by Jill Shalvis
“We didn’t order yet,” Sam said.
“Oh for the love of—” She slapped Tanner’s hand before he could snatch a nacho, picked up the platter and the beers, and once again vanished.
She was back a breathless moment later, looking flushed as she held her order pad. “Okay, let’s start over. I’m Becca, your server for tonight.”
“You sure?” Sam asked.
She let out a theatrical sigh. “Listen, I’m not exactly in my natural habitat here.” Suddenly she straightened and gave them a dazzling smile as she spoke out of the corner of her mouth. “Quick, everyone look happy with your service. My hopefully new boss is watching. I made a bet with him that I could handle this job and I have tonight to prove it.”
Sam craned his neck and saw Jax at the bar, watching Becca. “It’d help if you were actually serving,” he said.
“Working on that,” she said, and vanished.
The three of them watched her go for a moment. She went straight to the bar, smiled at Jax, grabbed a tray of drinks, and then brought them to a table. That she had to take drinks right out of a few people’s hand and switch them to someone else’s made Cole and Tanner chuckle.
“She can’t serve worth shit,” Tanner said. “But she does have a great smile. And those eyes. Man, it’s like when she looks at you, you’re the only one she sees.”
Sam watched her take an order from the table. One of the customers said something and she tossed her head back and laughed. Not a fake I-want-your-tips laugh, but a genuine, contagious one that made everyone at the table join her.
Cole and Tanner were right. She was cute. And as he already knew from catching her staring at him several times now, she absolutely had a way of making a guy feel like he was the only one she saw.
She left the table and vanished into the back, coming out a moment later with a tray laden with plates of food. The muscles in her shoulders and arms strained as she moved, and Sam found himself holding his breath. Maybe she did suck as a waitress, but no one could deny that she was working her tail off. She got all the way to the back table before she dumped the tray.
Down the front of herself.
The man closest to her must have gotten sprayed because he flew to his feet and held his shirt out from his body, jaw tight. He said something low and undoubtedly harsh given the look on Becca’s face as she bent to clean up the mess. Grabbing her elbow, he gave her a little shake, and before Sam gave it a second thought, he was on his feet and at Becca’s back.
“You’re the worst waitress I’ve ever seen,” the guy was yelling. “You are nowhere near good enough for this job.”
The barb hit. Sam could tell by the way Becca took a step back as if slapped, bumping right into him.
“You’re going to pay for the dry cleaning of this shirt, do you hear me?” the guy went on.
“Hard not to,” Sam said, steadying Becca. “Since you’re braying like a jackass.”
Becca slid Sam a look that said she could handle this. When he didn’t budge, she made a sound of annoyance and turned back to the pissed-off customer. “I’m sorry,” she said. “And of course I’ll pay for your dry cleaning.” Then she bent again to clean up.
Sam crouched down to help her scoop the fallen plates onto the tray, but she pushed at him. “I’ve got this,” she whispered. But she was trembling, and her breath hitched. “Stop, Sam. I don’t need you to help,” she insisted when he kept doing just that.
He’d disagree with her, but that would only back her into a corner. So he continued on in silence, and then when she vanished into the kitchen, he went back to his table.
Tanner and Cole were grinning at him.
“What?”
“You tell us what,” Cole said.
“I was just helping.”
“No, helping would be going into the kitchen and wrangling us up some burgers,” Tanner said, rubbing his belly. “I’m starving.”
Sam shook his head and turned on his iPad again. “Where were we?”
“You were playing hero,” Tanner said.
Sam ignored this. “Our boat fund will hit its projected mark this year,” he said.
Both Cole and Tanner blinked at him.
“You’re serious,” Tanner finally said. “You really did manage to pay us and save a mint while you were at it.”
“Do I ever joke about money?” Sam asked.
“Holy shit,” Cole said. “Just how much are we making anyway?”
Sam thumbed through the iPad, brought up their receivables, and shoved the screen across the table.
They all stared at the numbers and Tanner let out a low whistle.
“Why the hell are you so surprised?” Sam asked, starting to get insulted. “I send you both weekly updates. Between all the chartering and the profits from the boats I’ve been building, we’re doing good.”
Both Cole and Tanner still just stared at him, and Sam shook his head in disgust. “I could be ripping you guys off, you ever think of that?”
“Yeah,” Cole said. “Except you’re a terrible liar and you’re not nearly greedy enough.”
Needing the beer Becca had taken away, Sam went to the bar for a pitcher. The bar was crazier than usual, and Sam realized he saw only a hungry crowd and no sign of Becca at all. He took the pitcher back to his table and poured.
