The Wedding Bargain

He waited and listened to her give a series of quick instructions to an assistant.

“Okay, I’m back. I’ve already told Mom I’ll be there before dinner, and she talked me into staying the night. I also told her that if she wants us to drop everything and spend the whole day up there, then she shouldn’t throw a party in the middle of the week.”

He was willing to concede that Lexi made a good point, even though he didn’t agree with her and neither would their mother. As far as Sophia Morgan was concerned, nothing was as important as family, and he felt the same way. As much as he had wanted to build on his father’s business—and so far his success had exceeded even his expectations—he had done it as much for his family as for himself.

He divided his time between his family’s home in Napa Valley and his apartment in San Francisco, which meant he was back and forth fairly often. His sister Ginny and her husband lived in the valley at one of the family’s vineyards. Lexi was the only one who’d chosen a career outside the family business and made a permanent move to the city. She was a shrewd businesswoman, even a little hard-nosed at times, and was also the only one of his siblings who was periodically at odds with their mother. The fireworks had started the day she hit puberty, escalated through her teen years and finally settled into an accepting but arm’s-length relationship around the time she left for college.

“Has our mother ever thrown a party that wasn’t on the actual day of someone’s birthday?” he asked.

“No, but it’s not like Ben would know.”

“Ah, but she would,” he reminded her.

“Yeah, I know, and I’ll be there. I will. Just not for the whole day.”

“Okay, okay. No guilt trips from me. I’ll see you sometime tomorrow afternoon.”

He tossed the information packet from the Realtor into the glove compartment, took out a pair of sunglasses and flipped open his appointment book. This had been his last scheduled meeting for the day. Now he’d satisfy his curiosity about a little bar called the Whiskey Sour and the high-spirited redhead who ran the place. He’d thought a lot about both since he’d met her at Rory and Mitch’s wedding on Saturday evening, and he was looking forward to seeing her again. This time on her turf.

He was more interested in her bar than he was in her, though. She had implied that her business wasn’t doing all that well, so there was a very good chance she’d consider selling. And if she hadn’t considered it, well, he could be persuasive.

Still, she was an intriguing woman in her own right. That amazing cascade of red hair would make any man a little crazy, and those piercing green eyes could cut through any pretense. He didn’t often meet a beautiful woman who didn’t use her looks to her advantage, and that’s what had intrigued him most. She had introduced herself simply as Jess, but it had been easy enough to find out that her name was Jessica Bennett. She was the owner and sole proprietor of the Whiskey Sour, and according to the telephone directory she rented an apartment about six blocks away. Which might sound a bit stalkerish, but he’d learned the hard way to check out people, especially women, before letting them into his life.

Not that Jess had given any indication she wanted in. She hadn’t come across as a gold digger, but then neither had most of the others. Jess seemed down-to-earth and completely unpretentious, and she had made her thoughts on wine tasting abundantly clear. She thought it was pompous. Then there’d been the quip about him being one of Jonathan’s criminal cases. Somewhat to his surprise, he had found it refreshing, and it still made him smile. She might have been more restrained if she’d known who he was, but there was also a good chance she wouldn’t.

The sun had finally put in an appearance, and before he drove away he put on the sunglasses and debated whether or not to put the top down. Better to leave it up, he decided. He’d have to park on the street and he wasn’t all that familiar with the neighborhood. A few minutes later he pulled into a parking spot behind a red scooter and knew he’d made the right decision. Jess’s bar was on the street level of a two-story building that had seen better days. It was in better shape than the place he’d just seen and although the location was sketchier, there was some new development down the block.

This should be interesting. In spite of her elegant appearance on Saturday night, she had not been comfortable in the strapless gown or the high-heeled shoes—especially not the dress—but he still had trouble picturing her running a blue-collar establishment, and that’s clearly what this was.

He opened the door and stepped inside the dimly lit space, realizing he’d forgotten to leave his sunglasses in the car. He shoved them up onto his head and waited for his eyes to adjust. The place smelled of beer and disinfectant with a hint of deep-fryer fat that was past its prime. Gradually he became aware that all eyes—those of two older men perched on stools that flanked one corner of the bar and the young brunette behind the bar—were on him.

Or…was that Jess?

