yours? I thought so. They don’t look dingy enough to belong to management. And the kitchen stuff, too, right? Although not this pot, obviously. What were you supposed to cook in that? A teaspoon of soup? How on earth did you end up staying here, Grace?”
Maybe it was the concern that ran so clearly through Sarah’s voice. Or maybe it was the guilt she felt, taking advantage of her help in folding up the scant contents of her closet. But either way, Grace found herself giving Tyler’s sister an honest, although severely edited, account of her recent history.
“I was working for my family. We all work together, but lately they’ve wanted to do some things with the business that I didn’t agree with.” Grace folded another pair of slacks and kept her eyes cast down, watching her hands work. “And I was, um, sort of involved with someone who thought my family was right and I was crazy to fight them. The only one who agreed with me was my grandmother, but then she died. And after a little while, I couldn’t take it anymore. The pressure.”
She looked up and saw that Sarah was watching her without a hint of judgment in her eyes.
“So two weeks ago, I just left. Packed up what you see here and decided to vanish for a while. To try and figure things out.” She blew out a breath and sat on the edge of the bare mattress. “You probably think I’m a total coward.”
“What I think shouldn’t matter to you, Grace. But just for the record, I don’t think you’re a coward at all. Sometimes you need to take a step back and look at the whole picture, and that’s just what you’re doing.” Sarah’s voice was firm as she zipped up the suitcase and took one last tour around the small room.
Satisfied that they hadn’t missed anything, she grabbed Grace by the hand and tugged her off the bed.
“Now let’s get out of here. Tyler will be chewing nails by the time we get back to the bar.”
And that had been all that was said about Grace’s history and hotel choice.
On the way back to the bar, Sarah made it clear that she’d meant her kind words when she offered up a spare bedroom in her apartment. Her roommate had recently moved out and she was in no hurry to find another one. If Grace wanted to stay there for a while, she said, they could work something out between them.
When Sarah emphasized that the arrangement would be strictly casual and wouldn’t involve anything like signing a lease, Grace agreed on the spot.
Finished with her glass washing behind the bar, she gave yet another heartfelt mental thank-you to this family that was taking her in as if she were one of their own. She knew it was callous to use them like this, but she couldn’t remember the last time someone had offered to take care of her. She was too used to doing it all on her own.
It took her a moment to realize that Tyler still stood behind her and that the words coming out of his mouth were about her.
“I pretty much picked her up off the street,” he was saying, “cleaned her up, and tonight I plan on taking her home with me.”
“What?” she shrieked and stood up so fast that the top of her head cracked against his chin.
“Ouch.” He rubbed his chin, and was pleased to see how quickly she rose to take his bait. “I was just saying, darlin’, that—”
“Not another word,” she threatened, turning and advancing on him with soapy hands ready to strangle.
“—you’d be coming home with me tonight. You know you need a place to stay.”
“I’m not going home with you, you moron.” She was shouting by now and it felt good. “I’m going home with your sister.”
When the wave of laughter from the happily eavesdropping customers broke over her, she realized that they’d gathered quite an audience. Good-natured catcalls and comments flew her way from the men seated at the bar, their girlfriends laughing along with them.
“Man, Sarah’s boyfriend isn’t going to be too happy to hear that!”
“Or maybe he’ll be twice as happy!”
“Get your minds out of the gutter,” she scolded the collection of faces at the bar.
“Don’t be mad, Gracie.” Catching her off guard, Tyler wrapped his arms around her and reeled her in close to him. “You’re too hard to resist.” With a wolfish smile, lots of teeth and a look of hunger in his eyes, he bent his head over her and she knew he was going to kiss her in front of the entire bar.
And because she wanted him to so badly, could feel herself rising up onto her toes to lean into his kiss, could feel her legs shifting to cradle one of his thighs between hers, she panicked.
Next time, hit him with this.
Susannah’s words from opening night raced through her head—along with the fleeting thought that later on she’d regret this—before she reached out blindly with one hand.
She only had a moment to realize that she’d grabbed the dirty spoon Tyler had been using to stuff olives with blue cheese and then she was rapping it sharply against his skull.
“Grace!” Addy looked shocked at the far end of the bar.
