Kiss Me, I'm Irish: The Sins of His Past / Tangling With Ty / Whatever Reilly Wants...

“There’s no way you’re going to be there, in charge and alone,” she said quickly. “I’ll do my paperwork at night.”

“Then I’ll do mine during the day.”

Kendra hadn’t noticed that Seamus and Diana had slipped into the kitchen, until she heard their soft laughter. They stood with their heads close to each other, slowly walking toward the hallway.

“I kind of hate to leave,” Seamus whispered. “Just when it’s getting interesting.”

Deuce grinned at Kendra. She glared at him.

“This is so not interesting,” she mumbled, turning to retrieve her papers and put them back in order.

“I disagree,” he said, suddenly way too close to her back. “This could be very interesting. Remember the night we—”

She spun around and stuck her finger right in his face. “Don’t go there, Deuce Monroe.”

With a playful smile, he put both hands over his heart, feigning pain. “Was that night so horrible that you can’t even think about it?”

If only he knew. If only. But he wouldn’t, Kendra swore silently. He would never know.

She gave him a blank stare. “What night, Deuce? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Is that right?” His voice was silky smooth, and the dark glimmer in his eyes sent firecrackers right down to her toes. “I bet I can make you remember.”

“One bet’s enough for me today,” she said, seizing one of the sketches of the new Monroe’s layout and holding it in front of her face. “And I bet I get this.”

He slid the paper out of her hand, and leaned so close to her mouth she could just about feel that Hollywood stubble as it threatened to graze her.

“Let’s play ball,” he whispered.

CHAPTER FOUR

WITHOUT KNOCKING, Deuce leaned against the solid wood door that separated a back office from the storage areas piled high with empty computer hardware boxes. He’d done as much as he could for the past two days from Diana’s home. He’d stopped into Monroe’s a few times, perused the small kitchen and made a few changes around the bar. But he hadn’t yet entered what he still thought of as Dad’s office. Which was always occupied by Kendra Locke.

He eased the door open without any hesitation over the latch. Because there was no latch. There’d never been a working latch as long as he could remember. But, were the employees of Monroe’s still as trustworthy today as in the past? He might have to get that old lock fixed after all.

Despite the unfamiliar high-tech logos and the aroma of a Colombian countryside surrounding him, the solid mass of wood under his shoulder felt very much like home. As the door creaked open, he half expected his father to look up from the scarred oak desk, his broad shoulders dropping, his eyes softening at the sight of his son—right before he launched into a speech about how Deuce could do something better.

Instead of his father’s Irish eyes, he met a blue gaze as chilly as the glycol cooling block he’d just assembled on the long-dormant beer tap behind the bar.

“It’s five-thirty,” he announced to Kendra. “Time for coffee drinking Internet surfers to pack up and go home. Monroe’s is open for business.”

She lowered the lid of her laptop an inch as she lifted her brows in surprise. “Today? Tonight? You’ve only been in town for two days. Don’t you have to unpack, get settled and give me a week or two or three to prepare for these temporary changes in my business?”

“I’m ready for business. Tonight.”

He stepped into the tiny space, noting that the old green walls were now…pinkish. The window that was really a two-way mirror over the bar was covered with wooden shutters that belonged on a Southern plantation. “And there’s nothing temporary about…” He closed the door and peeked at the space behind it. Aw, hell. “What happened to the plaques commemorating Monroe’s sponsorship of Rockingham’s state champion Little League team?”

Her gaze followed his to yet another of those black-and-white nature still-life shots that he’d seen in about six places now. He could have sworn her lips fought a smile.

“Diana Lynn took that photograph,” she said simply. “She was inside a sequoia in California. Pretty, huh?”

He didn’t comment. He’d find the Little League plaques. Dad must have stored them somewhere. “There are two freaks left on the computers out there,” he pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “And they are both immersed not in the new millennium, but in the middle ages from what I can see.”

“Runescape,” she answered with a nod. “That’s a very popular online medieval strategy game. And they are not freaks. That’s Jerry and Larry Gibbons. Those brothers spend hours in here, every day.”

“Do they drink beer?”

She shrugged. “It might impair their ability to trade jewels for farming equipment.”

“They have to—”

“Stay,” she interrupted, jerking her chin up to meet his gaze, even though he towered over her desk. “You can’t kick out my customers at night. If they want to sit on those computers until 2:00 a.m., there’s no reason for them not to.”

“Suit yourself,” he said affably. “But the TV monitors are about to be tuned into Sports Center, and the jukebox will be on all night. Loud.”

She flipped the laptop open again and looked at the screen. “The jukebox hasn’t worked for a year. My customers prefer quiet.”

“It works now.”

She gave him a sharp look. Did she have her head so deep in the books that she hadn’t noticed him out there yesterday morning, installing a CD system in the box?

“No one is going to show up for a drink tonight,” she said, turning her attention back to the computer.

“You don’t know that.” He resisted the urge to reach out and raise that sweet chin, just to see those mesmerizing eyes again. Regardless of how chilly they were. “With the front door open, anyone who passes by could stop in. Walk-in business is the heart of a bar.” The fact that he’d worked the phone and called every familiar name in a fifty-mile radius wouldn’t hurt either.

She shook her head slightly, her smile pure condescension. “Deuce, I hate to break it to you, but Monroe’s pretty much shuts down around the dinner hour. We might have a few stragglers come in after seven or so, and Jerry and Larry usually stay until they realize they’re hungry, but there’s no business done here at night.”

“And you just accept that? Don’t you want to build nighttime revenue? I thought you were an entrepreneur. A capitalist.” He almost made a Harvard joke, but something stopped him.

“I’m a realist,” she said. “People pop into an Internet café during the day, when they need access to cyber space or a break in their schedule. At night, at home, they have computers.”

“So change that,” he countered.

“I’m working on it.” She leaned back in the chair—not Dad’s old squeaker, either, this one was sleek, modern and ergonomic. Crossing her arms over the rolling letters spelling Monroe’s on her chest, she peered at him. “Were you paying any attention the other day or were you so wrapped up in resentment that you didn’t even see my presentation? Remember the plans? The theater? The artists’ gallery? The DVD-rental business?”

He’d gotten stuck on one word. “Resentment? Of what?”

“Of the fact that your father has found…love.”

His elbow throbbed, but he ignored it. “I don’t begrudge my dad happiness. You’re imagining things.”

One blond eyebrow arched in disbelief.

“I don’t,” he insisted. “His…lady friend seems…” Perfect. Attractive. Successful. Attentive. Why wouldn’t he want all that for his dad? “Nice.”

“She is that, and more.” She shifted her focus to the keyboard again, and she began typing briskly. “Now, go run your bar, Deuce. I have work to do.”

You’re dismissed.