Jill Shalvis - Kiss Me, I'm Irish

“There’s food in the back,” she said defensively.

He rolled his eyes. “Granola bars and cupcakes.”

“Muffins,” she corrected.

“Not exactly sports-bar food.”

Newman pattered around her and she scooped him up protectively, before she wandered farther into the fray. She saw some familiar faces from around town, and plenty of new ones. Who were all these people and why had they suddenly shown up?

“Who’s tending bar?” she asked.

“You don’t remember Dec Clifford? My old first baseman?”

As if she’d ever noticed anyone on any team he played on besides…the pitcher. “Vaguely. I didn’t realize he was still in Rockingham.”

“He’s a lawyer in Boston now,” Deuce told her, his hand firmly planted on the small of her back, making sure those goose bumps had no chance of disappearing. “And over there is Eric Fleming, outfielder. But now he’s in commercial real estate in New Hampshire. That’s Ginger Alouette serving drinks. She was a track star in high school, if you don’t remember. She lives in Provincetown. Most of these people still live on Cape Cod—I just had to dig them up.”

A lawyer from Boston, a developer from New Hampshire and Ginger from P-town. They’d all come to see him—to work for him.

“I’ll get real staff soon,” he promised. “I just wanted to get open as soon as possible and so I had a little help from my friends.”

He was still the draw, not Monroe’s Bar & Grill & Wannabe Cyber Café. Deuce was the main attraction and, suddenly, with sickening clarity, she faced the truth. He could make this work. He could make a raging success out of the bar…and she’d be doing Seamus a disservice by trying to fight it.

“I can’t believe you brought a dog in here,” he said, reaching for a quick pet of Newman, who nuzzled into Kendra.

She’d never dreamed the place would be packed, or Newman would have stayed home. As she would have. “I thought you’d…” Be all alone. “Need some—”

“Company?” he asked with a grin.

“No, just help.” But that had been ridiculous. He had all the assistance he needed. She looked pointedly at the black screens of her computers. “How did you figure out how to get all the systems down?”

“I just installed a glycolic cooling unit, a CD player and a satellite dish, Kendra. It didn’t take a Harvard degree to turn off a bunch of computers.”

The comment jabbed her right in the stomach. She swallowed a hundred retorts and looked away. He had no idea what he’d said, and she could hardly zing him anymore for incompetence. He had it all going on, and more.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked, as they reached one empty barstool. “Dec, remember Jack’s little sister? Get the lady whatever she likes. It’s on the house.”

Jack’s little sister. That’s what she’d always be to him. Not the owner of this establishment. Not the woman he’d deflowered a decade ago. Not…anything. Just Jack’s little sister.

“On the house?” She allowed him to ease her onto a barstool. “I am the house.”

He just laughed, leaning so close to her ear she thought he was about to plant a kiss on her neck.

“I believe you’ve already had a sample of our new draft selection, right, Ken-doll?”

She just looked at the bartender, vaguely remembering a younger version of his face that had no doubt spent hours with the baseball boys in the basement. She’d been so blinded to anyone but Deuce. “I’ll just have a soda, please,” she told him.

And then Deuce was gone. A whisper of “Excuse me,” and the warmth of his body disappeared from behind her. She fought the urge to turn and watch him work the crowd. Instead, she cuddled Newman in her lap and gratefully accepted the cold drink for her dry throat.

“He’s absolutely adorable.”

Kendra turned to see the familiar, friendly face of Sophie Swenson, her hostess and right hand at the café. Sophie held a glass of white wine—in a stem glass—and her deep-blue eyes glinted with excitement.

“Yeah, he’s adorable,” Kendra assured her, with a disdainful glance back at Deuce. “But he knows it.”

Sophie let out a soft giggle. “I meant the dog.”

“Oh.” Kendra couldn’t help laughing as she pulled Newman higher on her lap. “Well, Newman knows he’s adorable, too.” She narrowed her eyes at Sophie, noticing the flush on her pretty cheeks, the way her gaze darted around the crowd. Would her most senior employee want to slide over to the Dark Side now? “You want to switch to a new evening schedule, Soph?”

Sophie shrugged and settled into the barstool. “If the action stays like this, I might. I mean is Monroe’s going back to being a bar? What about the expansion plans?”

Kendra let out a long, slow sigh. “I have no idea,” she admitted. “I just wish he’d go back to where he came from.”

“He came from…here.” Sophie’s eyes were without humor. “I mean, his dad owns the bar.”

Kendra’s shoulders slumped slightly. “I own half of this bar.”

Sophie raised a surprised eyebrow.

“Internet café,” Kendra corrected, burying her fingers in Newman’s soft fur and scratching him. “And I’m not going to walk away because the mighty Deuce has come home.”

Sophie’s gaze moved from Kendra to Deuce, then back to Kendra. “He’s crazy about you.”

Her heartbeat skidded up to triple time. “I doubt that.”

“He hasn’t taken his eyes off you since you walked in here.”

Why did that fact send yet another shower of goose bumps over her? Kendra closed her eyes until it passed. “No, we’re just in an oddly competitive situation right now.”

Kendra stole one more glance over her shoulder. Ginger the track star-turned cocktail waitress gazed up at Deuce and giggled. Another athletic-looking man slapped him on the back.

But Deuce’s gaze moved over everyone and locked on Kendra. There was that secret smile, that cocky tease in his eyes. And, as it had since before she knew how to write his name in cursive, the old zingy sensation washed over her.

Oh, Lord, not still. Not at thirty years old. That incapacitating girlhood crush had resulted in nothing but sleepless nights and pillows drenched in tears. A lost opportunity to graduate from the finest university in the country. And she wouldn’t even think about the baby. She’d trained herself not to ever, ever do that.

Hadn’t she paid enough for the honor of worshipping at Deuce’s altar?

“Call it competition if you like,” Sophie said, yanking Kendra back to the present. “But that man’s got you front and center on his radar screen.”

“Well then I’ll just have to disappear.”

“That’s kind of difficult since you’re both working in the same place,” Sophie said.

“Not at all,” Kendra said, gathering up Newman with determination. “I work days, he works nights. And never the twain shall meet.”

Sophie tilted her head a centimeter to the right in a secret warning. “The twains are about to meet, honey. Hunky baseball player on your six.”

Clutching Newman, Kendra slid off the stool and took a speed course through the crowd around the bar. The back door was closest, so she focused on it like a beacon for a lost ship. If she could just get into the kitchen before he got to her, she could slip into the back parking lot.

She breezed through the storage area, ignored the surprised looks from the borrowed employees of The Wingman who were plating up chicken in the little kitchen, and flung the back door open into the night.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” she whispered to Newman, setting him gently on the concrete.

Newman sniffed at the corner of the Dumpster.

“No time for trash, Newman.” She tugged on his leash and led him along a brick wall through the side alley and to the main road.