“To Gil,” Cole said, and as they always did, they drank to Gil’s memory.
A few minutes later, wondering if maybe Becca had gotten her sweet ass fired, Sam stepped into the hall and found her standing there with her back to him, hugging herself with one arm, the other hand holding her cell phone to her ear.
“No, I can’t come play at your concert,” she was saying. “I’m— They’re paying how much?” She paused. “Wow, but no. I can’t— Yeah, I’m fine. In fact, I’ve got my toes in the sand right this very minute, so you just concentrate on you, okay?” She paused. “The noise? Uh . . . it’s the waves. It’s high tide.”
This was when she turned and caught sight of Sam standing there. Flushing a deep red, she held his gaze. “Gotta go, Jase. The whitecaps are kicking up and it’s making my muse kick into gear.” She lowered her voice and covered her mouth and the phone, but Sam heard her whisper, “And don’t come out here. Okay? I’m good. Really, really good. So just stay where you are.” She disconnected and made herself busy stuffing the phone into her pocket before flashing Sam her waitress smile. “I think your order’s almost up.”
“How would you know? You’ve got your toes in the sand.”
She drooped a little. “Yeah. I’m probably going to hell for that one.”
“Jase?” he asked.
“My brother.” She sighed. “You know families.”
Yeah, Sam knew families. He knew families weren’t necessarily worth shit, at least not blood families. He wondered what her story was, but before he could ask, she sent him one last shaky smile and walked away.
Chapter 5
It was two thirty in the morning when the bar finally got quiet. Becca was cleaning up, or supposed to be, but really she was staring at the piano again.
It was always like this. She’d be drawn by the scent of the gleaming wood, the keys, the beauty of losing herself in the music.
And then she’d sit and the anxiety would nearly suffocate her.
It’d taken her ten years of playing, from age seventeen to twenty-seven, ten years of needing anxiety meds to get on stage, before she’d admitted she didn’t have the heart for that life. She might have said so sooner but her brother had needed her, and her parents had depended on her being there for him. A painful crush on their manager Nathan had only added to the pressure. The crush had eventually evolved into a relationship, but when that had failed, she’d walked away from the life.
That had been two years ago.
She’d been working at an ad agency ever since, writing jingles for commercials. Behind the scenes really worked for her, though about a year ago, Jase had hit rock bottom and Nathan had come to he
r, pressuring her to give their world another go.
She’d refused, but the aftermath from that confrontation had killed off her muse but good.
Becca had promised herself that she’d never again duet in any capacity. Especially relationships.
Now, at age twenty-nine, she decided she was all the wiser for that decision, and not missing anything.
Play me, Becca. . .
Once again she looked around, and when she saw no one watching, she allowed herself to sit. Before she knew it, her fingers were moving, this time playing one of the first songs she’d ever learned, “Für Elise” by Beethoven. She’d been twelve and had eavesdropped on Jase’s lessons. He’d hated practicing, but not Becca. She’d been happy practicing for hours.
When she finished, she sat there a moment, alone in the bar, and smiled. No urge to throw up! Progress! Getting up, she grabbed her things from the back, turned to go, and found Jax standing there.
“You going to freak out again if I tell you that you’re really good?” he asked quietly.
“At waitressing?” she asked hopefully.
“No, you suck at that.”
She sighed.
He smiled and handed her an envelope. “The night’s pay.”
She looked down at it, then back at his face. “I’m not invited back, am I?”
He gave her a small smile. “Did you really want to be?”
She blew out a breath. “No.”
His smile widened, and he gently tugged at a loose strand of her hair. “Come play piano anytime you want. You’ll make bank in tips.” He looked at her. “Breathe, Becca.”
She sucked in a few breaths. “I’m not ready for that.”
His eyes were warm and understanding. “When you are then.”
She laughed softly, unable to imagine when that might be. “Thanks, Jax.”
“You going to be okay?” he asked.
A lot of people asked that question, but few really wanted to hear an honest answer. She could tell Jax genuinely did. But being okay was her motto, so she mustered a smile. “Always,” she said.
She walked home, let herself into her building, and then stopped short when she realized that the middle apartment, the one next to hers, was open. The front door was thrown wide, and from inside came a bunch of colorful swearing in a frustrated female voice.
Becca tiptoed past her own door and peeked inside the middle unit. There were lights blaring, boxes stacked everywhere, and in the center of the mess stood a young woman about her own age, hands on hips, surveying the chaos.
