LITMIR.BIZ

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heart was still pounding a little heavier than usual when she reached the bar and signaled Ace, the establishment’s owner, to ask for whatever pale ale he had on tap.

      And her heart stopped altogether when she heard a deep voice from behind her.

      “Why don’t you make that two.”

      She whisked around and came face-to-chest with Chase. A man whose presence should be commonplace, and usually was. She was just in a weird place, thanks to high-pressure invitations and idiot brothers.

      “Pale ale,” she said, taking a step back and looking up at his face. A face that should also be commonplace. But it was just so very symmetrical. Square jaw, straight nose, strong brows and dark eyes that were so direct they bordered on obscene. Like they were looking straight through your clothes or something. Not that he would ever want to look through hers. Not that she would want him to. She was too smart for that.

      “That’s kind of an unusual order for you,” she continued, more to remind herself of who he was than to actually make commentary on his beverage choices. To remind herself that she knew him better than she knew herself. To do whatever she could to put that temporary moment of insanity when she’d spotted him in the corner out of her mind.

      “I’m feeling adventurous,” he said, lifting one corner of his mouth, the lopsided grin disrupting the symmetry she had been admiring earlier and somehow making him look all the more compelling for it.

      “Come on, McCormack. Adventurous is bungee jumping from Multnomah Falls. Adventurous is not trying a new beer.”

      “Says the expert in adventure?”

      “I’m an expert in a couple of things. Beer and motor oil being at the top of the list.”

      “Then I won’t challenge you.”

      “Probably for the best. I’m feeling a little bit bloodthirsty tonight.” She pressed her hands onto the bar top and leaned forward, watching as Ace went to get their drinks. “So. Why aren’t you still talking to short, blonde and stacked over there?”

      He chuckled and it settled oddly inside her chest, rattling around before skittering down her spine. “Not really all that interested.”

      “You seemed interested to me.”

      “Well,” he said, “I’m not.”

      “That’s inconsistent,” she said.

      “Okay, I’ll bite,” he said, regarding her a little more closely than she would like. “Why are you in the mood to cause death and dismemberment?”

      “Do I seem that feral?”

      “Completely. Why?”

      “The same reason I usually am,” she said.

      “Your brothers.”

      “You’re fast, I like that.”

      Ace returned to their end of the bar and passed two pints toward them. “Do you want to open a tab?”

      “Sure,” she said. “On him.” She gestured to Chase.

      Ace smiled in return. “You look nice tonight, Anna.”

      “I look...the same as I always do,” she said, glancing down at her worn gray T-shirt and no-fuss jeans.

      He winked. “Exactly.”

      She looked up at Chase, who was staring at the bartender, his expression unreadable. Then she looked back at Ace.

      Ace was pretty hot, really. In that bearded, flannel-wearing way. Lumbersexual, or so she had overheard some college girls saying the other night as they giggled over him. Maybe he would want to be her date. Of course, easy compliments and charm aside, he also had his pick of any woman who turned up in his bar. And Anna was never anyone’s pick.

      She let go of her fleeting Ace fantasy pretty quickly.

      Chase grabbed the beer from the counter and handed one to her. She was careful not to let their fingers brush as she took it from him. That type of avoidance was second nature to her. Hazards of spending the years since adolescence feeling electricity when Chase got too close, and pretending she didn’t.

      “We should go back and sit with Sam,” she suggested. “He looks lonely.”

      Chase laughed. “You and I both know he’s no such thing. I think he would rather sit there alone.”

      “Well, if he wants to be alone, then he can stay at home and drink.”

      “He probably would if I didn’t force him to come out. But if I didn’t do that, he would fuse to the furniture and then I would have all of that to deal with.”

      They walked back over to the table, and gradually, her heart rate returned to normal. She was relieved that the initial weirdness she had felt upon his arrival was receding.

      “Hi, Sam,” Chase said, taking his seat beside his brother. Sam grunted in response. “We were just talking about the hazards of you turning into a hermit.”

      “Am I not a convincing hermit already?” he asked. “Do I need to make my disdain for mankind a little less subtle?”

      “That might help,” Chase said.

      “I might just go play a game of darts instead. I’ll catch up with you in a minute.” Sam took a long drink of his beer and stood, leaving the bottle on the table as he made his way over to the dartboard across the bar.

      Silence settled between Chase and herself. Why was this suddenly weird? Why was Anna suddenly conscious of the way his throat moved when he swallowed a sip of beer, of the shift in his forearms as he set the bottle back down on the table? Of just how masculine a sound he made when he cleared his throat?

      She was suddenly even conscious of the way he breathed.

      She leaned back in her chair, lifting her beer to her lips and surveying the scene around them.

      It was Friday night, so most of the town of Copper Ridge, Oregon, was hanging out, drowning the last vestiges of the workweek in booze. It was not the end of the workweek for Anna. Farmers and ranchers didn’t take time off, so neither did she. She had to be on hand to make repairs when necessary, especially right now, since she was just getting her own garage off the ground.

      She’d just recently quit her job at Jake’s in order to open her own shop specializing in heavy equipment, which really was how she found herself in the position she was in right now. Invited to the charity gala thing and embroiled in a bet on whether or not she could get a date.

      “So why exactly do you want to kill your brothers today?” Chase asked, startling her out of her thoughts.

      “Various reasons.” She didn’t know why, but something stopped her from wanting to tell him exactly what was going on. Maybe because it was humiliating. Yes, it was definitely humiliating.

      “Sure. But that’s every day. Why specifically do you want to kill them today?”

      She took a deep breath, keeping her eyes fixed on the fishing boat that was mounted to the wall opposite her, and very determinedly not looking at Chase. “Because. They bet that I couldn’t get a date to this thing I’m invited to and I bet them that I could.” She thought about the woman he’d been talking to a moment ago. A woman so different from herself they might as well be different species. “And right about now I’m afraid they’re right.”

      * * *

      Chase was doing his best to process his best friend’s statement. It was difficult, though. Daniel and Mark had solid asshole tendencies when it came to Anna—that much he knew—but this was pretty low even for them.

      He studied Anna’s profile, her dark hair pulled back into a braid, her gray T-shirt that was streaked with oil. He watched as she raised her bottle of beer to her lips. She had oil on her hands, too. Beneath her fingernails. Anna wasn’t

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