Jeannie Watt - To Kiss A Cowgirl

“Jim you can catch up with,” Mike said. “Mac’s working across the state at the oil patch. He only makes it home every few weeks.”

“I guess I do have some catching up to do.” He considered for a moment then said, “You want to come with me?”

“You want to go out with your grandfather?”

“Yep.”

Mike scowled at him, as he had when Dylan had been younger and tried to get off work at the store early.

“Come on,” Dylan said with a smile.

“I’ll go for one beer.”

“Agreed.”

“Let me change my shirt,” Mike said, pushing himself to his feet. “Although I don’t think going out with your grandfather is the best way to get your social life up and running.”

“It’s a start,” Dylan said. And about all he felt like dealing with at the moment.

They arrived early in the evening, but there was already a decent-size crowd filling the place. The bar area was crowded, so Dylan jerked his head toward one of the few empty tables near the door.

“Hold the table,” Dylan said. “I’ll get the round.”

Mike pulled out a chair and Dylan started toward the bar, edging up as a space opened. Jim was busy filling orders and it was pretty obvious that Dylan wouldn’t be doing much more than saying hello.

He scanned the crowd as he waited, recognized a few faces but not that many. Apparently most of the people his age were home doing family things. Once upon a time he’d been at home doing family things—when he hadn’t been on shift.

He finally reached the bar, moving over as a server squeezed past him to slip behind the bar and set down a tray. He watched as she bent over in front of him, pulling bottles out of the cooler, took in a long, reddish ponytail and a nicely curved ass that seemed oddly familiar. Then she stood, met his eyes in the mirror behind the bar and he realized whose ass he’d been admiring.

“Let me know when you’ve seen enough,” Jolie said without bothering to turn around.

How the hell did a guy respond to that?

Dylan’s mouth tightened and she seemed to take that as an acknowledgment of her touché, turning toward him and meeting his eyes in an unsmiling way before bending to take clean glassware out of the rack beneath the bar.

“I didn’t realize you worked here,” he said.

“I do,” she said, loading dirty glasses into the rack. She worked quickly, her movements precise, well practiced.

“Jolie,” Jim called without turning his head, “get the limes going when you have a second.”

“Sure thing.” She finished the loading and then turned to pull some limes out of the small fridge.

“What can I get you?” she asked, looking up at Dylan once again, her expression all business—very much the way he’d like to see it at the store.

“Two Buds.”

“Draft?”

“Whatever’s easiest.”

She pulled a couple of long-necks out of the cooler, set them on the bar, popped the tops and pushed them forward. “Tab?”

Dylan shook his head and slapped down a ten. “Keep the change.”

He thought she was going to argue, but she took the bill and turned to the register. Dylan grabbed the bottles and headed back to his grandfather.

“Is that Jolie Brody?” Mike asked as he took the bottle.

Dylan sat with his back to the wall, telling himself to keep his eyes off Jolie although they kept drifting in her direction. “In the flesh.”

Mike twisted his mouth thoughtfully. “Doesn’t she work for us?”

“She does. Must be moonlighting.”

“No law against that,” Mike said. “But I can’t help wondering how much sleep she gets.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter as long as she does a decent job for us.”

“Finn liked her.”

“Finn likes all women,” Dylan replied dryly.

“Takes after me,” Mike said with a grin. “But I don’t think he liked her that way. I think he liked her like a friend.”

Dylan tried to imagine he and Jolie being friends...the image wasn’t gelling. And he also didn’t seem to be able to stop watching her. Cop training kicking in, he told himself. He scanned crowds. He noticed things. He watched people. But he was watching Jolie more than was necessary under the circumstances.

And so were several other guys in the room.

Even when he was talking to his grandfather, he was aware of just where she was in the room. Behind the bar, schlepping drinks to a table, disappearing outside for what was probably a brief break from the heat in the room.

“Making sure she doesn’t get herself into trouble?” Mike asked on a wry note.

“Just...” Dylan shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

“She’s a good-looking gal,” Mike said gently.

“And I’m still putting my life back together after the last good-looking gal. Besides, she works for us.”

Mike took a drink of beer. Now he was following her with his eyes. “Finn said she’s going into business with her sister eventually.”

“Trying to set me up?” Dylan asked on a note of amusement, although the thought made him kind of nervous. His grandfather had a lot of friends, who probably had granddaughters...

“Nah,” Mike said. “You can handle that part of your life.” He smiled a little as he lifted his beer. “You’re on your own.”

Dylan almost believed him.

* * *

DYLAN LEFT EARLY. One drink with his grandpa and he was out the door. Jolie had to give him points for spending time with family, but it was Friday night. He’d hooked up with a couple of old high school friends, Jess Moody and Les D’Angelo, who were now county deputies—not that Jolie had been keeping track of him or eavesdropping as she cleared a nearby table or anything—and been invited to play pool.

Mike had looked game, but Dylan had shaken his head and not long after that had left. Jolie’s first thought as she’d watched the heavy wooden door swing shut behind him was Way to party hearty, Dylan. The second was that he’d been through a divorce and probably still felt like crap. She needed to give the guy a break...pretty generous thought on her part considering the way he’d blown her off that day.

After he’d left the crowd picked up even more and the rest of the night passed in a blur as busy nights in a bar tended to do. She stayed late to help Jim close and suggested that next time one of the help called in sick on a weekend night, he try harder to find a sub.

“Sorry about that,” he said as he counted out a stack of bills and slapped a rubber band around them. “Won’t happen again. But, hey—” he grinned as he looked up at her “—you made a million in tips.”

That she had.

“I’ll happily split them tomorrow,” she said.

“You keep them. And sorry I didn’t get to Maddox sooner.”

Maddox was a local bully/buffoon who loved to mess with the servers when he’d had a few too many. Jim usually nipped matters in the bud, but tonight he’d been too swamped to deal with the guy early on.

“Not a problem. I’m pretty adept at dodging him.”

“I’ll ban him if he doesn’t stop. And if Dee is still sick, I’ll get my sister to help.”

“Thanks, Jim. See you.”

Twenty minutes later she walked up to her door. Gus let out one mighty bark, no doubt waking Dani, then practically flattening her in his joy to see her again, home safe and sound. She crept through the house without turning on lights, but Dani was awake. She could hear her punching her pillow a few times to get into proper sleeping shape—a habit she’d had since they were little girls sharing a room.

“Sorry,” Jolie called softly.

“Not a problem,” Dani muttered as Jolie stepped into her own room and closed the door.

She dumped her tips on the dresser, shucked out of her clothes and tossed them into a heap—bar clothes never got worn more than once before seeing the washing machine—then slipped into her oversize Grizzlies T-shirt and climbed into bed. And there she lay awake. That last encounter with Dylan in the warehouse was still weighing heavily on her mind. Her ideas hadn’t been the greatest, but he could have brainstormed with her instead of subtly mocking her.