Читать книгу One Night Charmer - Maisey Yates - Страница 12
ОглавлениеSIERRA WEST WAS a problem. A bejeweled, bouncy problem.
She’d shown up to work on time, which had kind of pissed Ace off, because he’d been looking for an excuse to fire her out of the gate, and that had been taken from him. But she’d shown up wearing a pair of shorts that looked painted onto the skin they covered. And they didn’t cover much. Instead, they did a good job of displaying a lot of smooth, tanned leg. He wondered how the hell she had a tan.
This was the Oregon coast. In late February. It wasn’t all that sunny.
Maybe she went to one of those fake-and-bake tanning beds. His ex had been a big fan of those. It was how she kept her warm orange glow all year-round. Either that, or sucking the blood of virgins. He wouldn’t really put anything past her.
He studied Sierra, who was talking to a table full of men who were absolutely thrilled with his new hiring choice.
She didn’t look like the type to go lie in a tanning bed. He wasn’t sure why. She probably went and lay out back in the yard, in that private, gated ranch she and her family lived at. She probably lay out in a hot-pink bikini. She maybe even took the top off to avoid a suntan line.
He gritted his teeth and turned his focus to wiping down the counter. It was clean. But cleaning an already clean counter was better than thinking about Sierra West topless. He really needed to deal with these inconvenient fantasies. Get laid. With someone else.
He looked around the bar, and for some reason, didn’t see any appealing prospects. Not because there weren’t beautiful women here. There were. It was just, for some reason they didn’t really register to his body.
Funny, usually his body wasn’t all that picky. He didn’t do relationships. He did satisfying evenings. Which left his options pretty wide-open. His type was female. Thin, curvy, blonde, brunette, pale, dark... Didn’t much matter to him. Women were a glorious creation. One he preferred in his bed, and nowhere else in his home.
In fact, he had a bedroom up above the bar, so that he never actually had to have women in his home at all.
There was a time when his own behavior would’ve shocked him. Or it would’ve shocked the boy he’d been. But he could barely remember that time.
Now, the most shocking thing was that he wanted one woman specifically.
Yeah, Sierra West was a problem.
She turned away from the table, her walk particularly bouncy in those little cowgirl boots as she made her way back to the kitchen. Everything on her bounced. Her hair. Her ass.
Damn, some other woman needed to start looking good.
She disappeared into the kitchen for a moment, then reappeared a second later. “I think I got everyone for now,” she said.
She was looking at him expectantly, blue-eyed and far too innocent. “Is there anything else I can do?”
“I’m not going to hold your hand, little girl,” he said.
That was unnecessary, and he knew it. But he didn’t particularly care. With most employees, he would be happy to show them what to do next. He would even be happy that they’d asked what they could do. But he wasn’t happy about her asking, because it meant he had to interact with her, and he didn’t want to interact with her.
He supposed it wasn’t her fault that she was far too pretty for her own good. But he was going to hold it against her anyway. Because he was never going to hold her against him, and that was the source of a lot of problems.
The trouble was that he was out of practice with self-denial. He’d spent the past decade indulging himself whenever he wanted to.
When he’d turned away from the teachings of his father, he’d turned away hard. Then life had gone and kicked him in the balls, and made him question every damn thing he’d ever done. Every decision he’d ever made. It had made him question why he’d ever practiced restraint of any kind. Why he’d so firmly believed that self-denial, the greater good, morality and a host of other things would lead him down a smooth path in life.
No. He’d spent a lot of years doing the right thing. Being a good man. The better man.
It hadn’t gotten him anywhere in the end. So when he’d broken free of his marriage, when he’d finally left it all behind, left it all as dust and rubble in his past, he’d set his foot on the road to hell, and figured he’d better make the journey there pretty spectacular.
And he had.
When he’d decided to go for a life of debauchery and sin, he hadn’t gone halfway.
That made it difficult when he actually wanted to employ a little bit of abstinence. He didn’t know how.
These days, he only knew how to do three things really well.
He knew how to make drinks, he knew how to drink drinks and he knew how to screw. He did all those things as often as he could, and whenever he felt like it.
