Chapter Three
Mack woke in a fog; eyes squinted at the light shining in through the open window in her bedroom. She was nowhere near feeling rested and when she stretched to look at the clock on her bedside table, her muscles protested.
For a split second, she was confused but then had a rush of warmth when she remembered just how many positions she’d experienced during the course of the night that would make her muscles hurt.
She’d done it again. Not only was she invading space she’d promised to her brand-new bar bouncer, she had gone and slept with the man she was trusting with security for her bar.
It wasn’t just a bar, it was her business and her life.
She was the bar essentially and again, she knew nothing about him.
“What in the hell is wrong with me?”
“Are you okay?”
A voice echoed from somewhere in her apartment.
Holy shit, he’s still here?
Mack threw the covers from her bed to find that she was completely naked. She searched the floor for something to throw on before he appeared at the bedroom door.
When she walked out toward the kitchen, she smelled food. Really yummy food. Bacon and eggs to be exact, oh and her beloved coffee brewing.
“Hey there, hope you don’t mind I cooked.”
She looked on in surprise. There was a man standing in her kitchen. A really good looking man wearing only jeans. Who would have thought that seeing a man’s bare feet standing in front of her stove would turn her on? She’s got to be losing it.
“Uh no, it’s fine.”
He held out a steaming cup toward her.
“Yes, I need that.”
She took her first sip and closed her eyes to saver the feel of the caffeine infecting her body.
When she sat at her tiny two-top table, she was at a loss for words.
One-night stands weren’t and had never been her thing and usually there was no one to face the next morning but not only did she need to face him, they would be working together for the near future.
She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been with a guy.
Was moaning during sex the type of thing that normal guys dealt with.
Apparently, he wasn’t going to let her avoid the elephant in the room however. He sat two plates of food down on the table and sat in the chair across from hers. By the look on his face, he wasn’t bothered by anything that she was dealing with in her own head.
“So…”
There was so much meaning in just that one word. Where did she even begin.
“The food is really good Damon, thanks for making it. Sorry I must not have heard my alarm.”
“No problem. I shut your alarm off when I got up. You were sleeping so soundly I thought you needed it.”
“Thanks. I need to get downstairs and stock the bar though.”
“No worries, I can help. Two people should make it faster, right?”
She just needed to get it off her chest before she had a heart attack worrying about what happened.
“So, you’re still willing to work with me, even after last night?”
He tapped his fork on the table and looked longingly at her for a few seconds. It didn’t make her feel any less guilty.
“Do you regret what happened?”
That was an easy one to answer. Well maybe…
“Yes and no. I just feel bad about hiring you then having this happen, but I don’t regret that it happened at all.”
“Me either. But I do want you to know that’s not normally the type of guy I am. I don’t want you to get the wrong impression of me.”
“What type of guy are you?”
“Well I feel like I’m loyal when I am in a relationship. I don’t make a habit of sleeping around. It’s not exactly easy to find someone that wants to handle me, because…I’m alot.”
“Well it’s not like I’m not a handful; I’ll admit that about myself.
Guess I’ve never let anyone get close enough to know if they can deal with me.
My family moved here when I was five, but I’ve always been a loner.
My parents definitely had their hands full, and they would agree if they were here. ”
“Speaking of your parents, where are they?”
“They died in a fire a few years back. I was working late here at the bar and our house just outside of town caught fire and they never got out.”
“That’s awful Mack, I’m sorry to hear. Was this apartment always here then?”
“No, this all just used to be storage for extra table and chairs, boxes and general junk. I had it turned into a place for me when I got the settlement from the fire and paid off the mortgage on the building. I added a security system, which I never set last night apparently and remind me later I’ll give you the code.
After that, I just took one day at a time and figured out how to get on with my life. ”
“Sorry I made you rehash all that.”
“It’s okay, it gets a little bit easier with time but I miss them every day.”
They sat in silence and both finished their food.
“Where did you learn to cook?”
“Just one of my many talents.”
“Avoiding the question, you’re good at that I’ve noticed.”
“Not avoiding. I just picked it up along my road to rediscovery. I cooked in a little roadside café a few years back and learned a lot from the owners. The woman amazing at anything homecooked. She taught me everything she knew.”
“So maybe I should put you in the kitchen downstairs instead of at the door.”
Mack cleaned the empty plates form the table and washed them quickly.
“I’d rather not if it’s all the same to you. I think I’m more suited to be the brawn in the bar.”
She laughed but nodded in agreement.
“I need to get dressed. How about we meet downstairs and I’ll show you were I keep the beer for the coolers.”
Damon saluted her and headed for the stairs.
***
The last twenty-four hours had not been anything Damon would ever have seen coming.
He ran into beautiful women all the time as many places as he’d been but not once had any of them called him out as a bear, and been a bear as well.
What were the odds? His parents had always rambled on about finding his true mate and that he probably never would.
Who would want to commit to a worthless, unreliable grizzly bear that had no ambition and no clue what he wanted to do with his life?
