Chapter Two
The Love Shack was a hot spot for singles, couples, and anyone else who wanted a great burger, a cold drink, and a place to unwind and have some fun.
The owner, Kick Loomis, stood behind the bar, his long, curly hair tied up in a man-bun, a broad grin on his face as he built a Guinness for a customer. He spotted them enter, nodded, and thrust his chin toward an empty corner table.
Kolby pointed to it and told Charity, “That one’s open.”
They made their way through the crowded bar area, both of them smiling at people they recognized.
The table was a high top, and Charity had to toe-up on the chair foot rung to sit. Kolby had no such issue.
He handed her a menu and took the other for himself.
Their waitress shot over, smiled, and relayed the specials.
“Want drinks?” she asked.
“I’ll have a tap beer,” Kolby said, then ticked his chin at Charity. “You want your usual Diet Pepsi?”
She couldn’t understand why him knowing her drink of choice was so pleasing, but it was. It was also sixty ways of annoying because it meant she was predictable, something she hated.
Just to be contrary, she said, “No.” Kolby’s brow moved north again. “I’ll take a cranberry Cosmo, please.”
The other brow joined its brother. “You sure? You haven’t eaten and —"
She cut him off with a silencing hand wave and placed her food order.
Once they were alone again, he said, “You’d better get some food in you before you drink. Otherwise, it’s gonna go straight to your head.”
Unable to recline backward because the high top had bar stools for chairs, she settled on crossing her elbows and resting them on the table as she glared at him.
Head cocked, she put a look of false confusion on her face and said, “Funny. I don’t remember growing up with you.”
“What?”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Sarcasm dripped from her tone like melting icicles off a solar roof. “You sounded so much like my brothers that for a moment I was confused.”
His lips drew into a tight, flat line. He had no right to be pissed. She was the one who was being spoken to like a second grader and not a grown-ass woman.
“I just think—”
She cut him off. “No, that’s the problem. You didn’t think. You’re not the boss of me, O’Brian. If I want a cocktail, I’m going to have a cocktail. I don’t need you second-guessing me, my decisions, what I do, and how I take care of myself.”
He reared back as if she’d slapped him clear across the cheek. Then, he leaned forward again, his eyes going to a hooded half-mast. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not talking about having a drink with no food in your system?”
Damn the man for his insightfulness.
“You’re talking about that little scene back at the inn with the drunken jerk,” he stated with a nod. “When I intervened.”
She clamped down on her anger. “I had the situation handled. I didn’t need your help.”
“Yeah, you said that before. What I want to know is just how did you have it handled? The guy was almost a foot taller and had a hundred pounds on you. What were you gonna do, drop-kick him?”
The sneer on that fabulous mouth had her heart pounding and her blood boiling.
“Yes,” she answered. “If there was no other way out of the situation, that’s what I was planning to do.”
His expression blanked again, then puzzlement crept along his forehead. “What?”
“You heard me. I was prepared to take him down with a well-aimed roundhouse kick to his balls and a follow-up elbow strike to his jaw. And it wouldn’t have been the first time I resorted to that with a handsy guy.
I exercised restraint because I didn’t want any repercussions to fall back on Colleen for my behavior. ”
His face registered first shock, then confusion again. He was distracted from saying anything further when the waitress returned with their drinks.
“Food’ll be out in about ten,” she said before leaving them again.
Charity took a breath and then lifted the drink to her lips. Kick Loomis was a master mixologist. The very first time she’d ever tasted his version of her favorite drink, she’d sworn allegiance to him for the rest of her cocktail-imbibing life.
Now, as the icy-cold, sweet and equally tart liquid slid past her lips and across her tastebuds, she sighed and let her eyes drift closed as she willed every thought to leave her head.
Her shoulders relaxed and dropped back to their natural position, her hands metaphorically un-fisted, and relaxation doused her system.
She licked her lips, wanting to savor every single drop.
A hiss from across the table had her opening her eyes to find the man who haunted her dreams and made her work life torture, staring back at her.
When his gaze zeroed in on her mouth, the tops of his cheeks were darker than moments before.
A tick jumped at his jawline as he held his beer bottle aloft, mid-rise.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He didn’t answer, just kept staring at her mouth.