He hadn’t anticipated the effect trying to resist a woman he was attracted to might have on him. He’d figured it wouldn’t have an effect at all. But then, he didn’t typically try to resist women he was attracted to. Because he wasn’t usually attracted to spoiled little rich girls who also happened to work for him.
“You need to keep an eye on everyone, and make sure they don’t need anything else,” he said finally.
“Right.”
But she looked surprised by the directive. “You’ve been to restaurants before, right? I know you have. You come here.”
“Yes.”
“What does a server do? They make sure you have french fries, all the drinks that you need, and they do a little tap dance if you require it. So make sure no one needs french fries. Or a tap dance.”
“No one here has ever done a tap dance for me.”
“Have you ever asked them to?”
“Why would I ask someone to tap dance for me?”
“I don’t know. Hopefully, for your sake, no one wants you to tap dance tonight.”
She rolled her eyes and tossed her hair, the blond curls bouncing again, the glittery shadow on her lids twinkling beneath the light. She was a human glitter bomb. Which, in his opinion, had no place outside of a strip club. Or the rodeo arena.
She definitely looked like a rodeo queen. That thought did a little bit to quench the heat that had settled in the pit of his stomach. He’d made the mistake of getting involved with a rodeo queen once before. He knew how that ended.
“So then should I just hover around the tables like a fly, waiting for french fry shortages or demands of dancing?”
“You could fold bar towels.”
“There,” she said, planting her hand on her hip and cocking it out to the side. He might have noticed the dramatic curve of her waist down to that very sassy hip, only because he was human. “Now, Ace, was that so difficult?”
“You seem to be having a hard time remembering that I’m your boss, little girl.”
“Do you call all your employees little girl?”
“Only when they act like one.”
“I’m going to go fold bar towels.” She turned on her heel and started to saunter back into the kitchen, then paused and turned back around. “Where are the bar towels?”
He smiled, as slow and lazy as possible, because he knew it would make her mad. “Under the bar.”
Her cheeks flushed slightly, a sweet little rosy color that made her look a lot more innocent than he was certain she was. She tossed that golden mane again and sauntered to the bar, bending down and pulling out the stack of unfolded white towels.
Those little shorts of hers rode up high, revealing the sweet curve of her ass. Were his scruples so easily discarded? He only had maybe two of them. You would think he could cling to them a little bit tighter.
She placed them on the back counter, and began to fold them clumsily.
He let out a heavy sigh. “That isn’t how you do it.”
He crossed the space between them, coming to stand beside her, taking one of the towels off the top and spreading it on the empty bar in front of him. He held the edges tight, before folding one half toward the green line that ran down the center. “This. You do it like this.”
“There’s a specific system for folding towels?”
“Of course there’s a system. If there aren’t systems, the whole damn world falls apart.”
“Because of a breakdown in bar towel folding?”
He snorted, folding the other side of the towel in tightly and smoothing the fabric flat with his hands before folding it in half again. “Like this,” he said, setting it off to the side. “Keep it compact. Keep it clean.”
“You do keep the place awfully clean. I’ve noticed.” She copied his movements, dainty hands sliding over the terry cloth. He tried not to imagine them sliding over his skin.
Restraint was a damned nightmare.
This, he remembered from his high school years. The more he had to think about not doing something, the more he obsessed about it. Abstinence in deed led to anything but in thought.
You thought so much about not doing something that it took over your life anyway.
But it had been pressed upon him from an early age that he had to be an example. His father was pastor of the largest church in Copper Ridge, after all. It wasn’t all bad. He’d believed in his father’s lessons. Back then, he’d believed that virtue was its own reward. He’d felt a kind of confidence, a direction that accompanied that belief. He had known who he was.
Then it had all bitten him spectacularly in the ass, and he’d turned away, hard and sharp. Now, he was firmly out of practice.
She matched his movements precisely, producing a very nicely folded towel. Which kind of irritated him. Not that he thought it was going to take her a whole lot of time to learn how to do such a simple task. But he wanted to cling to his irritation, and to his completely unfair thought that this job would be beyond her somehow. He wanted to hold on to his prejudice.