It was. The lighting was deceptive and the brunette was actually a redhead. He approached the bar, taking in the unexpected transformation of the ill-at-ease woman in the strapless blue gown into this casual ponytailed barkeep in a man’s blue-and-white-pinstriped dress shirt worn jacket-style over a gray T-shirt. He had been oddly attracted to the initial version, but he was out-and-out intrigued by this one.

“This is a surprise,” she said.

He’d be willing to wager that he was more surprised than she was. Without taking her eyes off him, she finished pulling a glass of beer and slid it across the counter to one of the only two customers in the place.

Michael nodded a greeting to the two men and took a stool, leaving an empty one between them, and turned his attention back to Jess. “I was in the neighborhood.”

“Were you?” Her tone implied that she didn’t believe him. “What brings you down here?”

You, he was tempted to say, but that wasn’t entirely true and she’d never believe it anyway. “Real estate,” he said instead.

“I see. Buying or selling?”

“Buying.”

She was back to looking skeptical again. At the wedding she had mentioned that the mechanics who had been her grandfather’s old friends still frequented the place. Her two customers had to be them.

“What can I get you?” she asked.

He thought about asking for a glass of wine just to see what she’d give him, but he was pretty sure that would tick her off. Instead, he did a quick survey of what she had on tap. A small but impressive selection. “I’ll have a Guinness.”

She reached for a glass and while she filled it, he studied her face. At the wedding she’d worn her hair loose and her makeup had been flawless. Today he doubted she was wearing any, except maybe some mascara. With her coloring, the long, sweeping eyelashes seemed too dark to be natural. She looked young, probably much younger than she actually was, and the faded, slim-fitting jeans and black-and-white high-topped sneakers made her seem even more youthful.

She set the glass on a cardboard coaster in front of him. “What kind of real estate are you looking for?”

“A location for a new wine bar.”

“So you really do know something about wine.” Her grin took the edge off the dig.

“I do.”

“I sure don’t need any more competition, but a wine bar sounds like the kind of place the neighborhood newbies will go for.”

Unlike the two men seated at the bar. They were a couple of old-timers in every sense of the word. Michael took a quick look around the interior. “I don’t know. If you fix up this place, you’d attract a diff—” The two men had stopped talking and had tuned in to his conversation with Jess. “You’d bring in more business.”

She gave him a long, thoughtful look. “I’m working on it.”

If she had a plan, she apparently wasn’t going to share it with him. “Have you considered selling?” he asked instead.

She’d started to clean the counter with a damp cloth, but she paused in midswipe. He noticed that the pink nail polish she’d worn at the wedding was gone. “If that’s why you came in here, you should have saved yourself the trouble. The Whiskey Sour is not for sale.”

It had been an innocent enough question, but she was genuinely offended by it. “No problem. I just looked at a place on Folsom Street. It needs work, but it’s the best I’ve seen so far.” With the exception of this place. He wanted a building that had the feel of an old warehouse, in keeping with the neighborhood, and Jess’s bar had everything on his list—interior brick walls, exposed overhead ducts and wiring, and original plank floors that had, over the decades, been buffed into a natural patina. Didn’t she realize she was sitting on a gold mine? Then again, her business was none of his.

“Do you live around here?” Her voice sounded distant all of a sudden, and he could tell she was still suspicious about his motivation for being here. Damn. That’s not what he’d intended.

“I have an apartment on Nob Hill. What about you?” he asked, although he already knew the answer.

“Not far from here.” She backed away and leaned on the counter behind the bar, arms folded, ankles crossed.

This was not going well.

He took the sunglasses off his head, folded them and set them on the bar. “So I was wondering, would you like to go out for dinner sometime?” She looked as surprised as he felt. He’d thought a lot about asking her out since he’d danced with her on Saturday night, but he usually had more finesse than this.

“Oh. Um…I work here most nights so…no. But thanks.”

The skinny man sitting closest to him shifted slightly on his stool. “She doesn’t work on Thursdays,” he said.

“Larry! No help from the peanut gallery.”

Both men were smiling broadly and nudging one another with their elbows. “When was the last time you went out on a date?” the heavyset man asked.

Jess’s face turned a revealing shade of red. “Bill, that goes for you, too. You guys are as bad as Granddad used to be.”

The man named Larry wasn’t finished. “She has another bartender who’s here every Thursday,” he said to Michael. “So tomorrow night would be good.”