His parents really weren’t nice people. If they’d had their way, he’d never have been able to access the trust his grandparents left him and he’d been stuck in a long since dead town with a dead-end job, and still living at home.
He only felt a little bad for leaving his little brother Zeke, but he was still in school and not old enough for Damon to legally take care of.
It had only been a day but if this town was a place he might be able to call home and he liked everything he’d seen so far, then one day he could bring his brother to live with him. It may be jumping the gun but he’d really like to be a part of Mack’s life and see where that could take them.
Did most bears believe that they mated for life, not necessarily by listening to some of them back home, but he sure did and he would continue to look until he found the right one for him. Maybe that was Mack, and maybe not but it was sure off to a good start.
“Hey are you ready?”
“You’re good at trying to be sneaky, but I knew you were there.”
He had gone through the bar and taken all the chairs down from the table tops and took a seat while he waited.
When she’d appeared, she was wearing a tight pair of jeans with a t-shirt that was short enough to leave her stomach uncovered.
As if he needed another thing to distract him besides the mere presence of her.
“Did you hear me?”
“No, it was weird but I just knew you were there somehow.”
“Hey thanks for taking down the chairs. You might be pretty handy to keep around after all.”
“Yeah you just want me to do all your heavy lifting.”
“Speaking of heavy lifting…”
She smiled and walked away, leaving him with a view that would be the death of him.
The way she swung those hips would knock any man to his knees.
She had a way already of shooting his temperature out of the park.
He’d rather handle her assets than the beer for the bar but he followed because she needed the help, and it was now his job.
She led him through an opening between the mahogany bars into a doorway he’d seen her emerge from more than once the night before. He was now impressed with how intricate her little prep kitchen really was and when she kept walking, he moved to keep up with her.
When she got to a big metal door, she opened it and started explaining.
“Okay, this is the walk in cooler where we keep all the cold beer. We never lay it down on its side, always store them upright, that way they keep longer. We also don’t have a direct light in here because it will spoil the beer.
We don’t freeze it but this walk-in keeps it at a good cold temp.
When new cases come in off the truck, just slide it in behind what’s already in here so we use the older up first.”
“How often do you have deliveries?”
“They drop off every other day which includes Saturdays and it’s usually before we open so we don’t have to be gone from the bar to unload.
We go through enough of it that we don’t really need to worry about shelf life either.
With both of us on site, we shouldn’t ever have a problem with missing a delivery. ”
She grabbed a roll cart and started loading cases of bottles onto it, then Damon wheeled the cart, following her back to the bar.
“These are the coolers we have up here and all we do is load the bottles in so there’s easy access. Most nights if we load them full, we don’t have to refill before the night is over. That next set of cabinets house our kegs with the tappers above.”
As she talked, she placed bottles on the shelves quicker than anything he’d ever seen done. She was good at her job.
“Usually, I change out the kegs so the girls can continue to help the customers but I have no problem with you changing them out too.”
Damon agreed that he would be glad to do that.
“I have a standup freezer and frig in the prep kitchen that I house all the food in and the menu changes slightly depending on what we have left in stock from day to day.”
She finished loading the beer bottles and they were walking back toward the cooler when the security alarm started blaring loudly throughout the bar.
Damon and Mack looked at each other but he could tell she was instantly panicked.
“Where is your keypad?”
He yelled over the siren, trying to prompt her into motion. She pointed toward the office and they both went running. Hella of a thing if he had to shift to scare off an intruder. That’d be a first for him.
She got to the keypad first and typed in her code and the alarm went silent. The office door was wide open, which it shouldn’t be.
“Damn that thing is loud.”
“Yeah it has to be for me to hear it over the music when the bar is open.”
The office door was hanging wide open, which he tried to close but it looked like the door had been pried open and was all messed up.
“Mack this isn’t going to close, somebody bent the jam all to hell.”
“Seriously? This is not what I need right now.”
“Do you have tools?”
“I do, over in the storage back by the walk-in.”
“Okay, let me do some rigging to get this door mostly shut til we can fix it, I’ll be right back. I can go out the delivery door, right?”
“Yeah, the alarm is off, just prop the door open or you won’t get back in that door. Oh wait, never mind, you could use this broke door.”
She let out a frustrated breath and sat down at her desk when the phone rang.
“That’s got to be the security agency.”
While Mack talked with them, he ran outside and grabbed the dumpster behind the building and pushed it in front of the office door so it would stay shut until they could get it fixed.
The thing had no wheels so the average person probably couldn’t push it out of the way.
He’d move it back after the door was fixed.
Then he wanted to take a quick look around.
He guessed that the alarm scared off whoever tried to get in but he didn’t want to take any chances.
He waited for her to hang up the phone and let her know he was going to upstairs to look around. She asked to go along.
“Stay behind me just in case.”
“You know I can take care of myself, right?”
“Will you just humor me?”
“Fine but I don’t need you to protect me.”
Good lord, women!
“I am definitely aware of your independent side, but you hired me for security, right? So, let me make sure things are secure.”
Diplomatic and true, argue with that!