LITMIR.BIZ

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She flipped the laptop open again and looked at the screen. “The jukebox hasn’t worked for a year. My customers prefer quiet.”

       “It works now.”

       She gave him a sharp look. Did she have her head so deep in the books that she hadn’t noticed him out there yesterday morning, installing a CD system in the box?

       “No one is going to show up for a drink tonight,” she said, turning her attention back to the computer.

       “You don’t know that.” He resisted the urge to reach out and raise that sweet chin, just to see those mesmerizing eyes again. Regardless of how chilly they were. “With the front door open, anyone who passes by could stop in. Walk-in business is the heart of a bar.” The fact that he’d worked the phone and called every familiar name in a fifty-mile radius wouldn’t hurt either.

       She shook her head slightly, her smile pure condescension. “Deuce, I hate to break it to you, but Monroe’s pretty much shuts down around the dinner hour. We might have a few stragglers come in after seven or so, and Jerry and Larry usually stay until they realize they’re hungry, but there’s no business done here at night.”

       “And you just accept that? Don’t you want to build nighttime revenue? I thought you were an entrepreneur. A capitalist.” He almost made a Harvard joke, but something stopped him.

       “I’m a realist,” she said. “People pop into an Internet café during the day, when they need access to cyber space or a break in their schedule. At night, at home, they have computers.”

       “So change that,” he countered.

       “I’m working on it.” She leaned back in the chair—not Dad’s old squeaker, either, this one was sleek, modern and ergonomic. Crossing her arms over the rolling letters spelling Monroe’s on her chest, she peered at him. “Were you paying any attention the other day or were you so wrapped up in resentment that you didn’t even see my presentation? Remember the plans? The theater? The artists’ gallery? The DVD-rental business?”

       He’d gotten stuck on one word. “Resentment? Of what?”

       “Of the fact that your father has found…love.”

       His elbow throbbed, but he ignored it. “I don’t begrudge my dad happiness. You’re imagining things.”

       One blond eyebrow arched in disbelief.

       “I don’t,” he insisted. “His…lady friend seems…” Perfect. Attractive. Successful. Attentive. Why wouldn’t he want all that for his dad? “Nice.”

       “She is that, and more.” She shifted her focus to the keyboard again, and she began typing briskly. “Now, go run your bar, Deuce. I have work to do.”

       You’re dismissed.

       “I can’t find any wineglasses.”

       She gave him a blank look, then resumed typing. “I have no idea where they are anymore. I may have given them away.”

       She wanted to play hardball? With him? “Fine. I’ll just serve chardonnay to the ladies in coffee mugs.”

       That jerked her chain enough to drop her jaw. But she closed it fast enough. “You do that.” Type, type, type.

       “And you don’t mind if I use those coffee stirrers for the cocktails?”

       She narrowed her eyes and studied the screen as though she were writing War and Peace. “Whatever.”

       “And until I have time to place some orders for garnishes, I’ll be dipping into your supply of fresh fruit for some cherries and orange slices. Will that be a problem?”

       Her fingers paused, but then blasted over the keys at lightning speed. Unless she was the world’s fastest typist, she couldn’t possibly be writing anything comprehensible. “I do a tight inventory on every item in stock,” she said over the tapping sound. “Please have anything you use replaced by tomorrow.”

       “Will you give me the names of your suppliers?”

       She hit the spacebar four times. Hard. “I’m sure you can find your own.”

       “Can I borrow your Rolodex?”

       Now her fingers stilled—as though she needed all her brain power to come up with a suitably smartass answer. “There’s a Yellow Pages in the storage room.”

       She launched into another supersonic attack on the keyboard, her body language as dismissive as she could make it.

      Aw, honey. You don’t want to do this. You’ll lose when I start throwing curves.

       She typed. He waited. She typed more. He wound up.

       “Kendra?”

       “Hmmm?” She didn’t look up.

       “That window right there. You know it’s a two-way mirror into the bar?”

       “I’m aware of that,” she said, still typing. “I don’t need to monitor my patrons’ activities. I have staff for that, and no one is in there getting drunk or stupid. At least not on my watch.”

       Low and inside. Strike one.

       “That’s true, but…” Slowly, he crept around the side of the desk toward the fancy white shutters. “Aren’t you just a little bit curious about what I’ll be up to out there?”

       “Not in the least. I expect it’ll be you and the empty bar for most of the night. Pretty dull stuff.”

       A slider. Strike two.

       He opened the shutters with one flick, giving a direct shot through the mirror that hung over his newly assembled beer taps. “I’d think a girl who’d spent so many hours with her face pressed to the heat register just to hear the boys in the basement would be naturally voyeuristic.”

       He heard the slight intake of breath just as he turned to see a screen full of jibberish. She opened her mouth to speak. Then closed it with the same force with which she snapped down the lid of the laptop. A soft pink rush of color darkened her pretty cheeks.

       “Come to think of it, I’ll work at home tonight.”

       Steee-rike three.

       “That’s not necessary.” He grinned at her, but she was already sliding a handbag over her shoulder.

       As she opened the door, she tossed him one last look. There was something in her eyes. Some shadow, some secret. Some hurt. As quickly as it appeared, it was gone.

       “Good luck tonight,” she said, then her pretty lips lifted into a sweet, if totally phony, smile. “Call me if you get hammered with the big nine-o’clock rush.”

       When the door closed behind her, the room seemed utterly empty, with only a faint lingering smell of something fresh and floral mixed with the aroma of coffee.

       Taking a deep breath, he turned to the California sequoia, ready to remove it for spite. But that would be childish.

       Instead, he looked through the two-way mirror in time to see Kendra pause at the bar to check out the newly assembled beer taps. She touched one, yanked it forward, then flinched when it spurted.

       She bent down, out of his view for a moment, then arose, a coffee mug in hand. Pulling on the tap again, she tilted the mug and let about six ounces of brew flow in, expertly letting the foam slide down the side.

       She lifted the mug to the mirror, offering a silent, mock toast directly at him. Then she brought the rim to her mouth, closed her eyes, and took one long, slow chug. Her eyes closed. Her throat pulsed. Her chest rose and fell with each swallow.

       And a couple of gallons of blood drained from his head and traveled to the lower half of his body.

       When she finished the drink, she dabbed the foam at the corner of her mouth, looked right into the mirror and winked

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