“Yesh, I do mean it!” the drunk yelled, slurring his words. “You do what I shay! Or…or…”
“Or nothing.” Jill actually took a step closer to him and leaned over the bar. “We both know you’re too good of a guy to ever hurt your favorite bartender.”
All the anger seeped out of the man, as though someone had deflated a balloon. Dan stopped in his tracks, hardly believing what he was seeing.
“Shorry.” The man bowed his head, sounding ashamed. “But I shtill want a beer.”
“And I’m still not giving you one,” Jill said. “I’ll tell you what I can do, though. I can give your brother a call and get you a ride home. You’re still living with Pete, right?”
“No need to bother Pete.” Another man rose from his stool, his movements and speech marking him as sober. “I was just leaving. I can give him a ride. C’mon, Big Ron.”
The drunk man shuffled obediently behind him, all the fight gone from him.
Jill looked up and spotted Dan. Surprise registered on her face, which was more emotion than she’d shown when dealing with Big Ron. “Hey, Dan. What are you doing here?”
“I dropped by to say hello.”
“At eleven-thirty?” Her eyebrows rose and disappeared under her curly hair. Her clothes were subdued by Jill standards, a T-shirt with a starburst design paired with faded blue jeans. Her only jewelry consisted of a watch and huge blue hoop earrings. She looked delectable. “Don’t you have to get up early tomorrow for work?”
Since the party on Sunday night, he hadn’t seen her at all. Either she’d been working or he had. She normally had Tuesday nights off, but had traded shifts with another bartender in order to attend the party.
“It’s worth losing sleep to see you,” he said, a line that didn’t get him the smile he was shooting for. He winked at her. “I said that just in case you liked a smooth-talking man.”
Her lips curved.
Only a few of the stools around the bar were taken. He settled onto an empty one and nodded in the direction the departing men had taken. “What was that all about?”
She looked at him blankly.
“The big guy yelling threats at you,” he clarified. “I was headed over here to defend you.” Recalling the guy’s size, he quirked one side of his mouth. “Or, at least, to try to defend you.”
“From Big Ron?” Jill shook her head. “Big Ron is harmless.”
“He didn’t sound harmless when he was trying to bully you into pouring him a beer.”
“He gets like that about once a month when we cut him off,” Jill said. “I don’t take it personally. He’ll be in here tomorrow apologizing all over himself.”
“Sounds like a bar isn’t the best place for him to hang out,” Dan said.
“Maybe, except that’s never gonna change,” Jill said. “Big Ron thinks of the other regulars as family. He can hold his booze most of the time. He’s just upset today because he got word his son has bronchitis and isn’t coming to visit. His son’s thirteen. He lives in California with Big Ron’s ex.”
“How do you know all that?” he asked.
“Are you kidding me? A good bartender specializes in listening. The job’s only ten percent about making drinks.” She slapped her palms on the bar. “So what can I get you?”
“Whatever ale you have on tap,” he said. “High-test, not unloaded.”
“Just to be clear, that means no light beer, right?”
So much for trying to be a smooth talker. “Right,” he said.
Although there was a smattering of people at the tables, the crowd was light, with nobody clamoring for her attention.
“Where is everybody tonight?” he asked.
“Tuesdays have been slow since Chuck started staying open on Mondays.” She took a tall glass from a shelf behind her. “He switched out Two for Tuesdays for Maniac Mondays. It thinned out the crowd so much that now he’s thinking of closing on Tuesdays.”
“I’m in favor of anything that’ll give you more free time.”
“Free time? What’s that?” She tilted the glass under the tap and filled it with pale ale, leaving a thin layer of foam at the top. “Here you go.”
She set the glass down before he could take it from her. He got the impression she didn’t want to risk physical contact, even if it was the merest brushing of fingers. But that was crazy. Two nights ago they’d decided to see where their attraction would lead.
“Where’d you learn how to bartend anyway?” he asked.
“On-the-job training,” she said. “School wasn’t for me, not even bartending school.”
“And?” he asked when she didn’t elaborate.
“And by the time I graduated high school, I was sick of waitressing. So I nagged my boss until he let me learn the ropes behind the bar.”
“Was this in South Carolina?” he asked.
“That’s right.”
He couldn’t remember her ever naming a specific town where she’d lived. “Whereabouts in South Carolina?”
“Oh, here and there,” she said airily. “I told you I lived with my mama, right? We moved around.”
“Even after high school?”
“By then it was a habit. Be right back.” She moved away before he could ask more questions, adding to his feeling that she wasn’t particularly glad to see him. Or perhaps she didn’t realize that no detail about her past was too small, even a listing of all the places she’d lived.
He watched her check to see if the two other people sitting at the bar wanted a refill. They were a young couple not much older than the legal drinking age. They shook their heads, barely taking their eyes off each other.
She headed back his way, her hoop earrings swinging.
“I don’t have any bartending experience,” Dan said, “but I’d say that couple wants to be left alone.”
“You got that right,” she said, then…silence.
“I saw Chris today,” Dan said. “He came by to visit the goats, the same as always. After a while he pulled this crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me. It was an invitation to a birthday party.”