He had earned that prejudice.
“There,” she said, smoothing it down flat and placing it in a stack with the other towel. “I think I’ve got it. You don’t have to supervise me.”
“Good. Because I don’t have time.”
“You’re very busy,” she said, something in her tone irking him. He was certain it was designed to do that.
“I am. I have an entire bar to run. A lot depends on my presence.”
She lifted a pretty, bare shoulder. He swore that it had glitter on it, too. “It is your place. Your name is on the sign.”
“I’m also working out logistics for opening a new brewery.” He didn’t know why he’d told her that.
Actually, he did know why. There was clearly something in him—a part of him that wouldn’t die—that still wanted people like her—people who were born into a certain level of privilege—to understand that he was important, too.
“In Copper Ridge?” she asked, her tone genuinely interested.
“Yeah. In the old flour mill building, down by the beach.”
“That sounds nice. Is it going to be fancy?”
“My kind of fancy.”
“What’s your kind of fancy?”
“You put french fries on a plate instead of in a basket.”
She laughed. Unsurprisingly, her laugh sparkled, too. “Maybe because it’s by the ocean you can get a mechanical dolphin for people to ride.”
“A mechanical dolphin?”
“Yeah. To keep with the theme.”
“No one rides dolphins.”
“They would if they could.”
She placed another towel on the growing stack and smiled at him. All he could think was that he would like to eat her up. Which was inappropriate in every way, all things considered.
“Why don’t you go check on a table,” he said, his words coming out more harshly than he intended.
She shrunk back slightly, looking like a wounded puppy. He didn’t feel bad about it. He didn’t. “Okay. I will finish folding when I get back.”
“If you see something that needs doing, do it. That’s all I ask.”
He did not watch her go out into the dining room. He turned away, heading back toward his office, away from the bar, away from the kitchen. He had stuff to get done and he was not going to allow Sierra West to distract him any longer.
* * *
HER FEET HURT LIKE a son of a bitch. Tonight had been, without a doubt, one of the longest nights on record. And it wasn’t over yet.
She worked hard at the family ranch. But mainly, she managed the office. When she went out and practiced barrel racing, she was on her horse. It definitely worked her muscles, but it also fed her soul.
Right now, she was pretty sure her soul was leaking out the bottom of her feet, which she had certainly worn a hole through walking around the dining area of the bar.
Being a waitress—it turned out—was exactly as little fun as it had always appeared to be.
She supposed some people might enjoy it. They might enjoy interacting with tables full of people and making runs between the kitchen, the bar and the dining area. She, it turned out, did not.
Also, she had discovered that men were slightly different with her when she was serving them drinks, versus when she was drinking near them. Sure, they still flirted with her. But there was a different tone. It was stickier. It left a film over her skin, and she didn’t like it.
“You’re a precious, precious blossom, Sierra,” she muttered to herself as she bent to clear glasses off one of the tables that had just been vacated, before straightening and looking back over at the bar.
Chad, Leslie and Elyssa, the friends she’d been here with just the other night, were half draped over it. They didn’t usually hang out right at the bar, but Leslie had just broken up with her boyfriend and it looked like she was thinking of testing her odds with Ace.
She was grinning and giggling and working the duck face like she was trying to take a selfie, not talk to a guy.
Ace, for his part, didn’t seem disinterested. He was smiling. Smiling in a way he certainly hadn’t smiled at Sierra. That just wasn’t fair. Leslie was not less of a spoiled brat than she was. He should be mean to her, too.
But he wasn’t being mean. He was being...charming. When he handed her drink over the counter his lips curved up into a half smile that made Sierra’s stomach flip from all the way across the room. His dark eyes were glittering with intent. Wicked intent, even. Sierra could imagine that any woman on the receiving end of Ace’s attention would feel like the only woman in the room. Maybe even in the world.
Of course, he didn’t give her that kind of attention. He always acted like he wanted to stick her in the corner and cover her with a blanket so he could pretend she wasn’t there.
She realized she’d been standing there, frozen and staring, for way too long. She mobilized. Holding tight to her bin of dishes, she walked quickly back toward the kitchen, her focus fixed straight ahead.
