Maybe not ideal working conditions, but she’d suffered worse.
But this time Derek’s usual bar was closed for renovations so he’d kept on walking until he came to Jasper’s Bar & Grille. Now her boss had a broken nose and she had no job.
A beer wasn’t going to help.
She lifted her head and propped her chin on her hand. “Did you have to call the police?”
“Yup.”
“You could have let it go.”
He rested his palms on the edge of the bar and looked her in the eye. God, he was tall. And that wasn’t all he had going for him. Besides the height and the blue eyes and the dimples, he had broad shoulders straining the seams of an ancient Red Sox T-shirt and thick brown hair that had that careless style of a man who didn’t want to fuss with it. Probably mid-thirties.
“Lady, he punched me in the face.”
“It wasn’t much of a punch,” she muttered, since she couldn’t deny it. “I almost had him talked into a cab, but you had to go and make it a big deal.”
“Hey, Kevin,” a younger guy called out. “Can we make a mimosa?”
“This is a sports bar, not Easter brunch.” He turned back to her, shaking his head. “All I did was tell him he was cut off. Not only do I have the right but, when a patron’s visibly intoxicated, I have the obligation. And I ain’t exactly a turn-the-other-cheek guy when it comes to getting punched in the face.”
Kevin had a point. It wasn’t his fault her boss was a jerk, so blaming him was probably a little unreasonable. But the only difference between the previous times and this time was him. “You didn’t have to break his nose.”
“That I didn’t really mean to do. He slipped. Kind of.” The sheepish, dimpled grin he gave her was so irresistible she could feel aggravation’s hold on her temper loosening.
She was about to respond when he reached his arms up to a high shelf. Muscles rippled under his T-shirt and, when he stretched for a stack of folded towels, a gap opened between its hem and the waistband of his low-slung jeans. The tantalizing glimpse of abs made her mouth go dry, which was okay because she’d forgotten what she was going to say, anyway.
When he moved out from behind the bar to mop at Derek’s blood, she grimaced and moved over a stool. Not that she was queasy, but because Kevin smelled as good as he looked. And the closer he got to her, the better he looked.
Then, without warning, her view was blocked by a busty blonde whose outfit made Daisy Duke’s look like going-to-church clothes. The woman handed Kevin what looked like a Jasper’s napkin with lipstick smeared on it. The same shade painted on the woman’s plumped and puckered-up mouth.
“Hi, Kevin,” the blonde said in pretty much the same breathless, baby-doll voice Marilyn Monroe had used to wish President Kennedy a very, very happy birthday. “Here’s my number. You know…in case you want to call me…or something.”
He winked at her as he took the napkin. “Thanks, doll. I just might do that.”
Beth managed to hold it in until Hooters-wanna-be Barbie had simpered out the front door, then she rolled her eyes. “Doll? Smooth line, Mickey Spillane.”
“Hey, makin’ the ladies happy is good for business.”
“Yeah, and I bet you’re just the man for the job. You should go after her. She seems just your type.”
That wiped the naughty-boy charm off his face. “What makes you think you know anything about my type?”
She shrugged, making it clear she didn’t really give a damn. “Careful you don’t smear your napkin. And speaking of business, I need to go find another job now.”
“I feel bad about that, even though it wasn’t really my fault.”
“I’ll get over it.” She slid off the stool and started toward the door. “Have a nice life. Doll.”
***
Kevin smiled for the camera. Then he smiled again. And again and again and again.
“Okay,” the bossy photographer said. “Now a few of the bride and her ladies, and then we’ll do the groom and his brothers.”
With matching sighs of relief, Kevin and his brothers Joe and Mike, along with their brother-in-law Evan, moved away from the gaggle of women. They’d been at the picture-taking thing for twenty minutes already and, early October or not, it was hot in a tux.
Joe’s reception was at some swanky hotel-slash-banquet center that specialized in wedding receptions. As far as Kevin could tell, that meant they had a shitload of places to take pictures. In front of the garden. In front of the rock waterfall. Under the gazebo thing in front of the pond. His cheeks were starting to ache.
Mike tugged at his collar, but not so much the drill sergeant with the camera would bark at him. “I’m ready to hit the bar.”