One Night Charmer

Of course, he didn’t give her that kind of attention. He always acted like he wanted to stick her in the corner and cover her with a blanket so he could pretend she wasn’t there.

She realized she’d been standing there, frozen and staring, for way too long. She mobilized. Holding tight to her bin of dishes, she walked quickly back toward the kitchen, her focus fixed straight ahead.

“Sierra?”

She turned at the sound of an incredulous voice, just in time to see Elyssa and Chad walking toward her. Leslie was still on her bar stool giggling loudly at something Ace said.

“Are you...working here?” Chad asked, his lip curling up into a borderline sneer.

“Yes,” she said, steeling herself as she propped the bin on her hip. “I am working here. Since I’m not working with my dad anymore I needed to get another job.”

Elyssa frowned. “But...at the bar?”

“All the glamorous positions at high rises were filled. Also, in another town. I had to take what I could get.”

Elyssa scoffed. “Come on. Couldn’t your brother help you? This is...beneath you, honestly.”

Sierra bristled. “Why? It’s fine for you to come drink here but it’s not good for me to work here? Leslie can sit over there flirting her tits off with the man who owns the place but this is beneath me?”

“That’s different,” Chad said. “I’d do a waitress, but I wouldn’t wait a table.”

Sierra felt like she was having an out of body experience. Like she was witnessing this exchange from high above the bar. And with that distance came clarity. These people were terrible. They had also been her friends for a long time. And she couldn’t say she wouldn’t have felt the same way a few months ago if one of them had gotten a job here.

She wasn’t even hurt. Or embarrassed. She was mad. Not even at them, but at herself. For all the coasting she’d done for so many years. For doing the schooling her father had wanted her to do, taking the job he’d created for her, having the friends that were convenient for her to have.

Suddenly, she didn’t feel tired anymore. She felt energized. Empowered. Standing there in front of her former friends she felt separate and different. And like she might be more herself than she’d ever been before.

“You’re an asshole, Chad,” she said, her tone crisp. “I mean, do you hear yourself? Do you ever stop and listen to the words that come out of your mouth?” She knew he didn’t. Because she never had, either. “You think you’re above any of this? Trust me, you’re one parental crisis away from being here. Except I don’t think you have it in you to work this hard. You think you’re too good for a job like this? You aren’t good enough.”

She continued on past them toward the kitchen.

“Wow, Sierra.” Elyssa’s voice stopped Sierra in her tracks. “Just wait till the town sees you like this.”

Sierra shot her former friend one last furious glance. “I’m not worried about that. In fact, I’m looking forward to it.”

She glanced over at Ace, who was still flirting with Leslie, and then barged into the kitchen, angrily depositing the bin of dirty dishes by the sink. She wasn’t going to let them make her feel ashamed. She hadn’t sunk to anything.

She was rising to the occasion.

She’d be damned if she felt embarrassed about that.

She spent the rest of the shift working as hard and furiously as possible. As if she could prove the world wrong right here in this bar, as long as she was the best waitress she could be.

Anger fueled her for a while, but that ran out quickly enough, leaving her drained and a bit less full of purpose than she’d been a few hours earlier.

She looked up at the clock on the wall and everything inside of her sagged. It was just after two thirty in the morning. She stayed out late often enough, but not usually this late. And definitely not usually schlepping drinks and hamburgers.

She wrinkled her nose. That was what she smelled like. Beef, bacon, french fries and exhaustion. It was in her skin.

Suddenly, she felt very small, and very persecuted.

She dragged herself back into the kitchen, setting the dishes on the edge of the sink. At least she didn’t have to wash those. That made her feel slightly less persecuted.

She walked back out into the dining area, untying her apron and setting it on top of the bar.

“That isn’t where that goes,” Ace said, suddenly appearing out of his office like a flannel, bearded vapor.

“You certainly have a lot of systems,” she told him, rubbing her temples before snatching the apron back up. “Where exactly do I put it?”

“I’ll take it,” he said, reaching his hand out.

