Chapter 4
4
Kit
Oh, he wants something all right. I just can’t for the life of me figure out what it is.
But there’s something a little too direct about his gaze right now and, suddenly, I can’t backpedal fast enough. I’m too shaken and buzzing and more than a little intrigued by this big man taking up more than his allotment of space at my bar. And none of that is a good thing.
“Never mind.” I shove the freshly-poured bourbon toward him and grab my own, raise it and wait for him to clunk his glass to mine. “Cheers to another shift down.”
“Cheers to you,” he says, watching me closely. “Happy birthday.”
I pause. “How’d you…” Horror takes over when I realize exactly what he must’ve overheard on the bluetooth speakers. “Oh, shit.”
“Hey. Forty’s not that old.”
“That’s not what I meant, you… Wait. How old are you ?”
His weirdly light, intense eyes focus on me, a sudden spark of humor heating their depths. A warm weight flips around in my stomach before settling. “What, you didn’t memorize my employment information?”
I think back to the papers I copied and filed away. I remember thinking he was young. “You’re in your thirties?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Must have been young when you met Frank.”
“We were convicted the same year.”
“But you got out.”
A pause. “Yeah.”
Neither of us mentions that my brother’s crime wasn’t one they took quite so lightly.
“He’s got a parole hearing. I think early next year.”
“He’ll get out,” he says, although we both know it’s not a given.
In the ensuing silence, I latch onto the sight of his thick, corded neck, the hair-rough Adam’s apple that moves whenever he takes a swallow of booze.
“How’d you get into this business?”
My startled gaze lifts to preternaturally light eyes. “Oh. Randomly, I guess. Waited tables. Bartended through college. Then stuck around because it was quick money and I liked it and it paid for my husb—” I clear my throat to get that word out of my body. “My ex’s grad school.”
His thick brows rise. “He ever pay you back?”
The answer to that question’s caught in the nasty snarl of emotions clogging my chest.
The best I can do is a forced smile and a redirect. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“How’d you get into your line of work?”
“Well, your brother’s part of it, I guess.”
“Yeah?”
“Frank convinced me not to ruin my life by doing what he did the second I got out.” He looks down, gaze lost in the glass of booze for a few seconds. I want to ask so many questions, but manage to hold my tongue. “Helped me find a program for ex-cons. Welding. I was a brawler, you know. Had to do something physical to get it out of my system and working nights down at the plant wasn’t gonna cut it.”
“You’d lose your soul doing that.”
“Yeah. In some ways, it was worse than prison.” When he looks up, his smile’s very faint, barely a smile, actually, but it’s so attractive that the weight turns liquid and slides further south. “Or almost.”
I get the feeling, looking at him, that nothing could be worse than prison. I don’t let myself consider what Frank must be going through.
“Anyway. I had someone outside, too, who gave a shit enough to take me in and point me in the right direction.”
I picture a woman, of course.
“Was that around here?”
“Over in the valley. Guy ran a gym. He…” His eyes flick up to meet mine. “You don’t want the full story.”
I do, actually, but it would be weird to admit that. Instead, I go with. “Is that where you grew up? The valley?”
“Yeah. Workin’ in my parents’ diner. On 81. In some ways, I guess you could say the diner raised me.”
“Well, you’re good.”
“I get by.”
Staring at the glass of amber liquid in my hand, I suck in a deep, shaky breath, and finally meet his gaze. “Thank you. For taking over the kitchen. And all the other stuff you’ve done. I didn’t realize you were…” My throat goes tight. “And thanks for tonight. I don’t entirely get why you’re here, especially since you don’t need the money, but I owe you?—”
“You want the truth?”
Do I? I hesitate, watching him watch me. It’s a strange sensation to be the focus of so much attention. I’m not used to it. Can’t say whether or not I like it yet. I lick my dry lower lip and shrug with a nonchalance that is eighty percent bravado. “Sure.”
“I swung by ’cause Frank asked me to. Took the job because I liked the look of you.” The straightforward words shut me up and steal the air from my lungs. I’m still trying to come up with a response when he says. “I heard your messages. All of ’em.” His eyes flick up to one of the speakers, quiet now, then back to look at me. “Bad news.”
Mortification heats my face. “That was private.”
“I know. And I’m sorry.” After a beat. “I’ll bet it’s rough. On you and your new person.”
“My person?”
“Your partner. Husband or wife or whoever you’re starting a family with.”
“I’m doing it alone.” I shake my head, hating how defeated I suddenly feel. “Whatever. That’s over now. I’m done.” I give him a brittle smile. “I can’t afford another round.” Aside from his eyebrows going up, there’s no reaction. It makes no sense for me to get as defensive as I do. “What? You got a problem with single mothers? IVF?”
“Not at all.”
“You sure? You seem awfully?—”
“You want a baby?”
“More than anything,” I admit, though I don’t exactly know why I’m dumping this on the guy.
“I’ll do it.”
Everything freezes. Me. The air around us. My lungs, my heart, the blood in my veins.
I’ve heard wrong. I’ve misunderstood.
I’m suspended, numb with shock. Dropped off a building. In free fall.
“Um. Do what?”
“I’ll get you pregnant.” He’s dead serious.
My mouth drops open. I close it, open it again as I attempt to formulate some sort of reply. It takes an effort to get my voice working again. “Are you… Are you kidding ?”
He shoves back his stool and stands, takes a couple steps away from the bar. For the first time since I saw this man, he seems something other than steady and sure and firmly planted on the ground. “It’s the bourbon talking. Sorry about that. I…I’ll take off. Goodnight Kitty.” He spins and stalks away.
He’s twisted the lock and wrenched the front door open, stepped outside and turned to close it behind him by the time I shake myself free from the shock and get a word out. “Wait!”
He pauses, his hand the only thing keeping the door ajar. Even through the sheet glass of my front window, it’s obvious the man’s tense.
So am I. I mean, what the hell just happened?
But also—and this is the unexpected part—holy crap, why on earth am I turned on?
My body, which was certainly interested in Jake Brand before he dropped his bomb, is now a live wire. Buzzing, tight, swollen. Ready. I’ll bet if I shoved my hand down my underwear, I’d find that I’m soaking wet right now.
Slowly, as if I’m not a massive ball of humming nerves, I walk across the dining room, to the door, still wedged open a few degrees by his hand.
“What, um…” No. No, I need to think before I speak. And look him in the eye, not talk through the relative safety of a four-inch gap. I push until I can see his entire face. “Why would you say that? Why…why would you make that kind of offer?” I shut my eyes, grimacing with the unexpected pain of a sudden realization. “Was it a joke?”
“Hell, no.”
“Then…” I swallow, force myself to look at him head-on, and say, “Please explain.”
He makes a sound of frustration, rubs his hand through his short, almost black hair, and looks around at the dark parking lot, out at the quiet street, maybe searching for an appropriate response to a truly inexplicable situation. Or maybe just searching for a way out of this very weird conversation.
Finally, I guess he lands on something because he turns to me and says, “I’ve wanted you since the moment I laid eyes on you, Kitty.” He looks me up and down in a way I feel to my core.
I’m about to reply when his next words flay me wide open.
“Since the second I saw you, I knew I’d do anything to wipe that sadness from your eyes.”