LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER THREE

      KENDRA NEVER MISSED a beat. At his comment, she reached down for the little brown-and-white dog, who leaped into her arms.

       “Do you hear anything, Newman? I don’t hear anything.”

       Newman barked and nuzzled into her neck. And licked her.

       Lucky puppy.

       “Oh, you’re ignoring me?” Deuce asked with a laugh as he trotted down a set of wooden steps to catch up with her. “That’s really mature.”

       “This from the poster boy of maturity.” She set the dog down when they reached a stone path that paralleled the beach. “Or have you stopped setting firecrackers inside basketballs in the teachers’ parking lot?”

       He chuckled. “That was your brother’s idea. Anyway, I’ve grown up.”

       “Oh, yes. I noticed in all the coverage about that racing stunt just how much you’ve grown up.”

       He considered a few comebacks, but there was nothing to combat the truth.

       “Well, you certainly have,” he said. At her confused look, he added, “Grown up, that is.”

       Her face softened momentarily, but then she squared her shoulders and she strode toward the house. He couldn’t help smiling. Torturing Jack’s little sister had always been fun. Even when she was ten and scrawny and folded into giggles, and tears. But it was even more fun now, when she was not ten and scrawny, but older and curvy.

       “I live right here,” she announced as they neared a gray shake-covered beach cottage at the end of the path. “You can come in, or, if you prefer, go down to the water and gaze at your reflection for a while.”

       He snorted at the comment. “I’ll come in. Cute place. How long have you lived here?”

       “About a year and a half. After Diana finished renovating the property, I was her first renter.” She gave him a smug smile. “I introduced her to Seamus.”

       “I can’t believe he’s never even told me he was involved with someone.”

       “It’s not like you actually talked to him a whole lot in the past year.”

       Past decade, is what she meant, and he knew it. “Not that I owe you an explanation, but I have been pretty busy playing ball.”

       “From October to March?”

       “I played in Japan.”

       “The season you were out injured for four weeks?”

       She knew that? “I was in physical therapy every day.”

       “During All Star breaks?” She moved ahead of him as they reached the back door, tugging a set of keys from her pocket. “Every single minute, you were busy?”

       “I’m here now, aren’t I? And you don’t seem too happy about it.”

       She spun around to face him and pointed a key toward his chest. “Do you really expect me to jump for joy because you imploded your own career and now you want to come and horn in on mine?”

       “I didn’t know about this Internet café stuff. Dad never mentioned it, he never mentioned a—a girlfriend, and he never mentioned you.”

       She stared at him for a minute, no doubt a thousand smart-aleck retorts spinning through her head. Instead she snapped her fingers to call the dog who’d meandered toward the beach, and pivoted back to the door.

       Which gave him a really nice view of her hips and backside in worn jeans.

       A flash of those taut legs wrapped around him on a blanket in the sand danced through his mind. She’d worn jeans that night, too. He remembered sliding down her zipper, dipping his hand into her soft, feminine flesh, then peeling the denim down her legs.

       A rush of blood through his body didn’t surprise him. In the years that had passed, he’d never remembered that night without a natural, instinctive and powerful response. For some reason, that sandy, sexy encounter had never felt like a one-night stand. Probably because it involved a girl who he should have been able to resist—his best friend’s little sister.

       “Look,” he said, stabbing his hands in his pants pockets, which really just helped him resist the urge to reach out and touch her. “I had no idea things had changed this much, or that you and Dad had plans for something entirely different.”

       “Well, we do.” She entered the house and held the door for him.

       He followed her, but his mind was whirring. Was he expected to back off the bar entirely? His family name was still on the door, damn it. The only name that ever had been on that particular door, with or without capital letters.

       “Maybe there’s a compromise somewhere,” he suggested. “Maybe we could keep a few computers in one corner of the bar—you know, for the people who aren’t watching games? And you could find some nearby property for your gallery or whatever.”

       Instead of brightening, her scowl deepened. She opened her mouth to say something, then slammed it shut again.

       “What?” he asked. “What were you going to say?”

       “Nothing.”

       He dug his hands deeper. “You won’t even consider a compromise?”

       Inhaling unevenly, she closed her eyes. “I’ve already compromised enough where you’re concerned.”

       “What the hell does that mean?”

       She held up both hands as though to stop everything. “Never mind.” She turned away, toward a small hallway behind her. “Excuse me for a minute.”

       She turned to stalk down the hallway, but he seized her elbow in one quick grab. “What are you talking about?”

       “Nothing,” she spat the word, shaking him off. “Forget I said that.”

       He let her go.

       What had she compromised for him?

       In the tiny living room, he dropped onto a sofa and stared at the serene water of the Sound through a sliding glass door, remembering again the incredible night they’d spent together.

       He’d never forgotten that night. Maybe because he knew he shouldn’t have seduced Jack’s sister…but maybe because her response to him was so real and strong. So real, that he couldn’t understand where “compromise” came into play. There were two very, very consenting adults during that beach-blanket bingo.

       He’d come home after his mother had died of an aneurysm, too old at twenty-four to feel as though his mommy had left him, but brokenhearted anyway. Kendra had been about twenty, maybe twenty-one, and smack between her sophomore and junior years at Harvard. A business major, he recalled.

       He remembered how impressed he’d been—she was smart, and quick-witted, and had grown up into a complete knock-out. Even in the chaos and sadness of his mother’s passing, he’d noticed that Kendra Locke had spent every minute at the bar, calmly taking care of things he and his father were not even thinking about.

       His last night in town, he’d gone to the bar and ended up staying until it closed, drinking soda and watching Kendra work. That’s when he officially stopped thinking of her as Ken-doll.

       The name just wasn’t feminine enough for a woman that attractive. They’d talked and flirted. She made him laugh for the first time that week.

       When her shift ended, they’d gone for a ride. He still could remember pulling her toward him in his dad’s car and their first, heated kiss.

       He leaned forward and raked his fingers through his hair. He’d felt

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