His shirtsleeves were pushed up to his elbows, revealing those muscular forearms that her body seemed to be kind of obsessed with.

She tried to think back to her last boyfriend. Had she ever noticed Mark’s forearms? What had they looked like? Had they been hairy? They must not have been, because she hadn’t really noticed. Anyway, he had lighter hair. She made a mental note to go look at a picture of Mark and see if his forearms were spectacular, and if she was suddenly just now into forearms, and hadn’t been back then.

“Why don’t you let me take it,” she said, snatching the apron back. “I’m going to need to know where it goes.”

“You’re stubborn,” he said. “You know that?”

“Thanks to you, I do.” She smiled so wide it made her cheeks ache.

“Come back here with me.” He opened the door into the kitchen, which was empty now. “Didn’t you get your own apron when you came this afternoon?”

“No, I traded with one of the other girls.”

“Okay,” he said, gesturing to a back wall. “You hang them up here.”

She followed his directions, hanging the little black apron on the hook and turning back to face him. “Don’t you have a manager who normally trains new staff?” It occurred to her then that it was kind of funny that the guy who owned the place was taking so much time to show her what to do. Of course, she was asking a lot of questions. But still, he never referred her to anyone else.

“No. Not really. This is my place. My name is on the sign, as you mentioned earlier.”

“Sure. But when you open the new place you’re not going to be able to be tending bar at both. You’re going to have to delegate.”

“Did you say you have a business degree?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Yeah, that kind of thing sounds about like something someone who has taken a class might say.”

Heat fired through her veins, blood boiling into her cheeks. “Right, let me guess, you went to the school of hard knocks. You’re all street smart instead of actual smart.”

“I can’t imagine why no one else wanted to give you a job.” He turned away from her, walking out of the kitchen, and she scurried after him.

“What do you mean? I did great work tonight.”

“You were rude to the customers.”

She burst out of the kitchen, breathing hard. “To who? The jackasses who accosted me? They’re my...well, they were my friends. And they were being horrible. How did you see that anyway? You were busy staring down Leslie’s shirt.”

“No,” he corrected her. “I made Leslie feel like I wanted to look down her shirt since that was how she wanted to feel. She went through a breakup. She needed a boost. I gave it.”

“Wow. A full-service kind of guy.”

“That’s customer service. I treat everyone better than they deserve to be treated. It’s why they come back.”

“You don’t treat me that way.”

“You aren’t my customer. And that’s the second thing I was going to mention to you. I’m your boss. You need to remember that.”

“Well, it isn’t like you’re being very nice to me.”

“Nope.” He turned back to face her, his hands stuffed in his pockets.

That was when she realized that no one else was here. They were completely alone in the dining area, possibly completely alone in the building. Which shouldn’t matter. It wasn’t like he was going to do anything to her. He was angry, that much was clear, but he wasn’t going to hurt her.

That isn’t what you’re worried about.

No. Maybe it wasn’t.

“Why?”

“Why what?” he asked, placing his hands on his narrow hips.

“Why aren’t you nice to me? I mean, other than the fact that I kind of said some stupid things when I was drunk, which I apologized for, you don’t really have a reason to hate me.”

He let out a hard breath, rolling his dark eyes. “That’s where you’re wrong. I know you, Sierra West. Probably better than you know yourself.”

“Beg to differ. We don’t know each other.”

“No, but I know your type. You’re spoiled. But you don’t even realize how spoiled you are. Because you’ve never actually experienced life without privilege. How would you know the remarkable pieces of your existence? You don’t know how anyone else lives. Everything you’ve ever needed has been put directly in front of you. You’ve never even had to reach for it. You’re so proud of that college degree, you think it makes you better than me. You think it makes you smarter than me. But you didn’t have to work for it. You didn’t have to pay for it. You’re not in debt over it. You didn’t have to scramble to find a job after you graduated, so in the end, you’ve never even had to use that piece of paper.

“You think you’re too good for this job,” he continued, “you think you’re too good for this bar. You’ve manipulated every boyfriend you’ve ever had with your good looks and your charm, with that little bit of superiority you feel. You do it without even trying.”

