Protected Hearts

Chapter 1

BECK

Cedar Falls, Finger Lakes Region, NY

The world was my oyster.

It was one of those nights, a Friday to be specific, when everything just fell into place.

It was spring, the unofficial start to tourist season, and the bar had been busier than usual since opening.

The tips were flowing with at least two prospects to cap off the night.

One brunette. And her friend, a blonde. If I were lucky, I wouldn’t have to choose.

“Have you decided?” Cole asked dryly as I slid my friend’s Scotch across the bar. He was in a good mood, courtesy of the secret stash of Macallan I’d kept on hand behind the bar, just for him.

“Maybe I’ll let them fight it out. Or not,” I added with a laugh, my meaning evidently clear. Cole only shook his head back and forth like that when he thought one of us, usually me, was being absurd.

Leaving him, I made my way down the bar, humming to the music.

O’Malley’s Pub and Eatery wasn’t a huge place.

Our dance floor was only made possible courtesy of a few tables which I shoved in the back room on weekend nights.

Bands with more than three members found it a tight squeeze.

But what we lacked in space we made up for in an intimacy that came from being the only “Irish”-style pub in our small town.

Plus good food and cold beer, of course.

“Hey, man, can I get a round for my friends?”

Before I could respond, the douchebag shoved himself in front of an older woman who’d just made her way to the bar. She reminded me of my Aunt Kay, the only family member I liked besides my sister, so I noticed her right away.

“Sure,” I said, more good-naturedly than I would have if I weren’t behind the bar. “As soon I get the young lady’s order first.”

I simultaneously made her smile and pissed off douchebag. Good.

“Martini, extra dirty, please.”

“How dirty would you like it?” I asked suggestively, her smile widening. She was way too old for me, and married by the looks of it. I only had two rules when it came to picking up women. That they were over twenty-one. And single.

“As dirty as you can make it.”

Winking at her, one I’d perfected working behind the bar since college, I made an extra-dirty martini. Serving her, and pissing off douchebag even more by handing him his drinks with a “here you go, boss,” I headed back to Cole just as Parker sat down.

“I heard you were up here already. When did you get in?” Parker asked Cole, who looked as approachable as a professor mid-lecture… brilliant, unreadable, and not in the mood for small talk. Since he was actually a college professor—an Ivy League one at that—the shoe really did fit.

“About an hour ago.”

We, of course, were an exception. Parker, Mason and I had no qualms about pushing Cole’s buttons. It was a favorite pastime of mine.

“Don’t let him fool you,” I said, pouring Parker’s beer. “He’s excited to be home for the weekend. Right before you came in he was telling me how much he missed us.”

“Like I missed grading forty-three essays on the symbolism of the American dream.”

Parker chuckled. “Better you than me. I still think the whole thing is pretty cool.”

I left them to tend bar, not needing to be in the conversation to already know how it would play out. Cole hated any mention of the scholarship that brought him to Cedar Falls for the weekend. He would try to change topics, and Parker would continue to bring it up for that reason.

I shook my head. Even after all these years—Mason and I met in Kindergarten and we picked up Cole as a friend a year later—I couldn’t quite figure him out.

Why offer a college scholarship to his hometown high school, one Cole hadn’t even graduated from since his family moved away Freshman year, but then refuse to accept accolades for it?

I was surprised he agreed to come in person to present it to the recipient this weekend.

A problem for another day.

“Refills, ladies?”

Time to seal the deal.

They looked at one another. One that didn’t bode well for going home with both of them. There was a competitive glance in the brunette’s eyes and a deferential one in the blonde’s. So they’d decided.

“Sure.” The brunette gave me a smile. The smile.

I grabbed their glasses, refilled and returned a few minutes later. “This one’s on the house,” I said to her specifically. “You ladies aren’t from around here?”

I already knew they weren’t. Born and raised in Cedar Falls, only leaving for four years of college, I knew everyone in this town.

“We’re from PA,” the blonde said. “Here for a girls’ weekend.”

As if I hadn’t figured that one out already. I was about to ask their names when Parker called my name. That fucker had been my wing-man for as many years as I could count. What the hell was he thinking?

“Be right back,” I said, grabbing some empties and a tip along the way.

I tossed the empty cans, about to lay into him when I realized why he’d failed in wing-man duties.

Every muscle in my body tensed as I spotted her making her way toward the bar.

It would be impossible not to notice the boss’s daughter, no longer the girl who’d grown up next door to me.

Mae O’Malley had always been the cutest kid on the block.

The darling in elementary school. Prettiest girl in middle school.

But then in high school, something else blossomed in her.

An awareness of her inherent goodness and intelligence so that, by the time she left for the Culinary Institute, her confidence matched her beauty.

Mae’s long dirty-blonde hair was tied in two loose braids, one thing that hadn’t changed since it had always been a favorite hairstyle of hers.

It ended just above her full breasts, and she managed to look both innocently girly and impossibly sophisticated all at once.

Her flawless complexion glowed, the minimal makeup she wore enhancing a natural beauty that was without compare.

After two years in France, she sauntered toward us with a confidence and sophistication that screamed “not from Cedar Falls.”

Except she was. But now she was back, with a French fiancé. Frankly, I wasn’t ready for this.

“How about a round of shots?” Cole interrupted my thought, forcing me to tear my gaze from Mae. Parker and Cole waited for my reaction.

I immediately headed for the tequila, poured one for myself, downed it, and poured three more for Cole, Parker and me.

It was gonna be a long night.