“Sierra?”
She turned at the sound of an incredulous voice, just in time to see Elyssa and Chad walking toward her. Leslie was still on her bar stool giggling loudly at something Ace said.
“Are you...working here?” Chad asked, his lip curling up into a borderline sneer.
“Yes,” she said, steeling herself as she propped the bin on her hip. “I am working here. Since I’m not working with my dad anymore I needed to get another job.”
Elyssa frowned. “But...at the bar?”
“All the glamorous positions at high rises were filled. Also, in another town. I had to take what I could get.”
Elyssa scoffed. “Come on. Couldn’t your brother help you? This is...beneath you, honestly.”
Sierra bristled. “Why? It’s fine for you to come drink here but it’s not good for me to work here? Leslie can sit over there flirting her tits off with the man who owns the place but this is beneath me?”
“That’s different,” Chad said. “I’d do a waitress, but I wouldn’t wait a table.”
Sierra felt like she was having an out of body experience. Like she was witnessing this exchange from high above the bar. And with that distance came clarity. These people were terrible. They had also been her friends for a long time. And she couldn’t say she wouldn’t have felt the same way a few months ago if one of them had gotten a job here.
She wasn’t even hurt. Or embarrassed. She was mad. Not even at them, but at herself. For all the coasting she’d done for so many years. For doing the schooling her father had wanted her to do, taking the job he’d created for her, having the friends that were convenient for her to have.
Suddenly, she didn’t feel tired anymore. She felt energized. Empowered. Standing there in front of her former friends she felt separate and different. And like she might be more herself than she’d ever been before.
“You’re an asshole, Chad,” she said, her tone crisp. “I mean, do you hear yourself? Do you ever stop and listen to the words that come out of your mouth?” She knew he didn’t. Because she never had, either. “You think you’re above any of this? Trust me, you’re one parental crisis away from being here. Except I don’t think you have it in you to work this hard. You think you’re too good for a job like this? You aren’t good enough.”
She continued on past them toward the kitchen.
“Wow, Sierra.” Elyssa’s voice stopped Sierra in her tracks. “Just wait till the town sees you like this.”
Sierra shot her former friend one last furious glance. “I’m not worried about that. In fact, I’m looking forward to it.”
She glanced over at Ace, who was still flirting with Leslie, and then barged into the kitchen, angrily depositing the bin of dirty dishes by the sink. She wasn’t going to let them make her feel ashamed. She hadn’t sunk to anything.
She was rising to the occasion.
She’d be damned if she felt embarrassed about that.
She spent the rest of the shift working as hard and furiously as possible. As if she could prove the world wrong right here in this bar, as long as she was the best waitress she could be.
Anger fueled her for a while, but that ran out quickly enough, leaving her drained and a bit less full of purpose than she’d been a few hours earlier.
She looked up at the clock on the wall and everything inside of her sagged. It was just after two thirty in the morning. She stayed out late often enough, but not usually this late. And definitely not usually schlepping drinks and hamburgers.
She wrinkled her nose. That was what she smelled like. Beef, bacon, french fries and exhaustion. It was in her skin.
Suddenly, she felt very small, and very persecuted.
She dragged herself back into the kitchen, setting the dishes on the edge of the sink. At least she didn’t have to wash those. That made her feel slightly less persecuted.
She walked back out into the dining area, untying her apron and setting it on top of the bar.
“That isn’t where that goes,” Ace said, suddenly appearing out of his office like a flannel, bearded vapor.
“You certainly have a lot of systems,” she told him, rubbing her temples before snatching the apron back up. “Where exactly do I put it?”
“I’ll take it,” he said, reaching his hand out.
His shirtsleeves were pushed up to his elbows, revealing those muscular forearms that her body seemed to be kind of obsessed with.
She tried to think back to her last boyfriend. Had she ever noticed Mark’s forearms? What had they looked like? Had they been hairy? They must not have been, because she hadn’t really noticed. Anyway, he had lighter hair. She made a mental note to go look at a picture of Mark and see if his forearms were spectacular, and if she was suddenly just now into forearms, and hadn’t been back then.