His words were rapid-fire, like high-velocity gunfire from an automatic rifle. They hit their marks hard, and they left a lot of damage.

Mostly because he was saying things that she’d been grappling with herself over the past few days. He was drawing back the curtain on the facade of her life. Tearing down pieces of the walls that she wasn’t ready to look behind yet. Parts that concerned herself, and not simply the sins of her father.

The little things that were starting to gnaw at her. Innocuous things. Like getting into her truck. Like realizing she’d never apologized before.

She was raw enough, certain enough that what he was saying had truth to it without him actually saying it.

“Oh, congratulations, you read the rich girl stereotype handbook,” she returned, infusing her words with as much bite as she could manage. She might suspect that he had the right end of the stick, but she was never going to let him see that. Because he didn’t say these things to help her, he said them to hurt her. He didn’t deserve validation. Not from her. Maybe this would be the end of her career as a waitress. But as far as she was concerned he could suck it. “Sadly for you, I read the disaffected hipster bartender handbook. You’re so over life. Money is so mainstream. And so is Coors Light. But of course, you want your business to be successful, and you actually need money to live. So you don’t hate it nearly as much as you pretend.”

She took a step toward him, her breathing labored. “You act like you have some big, deep wound that makes you inaccessible to the rest of us mortals, while you remind me and everyone else that we aren’t really special. You think you’re special, don’t you, Ace? You’re certainly more special than me.” She took another step toward him, and another, and she extended her hand, poking him in the chest. “So complicated and manly. How can a featherheaded little lady like myself ever truly understand you?”

Much to her surprise, he laughed. His lips curving up into a half smile, something dark, dangerous, glinting in his eyes. “Don’t be fooled by the flannel, babe. I’m not a hipster. I’m not that complicated, either. I work, I eat, I sleep and I fuck. End of story.”

His words sent a searing rash of heat burning through her veins. She didn’t know why but hearing that word on his lips made her feel things. All kinds of things.

She hung out with plenty of guys who dropped F bombs like they didn’t mean a thing. She’d been known to do the same herself in the right company.

But when they did it, it was a silly kids’ game. A bid to spit out the most naughty words in the fewest sentences.

It wasn’t like that now. The way he used it...it forced her to see it. Something raw, rough and untamed. Something harder, deeper than she’d ever known before. With that one word he made every other man she’d ever known into a boy, and he made sex something unknown and forbidden, something she was sure she’d barely scratched the surface of.

And they were fighting. Something that should underscore how much she didn’t like him. Something that should douse the heat that shimmered between them. Because fighting was not hot. At least, historically, fighting had not been hot. With him, it was.

If that wasn’t some kind of freaky weird magic she didn’t know what was.

She was breathing hard, and she knew he would be able to tell. If there was anything worse than feeling this strange, errant attraction, it was the fact that it was so completely transparent. She took another step toward him, reached out, her fingertips brushing the collar of his shirt.

Her whole face was hot. Her body was hot. Everything was hot. He really needed to adjust the temperature in here. Or find some way not to be attractive when he was being such a dick.

“Was that supposed to shock me?” she asked.

He leaned in, his face inches from hers. “It did, didn’t it?”

She squared her stance, her breasts nearly brushing his chest. “Do I look like I’m shocked to you?”

“You look like something, that’s for sure,” he said, dark eyes raking over her body. “But let me tell you something, Sierra. I’m not that hard up. You want me, that much is obvious. It isn’t like I haven’t noticed you’re a pretty little thing. But things come too easily to you. You think you can manipulate me like you’re used to doing? You’re out of luck. You need to learn to ask for what you want. If you want me, you’re going to have to ask. You’re going to have to beg.”

That should not turn her on. Absolutely not at all. His words should have been like a bucket of cold water over her head. It should not have been gasoline on a lit match. She took a step back, stumbling a bit, knowing she was doing a terrible job of maintaining her composure.

Somehow, in all of this, with him, she did not have her usual command of herself, of the situation. Was that because of all this stuff with her father? The major revelations and changes that had rocked her existence? Or was it just Ace? She couldn’t decide which disturbed her more.