Her expression brightened. Finally he’d sparked her interest. “Did you get the impression he wanted to go?”
“Yeah, I did. Why?”
“Chris didn’t even know who Timmy Waverly was until I told him he was Brittany’s brother,” Jill said. “Apparently Timmy didn’t say a word to Chris while we were at Hershey.”
“They why did Timmy invite Chris to his birthday party?”
“My guess is his mother did the guest list,” Jill said. “Chris and Brittany hit it off so well, she might have invited Chris so Brittany has someone to hang out with.”
“That could be true,” Dan said, “but this is a chance for Chris to get to know some of the boys better.”
“Exactly what I told him,” Jill said. “Thank God the party’s at the miniature golf course.”
“Yeah, Chris told me he’s pretty good at mini golf.”
“He’s darn near a ringer,” she said. “I’ve taken him a few times, and he always beats me.”
“You and I should go this weekend. I’m not bad.” Dan smiled at her. “Maybe I could coach you up.”
“You can coach me up some other time,” she said, repeating the phrase with the same Southern flair he’d given it. “I’m busy this weekend.”
“Don’t you have Friday night off?”
“Not this week,” she said. “I’m working Friday so I can get Saturday night off. You know that bike race proposal? I’m going to Lake Wallenpaupack on Saturday to present it.”
“Then maybe we can go out Saturday night when you get back.”
“My appointment isn’t until the late afternoon,” she said, “so I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”
“Why don’t I come to Lake Wallenpaupack with you?” As soon as he came up with the notion, he knew it was the right one. “We can even make a weekend of it. What do you say? Can Indigo River Rafters do withou
t you on Sunday morning?”
“That’s not such a good idea. It’s just that…” She didn’t seem to know how to proceed, which was unlike her. “When you think about it, it would be our first official date. It just seems a bit, well, intense for a first date.”
He looked around, then lowered his voice. “We can get separate rooms. I should have made that clear.”
“We’d still be staying overnight,” she said. “I’m just not comfortable with that.”
“Then let’s make it a day trip.”
She winced. “I think I’m just gonna go on up there alone. I’ll be so nervous about the presentation, I’d probably be lousy company anyway.”
He refrained from pointing out that he could help calm her nerves, that she could even practice her pitch on him during the drive up.
“Jill,” Chuck Dudza, the bar owner, called. “Can you come over here a minute?”
“Sure, boss,” she said with alacrity. To Dan, she added, “Be right back.”
He rewound the conversation, trying to figure out where he’d taken a wrong turn. He’d had the vague impression Jill wasn’t particularly glad to see him, but it had gotten worse when he’d mentioned an overnight trip.
“It’s slow tonight,” Chuck remarked to Jill. He wasn’t talking loudly, but his voice carried to Dan. “You want to take off early?”
“Oh, no,” Jill answered quickly. “You go ahead. I’ll close up.”
In his peripheral vision, Dan saw Chuck shoot him a pointed glance that Jill couldn’t have missed. “You sure?”
“Absolutely.” Jill’s head bobbed. “You closed for me last week. It’s my turn.”
Dan got the hint. He finished the last of his beer and stood up. “I’m taking off,” he called to Jill.
She walked over to him, her face a polite mask. “Probably a smart idea. I’ll be here a while.”
“Walk me out?” he asked.
“Go ahead, Jill,” Chuck interjected before she could answer. Her boss was at the sink, rinsing dishes, watching their interaction. “I’m not leaving for at least ten more minutes.”
Long moments passed before Jill nodded. When they were outside the bar, she kept a few feet between them. He motioned her away from the well-lit bar to the front of a darkened store, feeling the need to set things right.
“I’m sorry about what just happened in there.” He put his hands on either side of her shoulders. “I swear to you, I didn’t suggest I come with you on Saturday so I could get you in bed.”
“I—”
He covered her lips with three fingers. “Let me finish. It’s not that I don’t want to sleep with you. Nothing could be further from the truth. But I won’t rush you. I promise. We can go entirely at your pace.”
She gazed up at him. The spot where he’d led her was so dark that all he could make out of her eyes were the whites. He couldn’t see any nuances of her expression.
She said nothing for so long he thought she was devising a way to tell him she’d changed her mind about dating him. Just when he was about to make another plea for understanding, she grabbed the front of his shirt, stood on tiptoe and kissed him.
The heat of the kiss enveloped him, the passion accelerating like a sports car going from cruising speed to eighty miles per hour. She kissed him as she had in the laundry room but with more desperation, as though she’d been waiting to get him alone again.
He knew the feeling. He accommodated her, slanting his mouth over hers, meeting the thrusts of her tongue with his own. Never in his thirty years had he ever wanted a woman this badly. Not even Maggie.
And then the kiss was over. She stepped back, out of his arms, her face and body in shadows. There was enough ambient light, however, that he could see her chest heaving.
“Good night, Dan.” Her words were breathy.
“Good night.”
She whirled and headed quickly toward the bar, disappearing inside and leaving him to wonder what that had been all about. One moment, she’d seemed to be distancing herself from him. The next, she hadn’t been able to get close enough.