Tyler rubbed his head gingerly and grimaced as he sm
ushed the blue cheese in his hair even more.
The crowd of onlookers had doubled in number. She could see Richard and his wife clapping hands in approval across the room.
She threw her hands in the air.
“His mother told me to do it,” she announced, and decided to march out from behind the bar with whatever dignity remained intact. And she did, except for the part where she had to duck down to squeeze beneath the bar counter. She headed straight to the kitchen.
Sarah and her mother were singing along to “Under the Boardwalk” when she burst through the doors. Sarah was sending the last of the big soup pots through the dishwasher and Susannah was wiping down a counter. They both looked up when they heard the saloon-style doors slam against the wall.
“I had to do it.”
“Do what?” Sarah called.
Susannah was already smiling.
“I had to hit him upside the head. With a spoon.”
Tyler’s mother just grinned peacefully as Sarah pelted the both of them with questions. “I knew you would.”
Her feet might never recover.
Grace decided that it had definitely been years since she’d worked a full schedule as a server. She propped her feet up on a chair across the aisle and dug into the plate of pasta balanced on her lap. Susannah had insisted on making her a plate when she realized that Grace hadn’t had time to eat before her shift, or had a spare five minutes during it, either. They’d finally closed the kitchen at ten o’clock, although the bar would stay open until 2:00 a.m. But without food that needed to be served, Tyler could handle the customers at the bar and she could sit for the first time in eight hours.
At a table in the back of the room, she spread out with her dinner and her paperwork. She totaled up her checks and credit card receipts and counted out her cash, in between bites of rigatoni in a creamy tomato sauce.
By the time she double-checked her math, she had cleaned her plate.
All in all, it hadn’t been a bad night. Not as much as she used to spend on a pair of shoes, in her old life, but enough to make a start on paying rent to Sarah. Besides, Grace thought, she was embarrassed to admit, even to herself, that she’d ever spent three hundred dollars on a pair of shoes.
“Are you making out okay here? Cash-wise, I mean.”
She looked up to find Tyler standing over her. The bar was still noisy enough that she hadn’t heard him walk up.
“Pretty well, actually. Your friends are good tippers.”
“Yeah, well, they like you, too. Half the people who’ve been here tell me they’ll only come back as long as I manage to hang on to you.”
She didn’t want to meet his eyes, so she focused on gathering up her paperwork. Stuffing her checks and receipts on one side of her order book and the balance of her cash total on the other, she clapped the book closed and passed it to him over her shoulder.
When he bopped her on the head with it, she craned her neck to glare at him in irritation. Then she remembered what he’d told her earlier when he sent his sister home and immediately felt guilty.
“Do you need me to stock something for you?” she asked. She was, after all, getting paid to work this late. “That’s what I’m here for.”
She couldn’t tell if he was irritated or just tired when he spoke.
“Take a break, Grace. We can stock later. I was just checking to see if you wanted a drink. You get one on the house after each shift, and seeing how rough tonight was, I’ll even break out the champagne if you want.”
I am such a jerk. “Thanks, but I think I’ll stick with coffee.”
“Let me know if you change your mind.” He strolled back to the bar, a bar towel tucked in his back pocket and red wine staining his left sleeve. It had been a long night for both of them.
And it was just the two of them left working. Tyler had sent his sisters and his mother home shortly after the kitchen closed. When Grace had started to protest at being left by herself with him, he’d pulled her aside so that his family couldn’t hear him.
“I want them to go home, Grace. They’ve been spending too much time here. Addy’s got a two-year-old at home. Sarah’s working at the clinic before coming back here and—”
“Stop.” She surprised herself by putting a finger up to his lips. “Send them home. We’ll be fine.”
The look of relief on his face showed her how badly he felt about relying on his family to help him out. When he hugged her, it was as a friend, and she squeezed him back without reservation.
“Thank you.” He held her at arm’s length and seemed to struggle to look solemn. “I promise I won’t flirt with you. Not even a little bit.”
“Yeah, right.” She’d scoffed automatically.
“Okay, maybe just a little bit. I’m only human, darlin’.”
But she trusted him not to make things difficult for her. Something about a man growing up with so many women in his family, particularly such strong-minded, outspoken women, made her comfortable with working with him until the small hours of the morning.