“Why don’t you let me take it,” she said, snatching the apron back. “I’m going to need to know where it goes.”
“You’re stubborn,” he said. “You know that?”
“Thanks to you, I do.” She smiled so wide it made her cheeks ache.
“Come back here with me.” He opened the door into the kitchen, which was empty now. “Didn’t you get your own apron when you came this afternoon?”
“No, I traded with one of the other girls.”
“Okay,” he said, gesturing to a back wall. “You hang them up here.”
She followed his directions, hanging the little black apron on the hook and turning back to face him. “Don’t you have a manager who normally trains new staff?” It occurred to her then that it was kind of funny that the guy who owned the place was taking so much time to show her what to do. Of course, she was asking a lot of questions. But still, he never referred her to anyone else.
“No. Not really. This is my place. My name is on the sign, as you mentioned earlier.”
“Sure. But when you open the new place you’re not going to be able to be tending bar at both. You’re going to have to delegate.”
“Did you say you have a business degree?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Yeah, that kind of thing sounds about like something someone who has taken a class might say.”
Heat fired through her veins, blood boiling into her cheeks. “Right, let me guess, you went to the school of hard knocks. You’re all street smart instead of actual smart.”
“I can’t imagine why no one else wanted to give you a job.” He turned away from her, walking out of the kitchen, and she scurried after him.
“What do you mean? I did great work tonight.”
“You were rude to the customers.”
She burst out of the kitchen, breathing hard. “To who? The jackasses who accosted me? They’re my...well, they were my friends. And they were being horrible. How did you see that anyway? You were busy staring down Leslie’s shirt.”
“No,” he corrected her. “I made Leslie feel like I wanted to look down her shirt since that was how she wanted to feel. She went through a breakup. She needed a boost. I gave it.”
“Wow. A full-service kind of guy.”
“That’s customer service. I treat everyone better than they deserve to be treated. It’s why they come back.”
“You don’t treat me that way.”
“You aren’t my customer. And that’s the second thing I was going to mention to you. I’m your boss. You need to remember that.”
“Well, it isn’t like you’re being very nice to me.”
“Nope.” He turned back to face her, his hands stuffed in his pockets.
That was when she realized that no one else was here. They were completely alone in the dining area, possibly completely alone in the building. Which shouldn’t matter. It wasn’t like he was going to do anything to her. He was angry, that much was clear, but he wasn’t going to hurt her.
That isn’t what you’re worried about.
No. Maybe it wasn’t.
“Why?”
“Why what?” he asked, placing his hands on his narrow hips.
“Why aren’t you nice to me? I mean, other than the fact that I kind of said some stupid things when I was drunk, which I apologized for, you don’t really have a reason to hate me.”
He let out a hard breath, rolling his dark eyes. “That’s where you’re wrong. I know you, Sierra West. Probably better than you know yourself.”
“Beg to differ. We don’t know each other.”
“No, but I know your type. You’re spoiled. But you don’t even realize how spoiled you are. Because you’ve never actually experienced life without privilege. How would you know the remarkable pieces of your existence? You don’t know how anyone else lives. Everything you’ve ever needed has been put directly in front of you. You’ve never even had to reach for it. You’re so proud of that college degree, you think it makes you better than me. You think it makes you smarter than me. But you didn’t have to work for it. You didn’t have to pay for it. You’re not in debt over it. You didn’t have to scramble to find a job after you graduated, so in the end, you’ve never even had to use that piece of paper.
“You think you’re too good for this job,” he continued, “you think you’re too good for this bar. You’ve manipulated every boyfriend you’ve ever had with your good looks and your charm, with that little bit of superiority you feel. You do it without even trying.”
His words were rapid-fire, like high-velocity gunfire from an automatic rifle. They hit their marks hard, and they left a lot of damage.
Mostly because he was saying things that she’d been grappling with herself over the past few days. He was drawing back the curtain on the facade of her life. Tearing down pieces of the walls that she wasn’t ready to look behind yet. Parts that concerned herself, and not simply the sins of her father.