All of it. All of it was disturbing.

She snorted, straightening the hem on her black tank top, even though it didn’t need straightening. “I’m afraid you have the wrong end of the stick, babe,” she said, repeating his earlier endearment back to him. “Maybe other women routinely lose their alcohol-ridden minds over you, but I’m not going to be one of them. All I want from you is a paycheck.”

“Then why are your cheeks so pink?” he asked, reaching out, dragging his thumb over her cheekbone.

She shivered, a flash of lightning shooting down the center of her bones. It rocked her, rattled her, shook her to her core. It was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. The problem with Ace was that he was different. He was nothing like those boys she had dated in the past. The silly frat bros who were barely edging into their twenties and were more interested in the care and keeping of their own biceps than they were in dealing with a girlfriend.

They were shallow, silly, they didn’t have the kind of intensity Ace radiated without even trying. Of course, she wasn’t entirely certain that was a negative. She wasn’t sure she liked Ace’s intensity. But it touched her. Deep, way down deep, in places no one had ever touched before.

With nothing more than a look and a brush of his thumb against her cheek.

It was problematic if nothing else. And she had enough problematic without adding him to the mix.

“Pure, unmitigated fury,” she said, taking a step away from him. “That makes my cheeks pink without any kind of maidenly excitement, or whatever it is you’re imagining I feel for you. News flash, not maidenly. Not excited.”

“I’ll try not to lose any sleep over that. Be here tomorrow, five thirty.”

“I’ll be here. And I’ll work hard for you, I swear it. By the end of the three weeks you’re not going to be able to deny me the job, Ace Thompson. I’ll wait tables, pour drinks, do dishes and mop floors. I’ll do all that with a smile on my face. But I will never beg. You have a good night, now.”

Heart pounding so hard she thought it might beat its way straight through her chest, she turned from him and walked out of the bar.

What had happened in there was nothing. Just her extended bout of celibacy beginning to show. It had been a while since she’d broken up with Mark. Closing in on a year and a half. And even then they’d been hit and miss since he’d lived and worked in Portland and she’d been in Copper Ridge. So yeah, tonight’s bout of hormones was perfectly understandable.

The fact of the matter was, with everything happening in her family, and her having this job, she really didn’t have the energy to go looking for another relationship.

You don’t actually need a relationship.

That was true. But she’d never really been a random hookup girl. Her relationships had never been intense, but they had been monogamous, and pretty long-lasting. When they died, they always died natural deaths. In the case of her and Mark it was all long-distance stuff. She was never going to move to the city to be with him, he was never going to come to Copper Ridge to be with her. And once they’d both realized that, there hadn’t seemed to be much point in continuing on.

She was regretting that now. Because a well-worn relationship would have been nice right about now. She could have driven up to Portland for a while, spent a few nights with him. She could have distracted herself.

She wondered, for a moment, if it was worth calling Mark up to see if he was still single. To see if he wanted her to come visit.

Except she had a job now, so she couldn’t just take off and go wherever she wanted to.

And the bigger problem was, she didn’t want to. Because she didn’t want Mark.

She let out a long breath, then inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of salt and pine. She was attracted to Ace. That didn’t mean she wanted him. Not in a serious, real way. She had one shot at this job. If she could prove that she could do it, then maybe other people in town would take her more seriously. Maybe they would hire her. If she was ever going to be self-sufficient here, then she needed to get some job experience that extended beyond the West family ranch, and she knew it. Moreover, at this point it was about pride. Ace didn’t think she could do this. All of those rejected job applications meant that most people in town didn’t think she could do this. They might like her, they might respect her family name, but they didn’t think she was capable of being anything more than the daughter of Nathan West.

Suddenly, she felt like she was standing on the edge of a hole. A void containing all of her achievements. Or rather, not containing them. She wondered if she had any. She’d gone to college, but her father had paid for it. She’d gotten a job only because it was assured due to her family connections.

She put her hand on the handle of the truck door that wasn’t hers.

