One Night Charmer Page 6

  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.