The little things that were starting to gnaw at her. Innocuous things. Like getting into her truck. Like realizing she’d never apologized before.
She was raw enough, certain enough that what he was saying had truth to it without him actually saying it.
“Oh, congratulations, you read the rich girl stereotype handbook,” she returned, infusing her words with as much bite as she could manage. She might suspect that he had the right end of the stick, but she was never going to let him see that. Because he didn’t say these things to help her, he said them to hurt her. He didn’t deserve validation. Not from her. Maybe this would be the end of her career as a waitress. But as far as she was concerned he could suck it. “Sadly for you, I read the disaffected hipster bartender handbook. You’re so over life. Money is so mainstream. And so is Coors Light. But of course, you want your business to be successful, and you actually need money to live. So you don’t hate it nearly as much as you pretend.”
She took a step toward him, her breathing labored. “You act like you have some big, deep wound that makes you inaccessible to the rest of us mortals, while you remind me and everyone else that we aren’t really special. You think you’re special, don’t you, Ace? You’re certainly more special than me.” She took another step toward him, and another, and she extended her hand, poking him in the chest. “So complicated and manly. How can a featherheaded little lady like myself ever truly understand you?”
Much to her surprise, he laughed. His lips curving up into a half smile, something dark, dangerous, glinting in his eyes. “Don’t be fooled by the flannel, babe. I’m not a hipster. I’m not that complicated, either. I work, I eat, I sleep and I fuck. End of story.”
His words sent a searing rash of heat burning through her veins. She didn’t know why but hearing that word on his lips made her feel things. All kinds of things.
She hung out with plenty of guys who dropped F bombs like they didn’t mean a thing. She’d been known to do the same herself in the right company.
But when they did it, it was a silly kids’ game. A bid to spit out the most naughty words in the fewest sentences.
It wasn’t like that now. The way he used it...it forced her to see it. Something raw, rough and untamed. Something harder, deeper than she’d ever known before. With that one word he made every other man she’d ever known into a boy, and he made sex something unknown and forbidden, something she was sure she’d barely scratched the surface of.
And they were fighting. Something that should underscore how much she didn’t like him. Something that should douse the heat that shimmered between them. Because fighting was not hot. At least, historically, fighting had not been hot. With him, it was.
If that wasn’t some kind of freaky weird magic she didn’t know what was.
She was breathing hard, and she knew he would be able to tell. If there was anything worse than feeling this strange, errant attraction, it was the fact that it was so completely transparent. She took another step toward him, reached out, her fingertips brushing the collar of his shirt.
Her whole face was hot. Her body was hot. Everything was hot. He really needed to adjust the temperature in here. Or find some way not to be attractive when he was being such a dick.
“Was that supposed to shock me?” she asked.
He leaned in, his face inches from hers. “It did, didn’t it?”
She squared her stance, her breasts nearly brushing his chest. “Do I look like I’m shocked to you?”
“You look like something, that’s for sure,” he said, dark eyes raking over her body. “But let me tell you something, Sierra. I’m not that hard up. You want me, that much is obvious. It isn’t like I haven’t noticed you’re a pretty little thing. But things come too easily to you. You think you can manipulate me like you’re used to doing? You’re out of luck. You need to learn to ask for what you want. If you want me, you’re going to have to ask. You’re going to have to beg.”
That should not turn her on. Absolutely not at all. His words should have been like a bucket of cold water over her head. It should not have been gasoline on a lit match. She took a step back, stumbling a bit, knowing she was doing a terrible job of maintaining her composure.
Somehow, in all of this, with him, she did not have her usual command of herself, of the situation. Was that because of all this stuff with her father? The major revelations and changes that had rocked her existence? Or was it just Ace? She couldn’t decide which disturbed her more.
All of it. All of it was disturbing.
She snorted, straightening the hem on her black tank top, even though it didn’t need straightening. “I’m afraid you have the wrong end of the stick, babe,” she said, repeating his earlier endearment back to him. “Maybe other women routinely lose their alcohol-ridden minds over you, but I’m not going to be one of them. All I want from you is a paycheck.”
