LITMIR.BIZ

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      Ah. So Margie must, indeed, be his mother.

      Andy ambled back to their table. Lyndsay swallowed but stared steadily at him.

      “Would you like to meet my friend John?” Andy asked her.

      Act natural. She’d told Andy three days earlier that she’d wanted to meet as many people as possible in the area. I’m building my business from the ground up, she’d told him. That was part of her cover.

      “Sure,” she replied in a neutral tone. “But I can see that your friend is busy now. Maybe another day.”

      But Andy didn’t take the hint. He glanced at John, then sat at the table, placing his bag of chips and his pastrami on rye before him. “I’ve known John a long time,” he remarked. “Coached him in youth hockey back before I got married and had kids. He left for the military when he grew up.”

      “Oh.” Lyndsay lowered her gaze to the remaining crumbs on her plate. Her own husband had been Army Special Operations. A Ranger. But no one needed to know that.

      “John came home a few years ago,” Andy was saying. “But he came back different than he was before. He never used to be so quiet.”

      She nodded, not saying anything. Maybe this explained what was going on with her. She couldn’t be personally interested in him. It was just that they had more in common than she’d realized.

      “Well,” Andy said, sighing, “you’re leaving us tomorrow anyway, right? Unless Mrs. MacLaine accepts your design. And if she does and you come back, then maybe I’ll introduce you to John.”

      “Sure.” She smiled at Andy. “We’ll do it then. And put in a good word for me, because he’s been giving me funny looks all morning.”

      “I know he comes off as intimidating sometimes, but you don’t need to be worried about him. He’s a good guy, Lyn.”

      “I’m not worried,” she said lightly, taking another sip from her iced tea. But her gut told her that maybe she should be. Across the room, John Reilly was staring at her, intently.

      He hadn’t stopped staring at her.

      * * *

      JOHN REILLY STOOD with arms crossed, watching through the break room window while Lyn Francis roared out of his parking lot in her little black Audi. He could feel his eyes narrow the longer he watched her. He didn’t know what it was about her, but there had been something—something he couldn’t put his finger on. On the surface she seemed to have been making a business call in his parking lot—some sort of catalog that she was reading numbers from—but there was more to it than that. Something that set off his inner alarm bells. The more he studied her, the more curious he felt about her presence.

      He stuffed his hands in his pockets. It wasn’t that she was attractive. She definitely was, but that wasn’t why he’d been watching her in the first place. Not the only reason, anyway.

      The door opened suddenly beside him, and Millie, his mother’s best friend and their longtime waitress, moved inside as quiet as a ghost and began to wipe down the table. That was a reminder to John that he had other priorities to concentrate on. Lyn Francis wasn’t his business. The Seaside Bar and Grill was.

      Gritting his teeth, John nodded to Millie, then headed out behind the huge, carved wooden bar that was the pride and joy of their small beach-restaurant business. John’s father had built the Seaside twenty-five years before. John had helped put up the shelves in the back, and he knew exactly, by feel, the spot where he had once secretly carved his initials. John was part of this place. He couldn’t just walk away, much as he sometimes wished he could.

      The lawyer’s bill for his brother had come due today. John needed to meet with the bank and somehow scrape up the money to pay it. And on top of that, the screwup with the beer line not working wasn’t helping matters at all. It was costing them, too.

      John squatted beside the open closet that led to the big silver keg of domestic beer beneath the bar. “What do you think?” he said to the technician—Cody. “Can you get this line fixed by five o’clock?”

      That was when the after-work crowd came in. And John couldn’t keep selling bottled beer for the same price he charged for cheaper drafts, because John was such a good guy to his old friends. He was losing money on the deal.

      Cody sat up and scratched his head. “Don’t know,” he mumbled. “I got a call in to my supervisor.” He looked at John. “Actually, I need to leave for a while. I’ll be back later, though.”

      “No,” John said reflexively. If Cody left, he likely wouldn’t be back today, and John wasn’t going to let that happen.

      Cody blinked. “I have to leave.”

      “Why?”

      “I, um, need to get a part.”

      “Really?” John crossed his arms again. For not the first time today, he wished he was back in active service. That way, people might actually listen to him and follow his orders. “And what part is that, Cody?”

      Cody gave him a stubborn look, but John stared him down.

      Cody’s cheeks turned red. “I need to replace my flashlight. The bulb isn’t working, and I can’t see.”

      John had a million flashlights on the premises. Without a word, he leaned over the bar, reached the top shelf, then chose among three working flashlights. The first was large, more of a weapon than a source of light, the second was medium with a bright glare, and the third was small with pinpoint accuracy—just right.

      John turned the small flashlight on and put it into Cody’s hand. “Go to it. If you need anything else, I’ll be right here.”

      Cody made a small noise in his throat that sounded like something between a groan and a whine. John felt his teeth clenching. He knew he was probably feeling some prejudice against Cody because of his youth and poor work ethic—similar to John’s younger brother’s youth and poor work ethic, and Patrick wasn’t exactly giving John an easy time of it, either. But these two young guys would have to grow up and learn to be responsible. He’d said that to his brother, and his brother had told him to get off his case.

      John sighed and rubbed his hand over his eyes. He was dealing with Cody right now, not Patrick. “Look, Cody, you need to get this done by five o’clock, no excuses.”

      It irritated John to have to be a hard-ass in order to get the job done. He had the skills to fix the beer line himself with much less time and emotion expended. But if he touched these beer lines, then he voided the contract with the distributor.

      John played by the book. He was honest. He was direct.

      He stared at Cody. “Are we clear?”

      “Okay. Give me a few minutes.” Cody’s shaggy mop top and beard disappeared under the counter.

      John planted his feet and crossed his arms, watching over the kid. He would stay here as long as it took.

      Across the room, Andy Hannaman stood, stretched, and gathered his group’s plates and empty bottles. John glanced for Millie, but she was probably in the kitchen with his mother. It was after one o’clock, past the lunch break and well before quitting time, so the place was nearly empty. He went around the bar and helped Andy clear the table of dirty plates and empty wrappers.

      “Thanks,” he told Andy. He appreciated that his old friend was there to help him.

      “I don’t see why you didn’t want to say hi to her,” Andy said.

      “Who?” John asked, though he knew who. The cute blonde with her ponytail and big blue eyes was still on his mind. He had no idea why—it bugged him that he couldn’t put his finger on the specific reason why—but she did something to him, and it wasn’t just because she was hot. A lot of hot girls walked through these doors during summertime. This whole question of why he was getting uneasy vibes

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