LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER TWO

      AFTER A NIGHT of weird dreams, Darby had awakened, his heart racing as if the woman had been in the room with him. He’d half expected the bracelet to be gone—the whole episode at the Chokecherry Festival only a figment of his imagination.

      But there sat the bracelet on his bedside table where he’d left it last night—proof that the woman had been real. The sun gleamed off the gold—and the round dark circle of onyx. It gave him a small thrill at the same time it sent a chill up his spine. He felt like a thief. He’d taken the woman’s very expensive bracelet. Worse, last night in his dream she’d confronted him, accusing him of stealing her luck—and, in her fury, had put a curse on him.

      Shaking off the dream and the guilt, he reminded himself that she’d been the one trying to steal from him. That rationale didn’t help that much as he stepped into the shower. The warm water chased away the remnants of the dream, leaving him feeling a little better.

      He knew why he couldn’t get her off his mind. The woman had been mysterious and exhilarating. He reminded himself that he was talking about a thief. But for too long he’d felt antsy, as if he needed a change, but he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving his sister alone to run this place.

      He’d thought he needed a change of scenery, but maybe it had been something else entirely. This morning he felt amped up as if he’d been hit with a jolt of electricity that had awakened something deep inside him. He felt...different. And all because of a woman he’d seen in passing. A thief who could have been using one of his credit cards right now if he hadn’t grabbed her to talk to her. He let out a laugh. Talk about luck...

      With a sudden chill, he glanced at the bracelet.

      What if it was cursed?

      That made him laugh at his own foolishness as he dressed and went downstairs. It was hours before the bar opened, but he felt even more restless than usual. Needing fresh air, he raised the windows and even propped open the front door. This was Montana—the only place to be this time of year since the temperature was as perfect as it could be.

      He breathed in the mountain air scented with pines and rushing creek water and felt as if he’d been given a shot of vitamin B. Still, at the back of his mind he debated what to do with the bracelet as he busied himself washing bar glasses.

      If only it was just costume jewelry. He would toss it in the trash and put the whole episode behind him. And yet, he didn’t want to put it behind him. He wanted to savor that excitement even as he felt it slipping away.

      Engrossed in this work and his thoughts, he didn’t hear her. Nor did he pick up the scent of her perfume. Instead, he sensed her and looked up to find the woman standing in the open doorway of his bar like an apparition.

      At the sight of her, the soap-slick glass slipped from his hand. Without looking, he caught it with his other hand before the glass shattered in the sink.

      “Good hands,” the woman said from the doorway, sunlight spilling around her, making her appear ethereal. But there was nothing angelic about her from her obsidian black hair that was loosely braided over one shoulder to the mystery behind her dark eyes as she stepped in.

      His tongue felt rooted to the roof of his mouth for a moment. “Thanks.” He had thought that he’d never see her again. But now he realized how foolish that had been. The bracelet was worth too much money for her to simply walk away from it. But the realization that she’d tracked him down sent a chill up his spine to raise the fine hairs at the back of his neck.

      His gaze moved from her face to her wrist and the band of pale skin where the gold cuff had been. She wore jeans, biker boots and a black leather jacket. With a start, he recognized the T-shirt beneath the jacket. Stagecoach Saloon. One he’d thrown to the crowd yesterday?

      Seeing his apparent interest in her T-shirt, she opened her jacket wider and smiled. “Nice place you have here,” she said as she sidled up to the bar.

      That’s when he noticed the backpack slung over her shoulder. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find out there was a gun inside it. Or that she was about to pull it on him.

      “Thanks.” He fought to rein in his pulse as he waited for her to get down to the business of her visit since they both knew what it was. She had come for her bracelet. He didn’t have to wonder too long how she’d found him. He’d hit her with one of the T-shirts promoting the place. Maybe the one she was wearing right now.

      He waited for her to ask, though, curious how she was going to explain taking his wallet. “We don’t open until eleven,” he said, finding he had to fill the deathly quiet that had fallen over the bar.

      Tantalizing whiffs of her citrusy perfume drifted to him as she set her backpack on a stool and slipped onto the one next to it. She was taller than he remembered, slimmer, but no less striking. As she looked at him, he caught a flash of something at her neck. A gold pendant lay against her glowing olive skin. In its middle was a dark circle of black onyx—just like the one on the bracelet.

      As she crossed her long legs and reached into a side pocket of her backpack, he put down the glass in his hand, slowly dried his hands and waited, the baseball bat he kept behind the bar within reach.

      “I was hoping you might have a job opening,” she said as she took out a tube of lip gloss and applied it to the deep pink of her full lips.

      Darby stared at her for a moment, uncomprehending. “You want a job?”

      She gave him an amused look before she glanced around the bar, taking it in with a professional air. “I have experience.”

      He just bet she did. Was it possible she didn’t remember him from yesterday? He certainly remembered her. No, he thought, she knows exactly what she’s doing. “Experience? As what? Bartender, waitress, barmaid?”

      Her gaze settled on him with an intensity that made his pulse jump. “All three.” She said it with such confidence that he had to call her on it. Most of his patrons ordered a draft beer, a glass of wine or possibly a margarita. Every once in a while, someone would order something more upmarket, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know his cocktails or how to make them.

      “Great,” he said. “Step behind the bar and make me a...mojito.”

      She laughed, a pleasant tinkling sound that filled the empty room. “You call that a challenge?” she said, slipping off the stool to come around the end of the bar, forcing him to move down a few feet.

      He watched as she nimbly picked up a clean glass, spun it in her fingers and reached for the fresh mint he had growing in the window. She adroitly used a pestle to muddle the mint to release its flavors, then added sugar and fresh lime juice, squeezing the lime with one hand as she poured rum with the other.

      She didn’t measure the alcohol but he could see that it was dead on. Just like the soda water she added as well as the ice. As she poured the mixture into a shaker and gave it a few hard shakes, her gaze returned to him. Bartenders hated mojitos because they were time consuming, but she’d managed to make it in no time without even one misstep.

      He watched her pour the drink into a glass, add the slice of lime garnish as well as another mint leaf, and set it on a bar napkin in front of him.

      Her questioning gaze rose to his. “Aren’t you going to try it?”

      “I don’t drink.”

      She cocked her head at him, surprise in her expression.

      At the sound of car doors slamming, they both turned as three twentysomething females came in. “Is it too early to get a drink?” one of them called out.

Скачать книгу