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“I’m out,” Matt said. “I’ve gotta get home to Carrie.”
Kevin made a sound like a whip being cracked.
Their soon-to-be-married friend was unperturbed. “Yeah, it’s a real drag, being engaged to a gorgeous woman with whom I share mutual interests, stimulating conversation and really hot sex.”
“I’ll give you a hand,” Nat said to Hayley, no doubt eager for an excuse to leave the three remaining men at the table.
When they returned with the next round of drinks, conversation shifted again to more neutral topics.
A short while later, Kevin left with Hayley, because they were headed in the same direction. Then Carter and Nat headed out together. Jay knew that he should make his way home, too. Weekends were the busiest time at Adventure Village, and he had the early-morning shift the next day—including two birthday parties on-site.
But he stayed where he was, sipping his Coke and wondering about the discovery that his neighbor and the hot new bartender were one and the same.
* * *
Though pouring drinks kept her hands busy, Alyssa’s gaze kept shifting between the clock and the door—and, occasionally, the table where Jason was sitting with his friends. Where he remained after his friends had gone.
Sky bumped her hip. “Should we update our earlier conversation?”
“About what?” Alyssa looked at the clock again.
“Your claim that you have yet to meet someone with whom you want to get naked. Because while you’re acting as if you’re not watching Jason Channing, he’s acting as if he’s not watching you.”
She shook her head. “Jason’s my neighbor.”
“That could be convenient,” her friend said.
“Have you heard anything from Liam?” she asked, eager to change the topic of conversation—and for Sky’s brother to make his promised appearance.
Now Sky glanced at the clock and frowned. “No, I haven’t. And I didn’t expect him to be this late.”
The only consolation for Alyssa was that Diego was late, too. Or maybe he wasn’t coming. She mentally crossed her fingers that she could get so lucky.
“I’ll see if I can reach him on his cell,” Sky said.
“Thanks.”
She looked at the clock again.
Nine twenty-eight.
Sky shook her head as she tucked her phone back into her pocket before heading to the other end of the bar to refill Gavin Virga’s drink.
Alyssa sighed.
“Is something wrong?”
She jolted at the sound of his voice so close, then laughed as she pressed a hand to the heart that was hammering inside her chest.
“I seem to have a habit of startling you,” Jason apologized.
“It’s okay,” she said. “My mind was just somewhere else.”
“I can’t imagine anywhere more interesting than here,” he deadpanned.
She laughed again. “Did you want something to drink?”
He shook his head. “I noticed that you’ve been watching the door.”
“I guess I have been,” she admitted.
“Waiting for someone?” He straddled an empty stool.
“Sort of.”
“How can you ‘sort of’ be waiting for someone?”
“Well, there’s one person I’m hoping will come through the door and another I’m hoping won’t,” she explained.
“Now I’m intrigued,” he said.
Over his shoulder, she saw a familiar figure walk into the bar and swore under her breath.
Or maybe the curse wasn’t as restrained as she thought, because Jason’s brows lifted—a silent question that she didn’t have time to answer. Because Diego had spotted her, too, and was moving purposefully toward her.
And though Jason hadn’t been her first choice, she decided that if she could have a fantasy romance with any man of her choosing, there wasn’t anyone more fantasy worthy than her handsome upstairs neighbor.
“I’ll explain later,” she promised as growing desperation pushed aside both rational thought and common sense. “For now, will you please just go with it?”
“Go with—”
She didn’t let him finish the question before she leaned across the bar and kissed him.
* * *
If this was “it,” Jason decided as Alyssa’s mouth moved over his, he could definitely go with it. For now and as long as she wanted, because her lips were soft and warm and seductively persuasive.
He’d be lying if he said that he hadn’t thought about kissing her, because she was the type of woman that any red-blooded man would be attracted to. But he also knew that it wasn’t always a good idea to act on an attraction—such as when the woman who stirred his blood was a friend, coworker or neighbor. Alyssa checked off two of those boxes, so no matter how much his hormones sat up and begged for attention whenever she was around—and there was no denying that they did—he’d mostly managed to ignore them.
There was no hope of ignoring them now.
She smelled so good...tasted even better.
And he wished there wasn’t eighteen inches of polished walnut between them, so that he could put his arms around her and haul her against his body. He settled for circling her wrists with his hands. His thumbs rubbed over her pulse points, finding evidence that her heart was racing as fast as his own.
“I think that should do it.” She whispered the words against his lips before she eased away.
Do what? he wondered, noting that her mouth was moist and swollen from their kiss, her cheeks flushed.
But before he could catch his breath to ask the question aloud, someone spoke from behind him.
“I heard this was a friendly establishment,” the male voice remarked. “Do all customers get that kind of attention?”
The color in her cheeks deepened. “Diego...um...hi.” Then she seemed to gather her thoughts to respond to his question. “And, uh, no.”
“You must be someone special, then,” the man she’d referred to as Diego remarked, his narrowed gaze focused on Jay.
