“Alejo, this is no my problema. Manuela, God rest her soul, would want me to find happiness. Now, I get back to dancing, yes?”
“Tia, I thought you hated the idea of me turning the salon into a bar. You said it would never work. You said you wanted to pull your money out, and predicted degenerate behavior here!”
“I never say such thing. Manuela, God rest her soul, would not want you making up stories. Now, Alejandro, you get me a mojito, eh? Your Tia is dying with thirst.” And she pinched his cheek and gyrated away to Stan the tree man, who eyed his Tia’s backside in a way that made Alejo want to take him down and grind his stump.
However, she probably wouldn’t thank him for that, so he shook off his disgust and made his way toward the bar again.
A high-pitched shriek rent his eardrums and he looked toward the source of it. To his amusement Kate was being pulled up forcibly onto the bar by two big male dancers.
“No!” she said. “No, no, no!” They laughed and hauled her up anyway. They sandwiched her between them, doing a little shimmy.
“No, really!” she shouted, crossly, her wiry hair standing on end. “Spinneys do not dance on bars…” Then she stopped, an arrested expression on her face. “Alejandro, I need a table,” she yelled. “A small round one.”
“Why? Are you going to serve tea in my bar?”
“Not exactly,” said his love, a smile playing under those killer cheekbones of hers. “There’s something I swore I’d do before my thirtieth birthday, but I didn’t quite make it.”
Puzzled, Alejandro went to the back of the bar, where he saw Luis, Carlos and Franco sitting around a small table and testing their ability to hold tequila. Luis winked and hoisted a shot glass to him. “Eh, Chivo!”
“That’s Señor Chivo to you, my friend.” And so saying, he plucked their table right out from under them, dropping the tequila bottle into Franco’s lap.
He strode back to the front of the bar with his prize, placing it in front of Kate. “Your table awaits, señorita.”
She gulped and then hesitated. “Will you put me on it, please?”
Highly entertained, he caught her around the waist, lifted her and set her on the tabletop. Around them people started whistling and clapping.
Kate stood stock-still for a long moment, twin spots of color riding high on her cheekbones. Then she tucked her crazy hair behind her ears and began to dance. She moved her hips and her shoulders, her knees and her feet. She tossed her head and raised her hands into the air, finally whooping in exultation.
“I thought Spinneys didn’t make public spectacles of themselves!” Alejandro shouted up at her.
“They don’t,” she answered, grinning. “But sometimes Just Kate does.”
“Brava!”
“Of course, my family would consider this highly indecent,” she told him as he swung her down.
“It was your brilliant marketing idea to have the guys dancing on the bar for clients. You’re just encouraging them, that’s all. It’s part of your job.”
She made a face at him.
“Speaking of indecency,” he continued with a wicked grin, “I really think we should check on the inventory in the supply closet. Don’t you?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary, Alejandro.”
He pulled her close so that she could see just how necessary it was. “Really, I think we’re low on, uh, shampoo.”
“You are so transparent.”
“Yes, but I am cute, no?” Alejandro took her hand and tugged her behind him to the supply closet, but curiously it was locked. “Damn. I’ll have to go and find the key.”
Muffled laughter came from inside the closet. Then a familiar female voice said, “Alejo, you open this door and I will bleach your hair while you sleep.”
“Yeah,” came another voice, this one deep and masculine. “And I’ll pass a bill making it illegal for you to get a hard-on anywhere in the state of Florida.”
Marly and Jack had pre-empted them!
They tried the office next, but soft moans and rustling came from behind that door, too. What the hell? Tia Carlotta’s prediction had come true. After Hours was hosting some serious hanky-panky.
“Fine.” Alejandro gritted his teeth. “Then it will have to be the bathroom.”
“Spinneys,” declared Kate, “do not do it in bathrooms.”
“Spinneys,” said Alejandro, “will do it anywhere we can, and if the bathroom is occupied, I think we are down to the Dumpster.”
“What is the matter with you? You’re crazy. I’m not having sex with you in the garbage.”
“Did I ask you to have sex with me in the garbage?” He threw up his hands. “No, I did not. All I wanted to do was find a somewhat private place to tell you that I have to insist on marrying your bony, snooty, uptight little ass!”
Kate blinked at him. “Oh. Really?”
“Yes, really. Though that is not the way I meant to phrase it….”
She reached up to touch the muscle jumping in his jaw. “That’s okay. Spinneys don’t do sappy public proposals, either.” She looked around, but nobody was paying any attention to them. “So, keep it quiet. I might even say yes, since I’ve gotten kind of attached to you. Only for the free pedicures, of course.”
He bent to kiss her. “Kate Spinney, will you marry a former male manicurist? With a prenuptial agreement, of course.”
The very unsentimental apple of his eye actually got tears in hers, to his surprise. “Yeah, I would. If you’d consider marrying a vice president of either tampons or wart cream.”
He burst out laughing. “Excuse me?”
“Really,” she said seriously. “Wendell’s just been put in charge of the hemorrhoid and suppository products up in Boston, which leaves me the choice of the other two. Spinney Industries is moving them to the Miami division.”
He looked down into her green eyes and frowned. “I thought you said you were a shampoo heiress, Kate.”
She squirmed. “Well…the company really did start with shampoo, back in 1914. But let’s just say it’s diversified a lot, and our branch of the family is in charge of the more embarrassing stuff. I kind of omitted to tell you that.”
He grasped her by the arms, wanting very badly to shake her until her teeth rattled. This was the woman who’d given him hell for not being straight with her? The woman who’d demanded an abject apology from him for lying—and taken it, too, when it had only been accidental?
He was going to wring her snotty, East Coast little neck. “Let me get this straight. Are you saying that—” Words failed him.
Her green gaze slid away from his, and then she squinted up at him hopefully, lip caught between her teeth. “Oh, come on, sport. It was just a little white lie. An omission, that’s all. Now, what kind of engagement party do you want to have?”
ISBN 978-1-55254-474-5
AFTER HOURS BUNDLE
Copyright © 2006 by Karen Moser.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
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About the Author
Karen Kendall is the a
uthor of many disasters and nine romantic comedies. She grew up in Austin, Texas, and credits her early interest in writing to several teachers and her mother, a professor of comparative literature.
A graduate of Smith College, Karen studied the mysteries of modern and contemporary art before enrolling in a masters program in Museum Education, with the aim of teaching children about art. She worked for several museums and galleries before following her lifelong dream and completing a novel.
She was first published in 2001, and since then her books have been finalists for the Holt Medallion (3 times), the Bookseller’s Best and the Madcap Award for romantic comedy.
Karen is still a big fan of children’s art, but she now writes full time and lives in Florida with her husband, Don, and attack-cat Boo, who turns up her nose at chicken and fish but adores asparagus and mint-chocolate-chip ice cream.
Karen loves reader mail even more than chocolate and typing “The End” on a manuscript! Please write to her at:
Karen Kendall
P.O. Box 267403
Weston, FL 33326
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After Hours Bundle Page 56