“Hey.” She snapped two fingers in front of his face. “Earth to O’Brian.”
He blinked like he had a cinder in his eyes, then bobbed his head right and left a few times, before lifting his gaze back to her eyes.
“What’s wrong? The beer taste off or something?” Charity asked.
He waited a few beats, his attention never wavering from her face. Then, his brows pulled low over the eyes assessing her, and his voice deepened as he asked, “How do you know how to dropkick a guy? You take a self-defense class or something after some idiot got rough with you?”
The urge to roll her eyes was profound. The question was such a cliché. Like the only reason a girl would ever learn how to defend herself was because she’d been attacked. Kolby, aside from being a pain in her ass, was a chauvinist.
“For your information,” she said, after taking another sip, “I’m a third-degree black belt in Kempo Karate.”
He blinked. Hard. Several times.
“No shit?”
“None.” She shook her head to underscore the word.
“How long have you been taking karate? I mean, to be a black belt takes years, right?”
“I started studying when I was four. Earned my black belt at eighteen and have been working hard ever since, advancing. I earned my third stripe last year. So, in the future, please believe me when I say I’ve got a situation handled. I know how to protect myself.”
He took a long pull from the beer, his attention never wavering from her face. If she were a mind reader, she would know what was behind the intense, studious glare. But she wasn’t a mind reader, and right now Kolby O’Brian was a closed book without a cover blurb or synopsis.
When he tipped the beer back again, his throat working as the liquid slid down his gullet, her lower region started tingling.
That little notch between his clavicle bobbed with the effort, and Charity had the sudden urge to run her tongue across his neck, move up to his jaw, and then plant her lips against his.
A shudder tripped down her spine as her vision blurred and the surrounding cacophony of music and people talking dulled and echoed, as if she’d dived into a vat of water.
She had to be dehydrated from not drinking or eating anything all day, so she lifted the glass to her lips again and took way more than a sip.
Way more, and way faster than she usually drank.
Kolby placed his bottle on the table and kept right on staring at her.
“You started at four?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
A common enough question, but it still rankled to have to explain.
“You may not have noticed, but I’m not exactly built like a basketball player.”
A tiny grin split his lips. “No,” he said. “You definitely are not.”
With a nod, she continued. “I started kindergarten right after my fourth birthday because, well, I was ready educationally, and knowing I was going to be younger than everyone else and small for my age, my parents thought it would be a good idea for me to know how to defend myself against bullies.” She lifted the drink, took another delicious sip.
“I think I was still in diapers at four,” he quipped.
She refrained from rolling her eyes again, but boy, she wanted to, because she wouldn’t be surprised at all if that statement was true.
“Was it hard at that age? Learning how to punch and stuff?”
Lord, give me the strength to deal with people with preconceived notions.
“Karate is more mental than physical, which most people don’t get,” she said.
“At four, I was taught how to use my words, my intellect, and to use logical outcome scenarios to get myself out of potentially dangerous and risky situations. Barring that, the physical stuff was more fun and exercise. I didn’t realize I was being trained until I got older and could conceptualize it.
” She took another sip, sighed, then added, “I was the only girl in my class until I was fourteen. By then I was two belts away from black and helped teach classes. So again, please believe me when I say I could have handled that obnoxious drunk. I’ve done it too many times to count. ”
Those gorgeous blue eyes went hard again, then softened as he kept his attention on her face.
“The boys in class give you a hard time ‘cuz you were a girl?”
With a speaking glance, she asked, “You were a boy once upon a time. What do you think?”
He waited a few beats, just staring across at her, his face still clouded.
“How did I not know you were a black belt?” he asked, at length. “Or that you have brothers? How many?”
“Five.”
He whistled. “We’ve worked together for over three years, been to a hundred weddings together, and ridden countless hours in my truck. And you’ve never told me that. I kinda feel like I should have known all that about you.”
She shrugged, the move making her head spin a bit.
“In fact, I’m just realizing right now I barely know anything personal about you.” He cocked his head. “Other than you have a degree in marketing and like Diet Pepsi.”
Charity took another sip. “Why would you? It’s not like we’re friends or anything.”
He looked a little hurt by that. Or maybe just surprised. Her vision really wasn’t very good when she was this tired.