“Hi,” Becca said, knocking on the doorjamb. “You okay?”
The woman whipped around to face Becca, a baseball bat in her hands before Becca could so much as blink. She took one look at Becca, let out a short breath, and lowered the bat. “Who are you?” she demanded.
Becca let out her own shaky breath. She was good with a bat, too, but it was one thing to have it in your hands, say at a softball game. It was another thing entirely to be in danger of having it wielded at your head. “I’m Becca Thorpe,” she said. “Your neighbor. And I recognize you. You were working at the vintage store where I spent a fortune the other day.”
“Oh. Yeah.” The woman grimaced and set the bat aside. She was petite, with dark hair and dark eyes. Caucasian features but she looked somehow exotic as well. Beautiful. And wary. She was wearing low-slung jeans, a halter top, and a bad attitude as she dropped the bat. “Sorry if I woke you.”
“You didn’t,” Becca said. “I’m just getting home from being fired from my first day on the job at the bar.” She smiled, thinking that she would get one in return, but she didn’t.
“Olivia Bentley,” the woman said. “Sorry about the job, I’ll try to keep it down in here.”
“It’s okay. I just moved in, too. Need some help?”
“No.”
“You sure?” Becca asked. “Because I—”
“No,” Olivia repeated, and then sighed. “But thank you,” she added as she moved toward the door in a not-so-subtle invite for Becca to leave.
“Okay then.” Becca took one step backward, out of the doorway and into the hall. “Well, good—”
The door shut on her face.
“—Night,” she finished. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one having a rough day.
Sam told himself he was too busy to be curious about Becca over the next few days. He and the guys took a client for an overnight deep-sea fishing trip. They also had two scuba trips. They were running ragged, but that was the nature of the beast for the summer season.
Not much of a sleeper, he tended to stay up late, which is when he did the paperwork required for the business, and his boatbuilding. He liked to do both alone. In fact, he liked to be alone.
He’d noticed that there were now curtains on the lower windows of the building kitty-corner to his. And that sometimes, he could hear the strains of a piano playing. The classical music wasn’t something he’d have thought was his type, but he found himself keeping his own music off in order to hear more of it.
He also noted that when he ate at the bar and grill, there were no pretty, curvy, charismatic brunette waitresses spilling beer and mixing up orders.
Telling himself to stop noticing such things at all, he was in the office of his shop working on his laptop on finances. His own, and the few others he took care of. One of those very people walked in about an hour later.
Amelia Donovan had her latest investment statements in hand.
“I need an English translation,” she said, and tossed the statements onto his desk.
Amelia was Cole’s mom. And in some ways, maybe the best of ways, she was also Sam’s. He’d landed with her one of the times that his dad had screwed up enough that social services had stepped in. Once Amelia had gotten him, she’d made sure she was his only foster care after that, which meant that for most of Sam’s trouble-filled teenage years, he’d seesawed between his dad’s place and Cole’s.
Sam hadn’t been easy.
Actually, he’d been the opposite of easy.
But Amelia had accepted him in her house without fuss up until age seventeen, when he’d left to go work on the rigs in the Gulf. She’d even forgiven him when Cole had given up a promising college baseball career to follow him. She was a born caretaker, handling her large family with the perfect mixture of drill-sergeant and mama-bear instincts. She easily kept track of everyone, from their birthdays, to their coming and goings, to whom they were dating. She always knew if her little chicks were bored, happy, upset, or hurting.
What she couldn’t ever seem to do was balance her own checkbook.
Cole’s dad had passed away the previous year from a heart attack, and Sam had been doing the banking for Amelia, handling all her other finances as well. But the reality was, he’d been doing that for years anyway. She’d retired from her high school teaching job and was still doing okay, a feat she attributed entirely to Sam, always saying that she owed him.
She didn’t owe him shit.
Sam didn’t care how much money he’d made her in investments, he could never repay the debt of having her watch out for him and keep him on the straight and narrow.
Or at least as straight and narrow as he got . . .
He picked up the statements and looked at her. “It’s late. You okay?”
“Yes. I just got held up watching The Voice.” A natural beauty, Amelia had turned fifty last year, but looked a decade younger. Cole had gotten all of his charm and easy charisma from her. She was barely five feet tall, of Irish descent, and had the temperament to go with it.
And a backbone of pure steel.
Sam handed her back the statements. “The English version is that you made a shitload of money this quarter, so no worries.”
She nodded, but didn’t smile as he’d intended.
“What?” he asked.