“Very special,” Alyssa chimed in quickly. “Jason is...my boyfriend.”
Though Jay instinctively chafed against the word, the silent plea in her eyes begged him not to contradict her claim. Recalling her promise of an explanation later, he decided to go with it—at least for now.
“And you would be?” Jay prompted the other man.
Alyssa jumped in again. “This is Diego Garcia, a family friend from California.”
“Well, any friend of Alyssa’s is a friend of mine,” he said.
Diego shook his proffered hand, squeezing more firmly than was warranted.
“You’re a long way from home,” Jay commented.
“I’m visiting a cousin in Elko,” Diego said. “And since I was going to be so close, Renata suggested that I stop in to say hi to her daughter.”
“And now you have,” he said pointedly.
Diego nodded and turned his attention back to Alyssa. “If you’re not working tomorrow night, maybe we could have dinner together,” he suggested.
“I’m not working,” she admitted, glancing at Jay, those melted chocolate eyes pleading. “But—”
“But we already have plans for tomorrow night,” he finished for her.
“Plans that can’t be changed to accommodate a friend from back home?” Diego directed the question at Alyssa.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Jay responded. “You see, it’s our three-month anniversary tomorrow and I have a very special evening planned.”
“How about lunch, then?” the other man offered as an alternative.
“Sorry,” he interjected, though the invitation clearly hadn’t been directed at—or even intended to include—him. “But we’re tied up for the whole weekend.”
“And I’m heading back Sunday morning,” Diego admitted.
“Well, I hope you enjoy your visit with your cousin and have a safe trip back,” Alyssa said, clearly eager for the man to be on his way.
Jay knew that would probably be for the best, but he couldn’t deny a certain curiosity about Diego’s connection to his neighbor. And since Alyssa herself was rather tight-lipped whenever he asked her about her previous life in California, he decided that this was too good an opportunity to pass up.
“But since you’re here now,” he said to the other man, “why don’t you let me buy you a drink?”
Chapter Four
What was he doing?
Alyssa frowned at Jason, silently communicating her annoyance.
She couldn’t imagine Diego saying yes, but still—what could have possessed her pretend boyfriend to make such an offer? She held her breath as Diego glanced at his watch, shrugged.
“I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee before I make the drive back,” he decided.
“Make that two cups, honey bear,” Jason said to her.
Honey bear?
But of course, she couldn’t object to his use of the term because she needed his help if her ploy was to succeed. Instead, she forced a smile. “Of course, sugar muffin. I was just about to make a fresh pot—I’ll have Geena bring it over when it’s ready.”
Though his brows lifted, a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth before he turned away to guide Diego to a vacant table.
“Sugar muffin?” Sky echoed quizzically.
“It was the first thing that came to mind,” Alyssa admitted.
“I can’t believe you’re fake cheating on my brother with someone called ‘sugar muffin,’” her coworker remarked.
“Your brother stood me up,” Alyssa pointed out in her defense.
“He was late,” Sky acknowledged, pretending to be miffed. “And you didn’t wait half an hour to throw yourself into another man’s arms.”
“Actually, I waited thirty-three minutes,” she said. “Desperate times and all that.”
But even as her words justified her actions, her heart—still racing from that kiss—worried that she might have made a very big mistake.
Sky glanced at the table where Jason and Diego were seated as she continued to mix drinks. “He’s actually kind of cute.”
“Jason?”
“No!” Sky said immediately. Vehemently. “Diego.”
Objectively speaking, her friend was right. But Alyssa was more curious about Sky’s reaction to her question about Jason. “Do you have a history with Jason Channing that I should know about?”
Sky shook her head. “Not personally.”
“Impersonally?”
Her friend chuckled. “No. It’s just that I’m a Gilmore and he’s a Blake—or rather, his mother was a Blake.”
“I’m still not following,” she admitted.
“You don’t know about the feud?”
“What feud?”
Sky shook her head, but before she could explain, Margot—one of the waitresses—came up to the bar with an order of drinks for a party table in the restaurant, and Sky turned her attention to filling it.
While she was busy doing that, Alyssa grabbed a bus pan to clear some of the now empty tables.
Jason and Diego were still chatting, and though she was admittedly curious about the topic of their conversation, she wasn’t worried. She’d made her point to Diego. Now he could go back to Elko—and ultimately to Irvine—cured of any notion that there was a future for them together.
She sprayed and wiped a table, then turned and found herself face-to-face with her mother’s best friend’s favorite nephew.
“I wanted to say goodbye before I headed out,” Diego said to her.
“Oh. Okay.” She tightened her grip on the bus pan as he leaned over to kiss her on one cheek, then the other.
“It was good to see you, even for a couple of minutes, Alyssa.”
“You, too.” And now that she knew he was leaving, she managed to say the words with a believable amount of sincerity.
Or maybe she was too believable, because he tried again. “You’re sure you don’t have any free time this weekend?”
She glanced at the table where Jason was still sitting, watching them, and shook her head. “I don’t know what plans Jason has made—” which was the absolute truth “—but if he says we’re booked, we’re booked.”