Then there was that part of her that wanted him to make things difficult for her.
Her mind kept on straying back to that one kiss in his office and the way her stomach had clenched behind the bar when he’d pulled her close again. She’d caught herself mindlessly staring into space more than once since then, unable to recall what she was doing and far too conscious of the heat pooling deliciously in her belly, remembering his kiss.
If only he didn’t have such a mouth on him. Every time she looked at him she imagined it pressed fiercely against her own. She could feel the way the corner of the door frame would have edged sharply into her back if he’d continued to kiss her in the office, backing her up against the wall, and pressing her hands above her head, where they couldn’t push him away.
And she wouldn’t really want to.
Grace realized with a start that she was doing it again. Fantasizing about her boss. The boss she was lying to daily, even if only by what she didn’t say to him. She knew she couldn’t afford that kind of complication in her life right now and vowed to stop it from that moment on.
Closing time, and the ability to go hide at Sarah’s apartment, never seemed so far away.
The hours passed quickly enough though, between her side work and stocking for the next day’s business. Before she knew it, they were saying goodbye to the last customers of the night and Tyler was locking the door behind them.
Most of the lights at the rear of the restaurant were shut off, the ones up front dim enough to cloak the whole room in an aura of peaceful calm. She wiped down the last of the tables and straightened, arching her back in an effort to work out some of the kinks. Tyler was rummaging around behind the bar, so she felt inconspicuous enough to bend over and do a few toe-touches, stretching out her muscles. When she heard him walking toward her, she stood again quickly and reached for a chair to upend on the nearest table.
“Leave it, Grace. I’ve got a busboy who can come in tomorrow. He’ll finish up here.” She saw that he held the previously offered bottle of champagne in one hand and a pair of plastic cups in the other. At her look, he explained, “I didn’t want either of us to have to wash another damn glass.”
She smiled in appreciation. “Thanks. But I think I’m too tired for champagne.”
He walked over to a table, set down the bottle and cups, and pulled out two chairs side by side. When he looked at her, she read nothing but tired appreciation in his gaze.
“Come sit with me, Grace. It’s been one hell of a day, but after a week of being open, I’m starting to think we’re going to pull it off. Surely that deserves one celebratory drink.”
She wavered and was sure he could read the indecision in her eyes.
“Have I seriously hit on you once in the last few days?”
“No.” She had to admit that, and repressed the thought that she’d been disappointed.
“See? And tonight I’m too wiped out to flirt even. I’m totally harmless
.”
“I doubt that,” she muttered loud enough for him to hear and chuckle at. Then she gave in and sat next to him. When he poured her a cup of champagne, she accepted it with gratitude.
“Here’s to surviving the grand opening and our first crazy week.” Tyler lifted his cup and she clinked her plastic cup dully against his. “You busted your butt working tonight, darlin’. I appreciate that.”
She felt the champagne she sipped burst in sharply fruited bubbles on her tongue, before tilting her head back and letting the cool liquid trickle slowly down her throat. She brought her gaze back to his and found his eyes on her, not quite as dulled now.
Safer to keep talking.
“It was hardly just me.” She waved a hand in a tired circle, encompassing the whole room. “Your family work at least as hard as I do, and you put in more time than all of us.”
“Yeah, well, this is my baby.” He closed his eyes for a moment and she felt free to stare at him for once. He looked tired. Tired, but still strong, as if he could jump up and work another twelve-hour shift if that’s what it took to run his business. Something about that determination made her want to know more about this man.
“Have you always wanted to own a restaurant?” The quietness made it easy to ask personal questions. Like trading secrets in the dark at a grade-school sleepover.
His hands where they rested on the chair arms were limp with relaxation. His voice when he spoke was surprisingly clear.
“Sometimes it feels like it.” He laughed and sat up straight before stretching hugely in his chair. “But no, I didn’t know what I wanted. I fell into the business by accident long before I figured out that it’s what I love.” He sipped champagne out of the plastic cup and seemed to think for a while before looking at her. “Are you and your dad close?”
“No.” Quiet memories, so fuzzy with time as to contain almost nothing more than a feeling of warmth and a crisp smell she thought might have been her father’s cologne. “He died when I was very young.”
At Your Service (Silhouette Desire) Page 5