“Then why are your cheeks so pink?” he asked, reaching out, dragging his thumb over her cheekbone.
She shivered, a flash of lightning shooting down the center of her bones. It rocked her, rattled her, shook her to her core. It was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. The problem with Ace was that he was different. He was nothing like those boys she had dated in the past. The silly frat bros who were barely edging into their twenties and were more interested in the care and keeping of their own biceps than they were in dealing with a girlfriend.
They were shallow, silly, they didn’t have the kind of intensity Ace radiated without even trying. Of course, she wasn’t entirely certain that was a negative. She wasn’t sure she liked Ace’s intensity. But it touched her. Deep, way down deep, in places no one had ever touched before.
With nothing more than a look and a brush of his thumb against her cheek.
It was problematic if nothing else. And she had enough problematic without adding him to the mix.
“Pure, unmitigated fury,” she said, taking a step away from him. “That makes my cheeks pink without any kind of maidenly excitement, or whatever it is you’re imagining I feel for you. News flash, not maidenly. Not excited.”
“I’ll try not to lose any sleep over that. Be here tomorrow, five thirty.”
“I’ll be here. And I’ll work hard for you, I swear it. By the end of the three weeks you’re not going to be able to deny me the job, Ace Thompson. I’ll wait tables, pour drinks, do dishes and mop floors. I’ll do all that with a smile on my face. But I will never beg. You have a good night, now.”
Heart pounding so hard she thought it might beat its way straight through her chest, she turned from him and walked out of the bar.
What had happened in there was nothing. Just her extended bout of celibacy beginning to show. It had been a while since she’d broken up with Mark. Closing in on a year and a half. And even then they’d been hit and miss since he’d lived and worked in Portland and she’d been in Copper Ridge. So yeah, tonight’s bout of hormones was perfectly understandable.
The fact of the matter was, with everything happening in her family, and her having this job, she really didn’t have the energy to go looking for another relationship.
You don’t actually need a relationship.
That was true. But she’d never really been a random hookup girl. Her relationships had never been intense, but they had been monogamous, and pretty long-lasting. When they died, they always died natural deaths. In the case of her and Mark it was all long-distance stuff. She was never going to move to the city to be with him, he was never going to come to Copper Ridge to be with her. And once they’d both realized that, there hadn’t seemed to be much point in continuing on.
She was regretting that now. Because a well-worn relationship would have been nice right about now. She could have driven up to Portland for a while, spent a few nights with him. She could have distracted herself.
She wondered, for a moment, if it was worth calling Mark up to see if he was still single. To see if he wanted her to come visit.
Except she had a job now, so she couldn’t just take off and go wherever she wanted to.
And the bigger problem was, she didn’t want to. Because she didn’t want Mark.
She let out a long breath, then inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of salt and pine. She was attracted to Ace. That didn’t mean she wanted him. Not in a serious, real way. She had one shot at this job. If she could prove that she could do it, then maybe other people in town would take her more seriously. Maybe they would hire her. If she was ever going to be self-sufficient here, then she needed to get some job experience that extended beyond the West family ranch, and she knew it. Moreover, at this point it was about pride. Ace didn’t think she could do this. All of those rejected job applications meant that most people in town didn’t think she could do this. They might like her, they might respect her family name, but they didn’t think she was capable of being anything more than the daughter of Nathan West.
Suddenly, she felt like she was standing on the edge of a hole. A void containing all of her achievements. Or rather, not containing them. She wondered if she had any. She’d gone to college, but her father had paid for it. She’d gotten a job only because it was assured due to her family connections.
She put her hand on the handle of the truck door that wasn’t hers.
She gritted her teeth, tears stinging her eyes, determination lashing her like a whip. The bottom line was, whatever she felt for Ace shouldn’t matter. Because it wasn’t as important as her future. She was going to prove to him that she could do this job, and that she could do it on her own merit. She wasn’t going to let anyone make her feel ashamed.
She wasn’t going to play these games with Ace, wasn’t going to let him touch her again. Wasn’t going to allow herself to touch him.
She was a waitress right now. And that meant that she was determined to be the best damn waitress in all of Copper Ridge.
