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

“But if you’d have pulled your little race-car exploit before Rock High hired him…” He jutted his chin toward the dugout where the new coach stood, surrounded by ballplayers, some of whom listened to his lectures, while others looked anxious to leave.

“What’s his name?” Deuce asked.

“George Ellis. He’s teaching science, too, which I think he’s much better at than coaching.”

Deuce’s gaze moved to the field, then back to Martin. “He’s not bad. Lots of energy. Seems to know how to get them to hit.”

“You’d have been better.”

“Me?” Deuce coughed back a laugh. “No, thanks. I have no interest in going out there and motivating guys who think they know everything.” Guys like him.

They fell into pace together toward the parking lot. “So you’d rather run a bar.”

Deuce heard the skepticism in his tone. “It’s called Monroe’s, Mr. Hatcher. And, since I am called that, too, it feels like the right thing to do.”

“I’m not your principal anymore, Deuce. You don’t have to call me Mr. Hatcher, and you don’t have to give me your load of BS.”

Deuce slowed his step and peered at the man who once had spent hours threatening, cajoling and teasing Deuce. “That was no load of BS.”

“Monroe’s isn’t even a bar anymore.”

“We’re working on that.”

Martin chewed his lip for a moment, then lowered his voice. “Seems to me Kendra Locke has some pretty big plans for the place.”

The Hatchet Man, Deuce remembered from numerous trips to his office, always had a subtle way of making his point.

“I have plans, too.” But then, subtle had never worked that well on Deuce.

Martin paused at the edge of the parking lot, crossing his arms and nodding. “Kendra was a favorite student of mine. Of course, she was a few years behind you.”

“Her brother Jack was my best friend.”

“Oh, yes. I remember Jackson Locke. A rebel, but very artistic. And he liked those basketball bombs over in the teacher’s lot.” He chuckled again. “Let you take the heat for the big one that dented Rose Cavendish’s old Dodge Dart, as I recall.”

Deuce just smiled. “Ancient history.”

“We got a lot of that around here,” Martin mused, his gaze traveling toward the red brick two-story building of the Rockingham High that sat up on an impressive hill. “Kendra has quite a history, too.”

Kendra? Where was he going with this? Deuce waited for him to continue, as he would have if he’d been sitting across Principal Hatcher’s imposing desk, discussing his latest infraction.

“She went to Harvard, did you know that?” Martin asked.

“Yes.”

“Didn’t finish, though.”

“That seems a shame,” Deuce said. “She was real smart.” And kissed like a goddess, too.

“I only had a few Harvard-bound seniors in my twenty-five years at Rock High. So I remember every one.”

“Why didn’t she finish?”

“You’ll have to ask her,” he said, unlocking the door of an older model SUV. “And by the way, she’s still real smart.”

“I know.”

“And you still love baseball.”

Deuce grinned. “I’m not going to coach.”

The other man just laughed and climbed into the driver’s seat. “You spent a lot of time watching practice.”

That Hatchet Man. He was always an observant dude. “Nice to see you again, Mr…Martin.”

“I’ll stop in the bar sometime, Deuce. I heard you packed them in last night.”

“News travels fast around Rockingham.”

Martin nodded. “It sure does.”

Deuce closed the driver’s-side door and said goodbye, watching his old friend and nemesis drive away. Then he turned to the field and took one more deep breath of baseball.

But suddenly he really wanted to know why Kendra Locke had given up her dream, and why that one piece of news didn’t seem to travel like everything else around Rockingham.

CHAPTER SIX

FLAT ON HIS BACK, the cold dampness of the tile floor seeping through an old Yomuri Giants sweatshirt, Deuce swore softly as the broken nozzle of the soda spritzer slipped from his fingers and bounced on his chest. He’d been under the bar for half an hour and still didn’t have the damn thing working right.

Five days into his latest endeavor, and he was fixing his own equipment. At eight in the morning, no less. A decision he made the night before when the sprayer had malfunctioned. As much as he’d like to sleep after a late night running Monroe’s, he wanted to get in before any of the Internet café customers showed up.

Yeah. Right. He shook off a dribble of club soda that trickled onto his cheek and clamped his teeth tighter over the flashlight that shone on the unit.

Who the hell was he kidding? Cybersurfers didn’t care if the bar was being worked on while they shopped online and played medieval trading games.

He’d come in before the place opened because Kendra had made a science out of avoiding him. And Deuce didn’t want to be avoided any more.

But when he’d slipped in the back that morning, he’d heard voices raised in confrontation from behind the partially closed door to the office. He picked up Sophie’s complaints about an employee who was supposed to have done something regarding a software update, and Kendra’s calmly spoken instructions that Sophie take care of the problem.

Instead of interrupting, he’d gone straight to the bar and slid underneath to inspect the faulty spritzer. As he worked, he heard the sounds of the café opening up, and the ubiquitous smell of coffee being brewed.

He just about had the nozzle reinstalled when the coffee aroma was superseded by something light and spicy and pretty. Turning his head, his penlight lit a pair of high-heeled sandals a few feet from his face. His gaze slid up, up, up a long set of bare legs to a short skirt with a flippy hemline.

Man, there was something to be said for a view from the floor.

One of the cream-colored shoes tapped.

“Come on, Deuce,” Kendra whispered to herself. “Where did you hide the soda thingy?”