She gritted her teeth, tears stinging her eyes, determination lashing her like a whip. The bottom line was, whatever she felt for Ace shouldn’t matter. Because it wasn’t as important as her future. She was going to prove to him that she could do this job, and that she could do it on her own merit. She wasn’t going to let anyone make her feel ashamed.

She wasn’t going to play these games with Ace, wasn’t going to let him touch her again. Wasn’t going to allow herself to touch him.

She was a waitress right now. And that meant that she was determined to be the best damn waitress in all of Copper Ridge.

CHAPTER FIVE

IT WAS JUST about noon by the time Ace got himself out of the house and to the grocery store. He had a few hours before he was going to check in at the bar and he needed to get some things for his house that extended beyond beer and ranch dip. Like, chips for the ranch dip.

He walked slowly through the store aisles, basket in hand as he perused the shelves. He stopped, turning toward the produce, toward the heads of lettuce stacked all bright green and pointless. He supposed he should probably eat vegetables. Going to the store was always weird. Because he saw things in it that were reflective of a life he could hardly remember anymore.

Liar. You remember it perfectly.

For a while, he’d lived in a house that was well stocked with this kind of healthy stuff. Salad and tomatoes, and all manner of stuff that was good for you but tasted like dirt. He supposed that had also been true of his childhood home. His mom had always had things like that around the house, but he’d figured when he grew up he wouldn’t have to eat it anymore.

At that stage of his life, he hadn’t factored a wife into the equation.

He turned away from the lettuce. He didn’t have a wife anymore. Therefore, he didn’t have salad.

“Ace?”

He turned around, the impact of recognition hitting him like a punch to the gut when he saw the person behind him. “Hayley,” he said, shock being worn away by a rush of guilt the moment he spoke his little sister’s name.

“I haven’t seen you in... It’s been way too long.”

“You know where I work,” he said.

She smiled. “You know where I work, too.”

“Not really interested in paying the church a visit,” he said, shoving one hand into his pocket, tightening his grip on his basket with the other.

“Well, I don’t drink.”

“We serve hamburgers.”

“I know. We should get together, is my point. And not to fight about places neither of us really want to go.”

Hayley was nine years younger than he was, a late-in-life surprise for his parents who had long given up hope on ever having another child. She had been nine when he’d left Copper Ridge for Texas, seventeen when he’d come back.

He had been distant from his family all those years he’d spent away, sporadic phone calls his only real contact. He had always stopped in to visit when the rodeo had passed nearby, but when he’d settled in Austin with Denise his life had just wrapped itself around her, and it had become impossible to do anything but pour himself into that relationship.

“How have you been?” he asked.

She lifted her shoulder, a half smile curving her lips. In some ways, she looked sixteen, instead of twenty-six. Either that or she looked closer to sixty-five. Her dark hair lay flat and limp against her head, restrained by a headband. She was wearing a dark blue sweater set and a long skirt. She was every church secretary stereotype imaginable. Though he supposed he was every stereotype of a pastor’s son.

“Fine,” she said, “nothing really new.”

“Mom and Dad?” That stab of guilt went deeper, drawing blood inside.

“Also fine.” She looked down. “Well, Dad had a bit of a health scare. A little chest pain. But everything was okay. They’re just having him monitor his cholesterol, and all that.”

He thought about his dad, tall, lean. He had a hard time imagining the older man might have issues with his heart. It worried him. It also made him think twice about the lettuce.

“He didn’t have a heart attack?”

Hayley shook her head. “No. Like I said, he’s fine. Ace, if anything serious happened, you know I would call you.”

And he knew that he should call them and try to get updates more often. He should go over for dinner more often than every few months. But what was he supposed to tell them about his life? His father wouldn’t even go into the bar because of appearances in the small town. Hayley and his mother basically had the same policy. And he couldn’t even get upset about that because he had been well aware of how they would feel about him running a bar before he had ever done it. To their credit, no one ever made him feel guilty about his choice; they asked him about how things were going, expressed interest in the place. They just didn’t come in.