He was certain of one thing, however. If kisses like that were his reward, he was prepared to be patient for a very, very long time.
JILL PEEKED THROUGH the branches of a low-hanging tree late on Saturday morning, repositioning herself until the foursome of young boys was in her sight line.
She’d been wrong about Chris being invited to the birthday party to keep Brittany company. The delightful little blonde was playing the hole with the leaping dolphins, joined by three other equally cute girls.
Chris’s golf partners were all boys she recognized from the trip to Hershey. They were talking and laughing among themselves while Chris silently went about the business of miniature golf, lining up his putts, slowing bringing back the club, stroking through the ball.
“What are you doing behind this tree?” a low voice asked.
Jill gasped. Her heartbeat sped up, her body jerked, her hand flying to her throat as she turned.
It was Dan.
“Sorry if I scared you,” he said.
She was over the shock. Her heartbeat, though, hadn’t slowed a tick. If anything, it had sped up.
She’d never seen him in so little clothing. He was dressed in a loose-fitting sleeveless T-shirt, running shorts and athletic shoes. Her eyes headed south to his legs before jerking upward.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” she asked, although she knew the answer. The veterinarian’s office was open until noon every Saturday.
“We had some cancellations, so Stanley chased me out the door.” He wasn’t breathing hard, although he was obviously out for a run. “I’m glad he did. Otherwise I’d never have spotted you hiding in the bushes.”
“It’s not a bush,” she denied strongly before the ridiculousness of the situation struck her. She giggled. “It’s a tree, and I’m hiding so Chris doesn’t know I’m spying on him.”
“Makes perfect sense.” His eyes crinkled so they were smiling. “Why exactly are you spying on him?”
“I thought about standing at the fence and waving at him,” she said. “Except he’s probably at the age where he’d be mortified to have his big sister hovering over him.”
“That sounds right,” Dan said. “Except you still haven’t told me why his big sister is hovering over him.”
She winced. “To see how the party’s going. I could tell he was nervous about it this morning, so I got nervous, too.”
“How is it going?” Dan came forward so they were side by side. He was perspiring lightly, but smelled clean, like the outdoors.
“He’s in a group with three other boys. I haven’t been here long, but so far he hasn’t said a word to any of them.” Jill moved the branch aside once more to get a better view.
“Allow me,” Dan said, holding it in place for her.
Chris and the other members of his foursome had moved to the next hole, which involved directing the ball through a revolving windmill. Chris was up first, which meant he must have had the low score on the previous hole.
The other boys hung back talking and laughing while Chris set his bright yellow ball down on the rubber square. After careful consideration, which was how her brother did everything, he stroked through the ball.
The yellow sphere traveled over the green carpet, shot through an opening in the windmill and kept going in a straight line to the hole. It disappeared into the cup.
“Hole in one!” one of the boys in Chris’s foursome yelled, his voice carrying to their hiding place.
“Way to go, man!” yelled another.
The boys surrounded Chris, slapping him on the back and awarding him high fives. Jill and Dan were perhaps forty feet away, but Jill still saw her brother’s white teeth flash.
“I’d say he’s doing just fine,” Dan said, letting the branch fall back into place.
“He is, isn’t he?” Jill smiled. Finally, after more than a year on the run, her brother seemed to be on the verge of
making friends his own age. He’d even stopped offering profuse apologies for every minor mistake. “I guess this means I can go.”
“I’m sort of surprised you’re still here in Indigo Springs,” Dan said. “Aren’t you submitting that proposal today?”
“I sure am,” Jill said. “It’s not a long drive—ninety minutes at most. I don’t have to leave until after lunch.”
She waited for him to repeat his offer to accompany her.
“Are you prepared?” he asked instead.
“No,” she said, “but I’ll muddle through it.”
He merely nodded in acknowledgment.
“Felicia let me practice on her this morning and she said I did fine,” Jill said.
He cocked his head. “Just fine?”
“She actually said I did terrific, except she’s biased,” Jill said. “Felicia’s teaching me how to cook some of her specialties. No matter how much I mess up, she always says the food tastes delicious.”
“We all need someone like that in our lives,” he said.
She could be that person in Dan’s life. The thought struck her like a bolt of lightning. She’d gushed about him to her mother, yet had guarded against letting him know how great a guy she thought he was.
She’d gone out of her way, in fact, to distance herself from him. Tuesday night was the latest example. Discounting the impulsive kiss she’d given him outside the bar, she’d been deliberately standoffish. All because of the revelation that her father was getting ready to call in the cops.
“I should be getting back to my run.” His eyes lingered on her the same way they always did, but his smile was almost impersonal. “Good luck with the presentation.”
He turned and left her, starting a slow jog that would take him farther and farther away.
“Wait!” she called, breaking into her own run, desperate to close the distance she’d created between them.
He stopped and turned, a puzzled look on his face. “Did you want something?” She wanted him, which must have been evident outside the bar Tuesday night. Yet he’d made no move to follow up on that implicit invitation.
That Runaway Summer Page 14