“I guess I’ll see you in July, then.”
The expression on her face must have matched the blankness of her mind, because he smiled, and she realized that Sky was right—he was kind of cute. But she wasn’t attracted to him in the least.
“Your parents’ anniversary party,” Diego reminded her. “I assume you’ll be home for that?”
“Oh, yes. Of course,” she agreed.
“Then I’ll see you there.”
She exhaled a long, grateful sigh of relief when he finally turned away and headed out the door—crossing paths with Liam Gilmore on his way in.
Sky’s brother glanced toward the bar, his gaze searching. Looking for Alyssa. He found her and was at her side with a few quick strides.
“I’m late,” he acknowledged, his breathless tone suggesting that he’d raced to get there.
“It’s okay,” she told him.
He took the bus pan from her and set it on the table. “You’re too understanding,” he said. “And I’m so lucky that you’re mine.”
Then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
* * *
Sharing a public kiss with Jason Channing had drawn more attention than Alyssa wanted. Now, barely more than an hour later, she was kissing Liam Gilmore in the same bar—with Jason Channing watching!
She pulled away. “Stop. Please.”
“What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong is that you’re making a move on my girl,” Jason said.
Liam scowled at the other man. “Excuse me?”
Jason slid an arm across her shoulders. “Honey bear, you said you were going to tell him that you’d finally found a real man.”
Liam’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
Alyssa stepped between the two men. “Diego was here and you weren’t,” she explained to Liam. “So I tagged Jason to fill in.”
“There was no one else around?” Liam’s tone was petulant.
“Only Jason and Gavin Virga,” she said, naming the octogenarian ophthalmologist who was a Friday night regular.
“So why’d you pick him?” he asked again, glaring at Jason.
Alyssa nudged Liam toward the bar. “Go ask your sister to pour you a beer,” she suggested.
He did so, but only after shooting one last narrow-eyed stare at Jason.
“I appreciate you pinch-hitting tonight,” she said to Jason. “But now that Diego’s gone, you can go, too.”
“I haven’t paid for the coffee.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I figured it was the least I could do to thank you for playing along.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth, lingered. And when his lips started to curve, as if he was remembering the kiss they’d shared, her own started to tingle.
She pressed them firmly together and reminded herself that “Charming” had probably kissed most of the women in Haven at one time or another, and she shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that one spontaneous lip-lock had made any kind of impression on him.
“It wasn’t much of a hardship,” he assured her.
She picked up the bus pan again. “I’ve got to, uh, get this back to the kitchen.”
He didn’t object as she slipped past him.
The dishwasher took the pan from her with a nod of thanks, but Alyssa hid in the kitchen for another minute—just long enough to catch her breath and give her heart a chance to beat normally again.
It was just a kiss.
A kiss that had meant less than nothing to both of them.
And yet...
She lifted a hand to her mouth.
And yet she’d felt so much in those few seconds that their lips had been connected. More than she’d ever felt from just a kiss. More than she’d ever felt with any other man.
“Alyssa?”
She started, her hand dropping from her lips as she turned to Sky. “Um, yeah. I’ll be right out.”
“Actually, I was going to tell you that you could take off early, if you want,” her friend said. “Most of the tables are empty now and there are only a few stragglers left at the bar.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“I’m sure. And you’ve had a rather...eventful night already,” Sky said, her tone tinged with amusement.
“That’s one word for it,” she agreed. “But I should talk to your brother before I go.”
“Liam’s cool—it’s the other one who looked as if he was going to pop a vein in his head when he saw my brother kiss you.”
“Jason?”
“For a moment, I thought fists were going to fly—and then I would’ve had to ban my own brother from the bar for a year.”
It was a harsh punishment, but one Duke insisted be meted out to anyone who dared to throw a punch inside his establishment. Which might be why, in the eight months she’d lived in Haven, Alyssa had never heard about anyone fighting inside Diggers’—although rumor had it that Doug Holland’s bar privileges had been reinstated only at the end of January, a full year after he’d given Jerry Tate a black eye for suggesting that his wife was stepping out. Sky had given Alyssa the background on the situation, explaining that Jerry had clearly been baiting the other man, because anyone who knew Doug’s wife knew there wasn’t another man in town who would want her.
She followed Sky back out front, surprised to discover that Jason had again taken a seat at the bar.
“I didn’t expect you’d still be here,” she said, glancing warily toward the opposite end of the counter, where Liam was sipping a beer and chatting with his sister.
“What kind of a man would leave his beautiful girlfriend alone in a place like this on a Friday night?” he countered.
“The kind of man who isn’t really dating the bartender,” she suggested.
“But that’s not what you wanted Diego to think, was it?”
“Diego’s probably halfway back to Elko by now,” she pointed out.
“Still, I figured I should stick around in case he came back.”
“I think—I hope—he finally got the message tonight.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Jason said. “You were sending out some pretty mixed signals.”
“What do you mean?”
“First you kissed me, then you kissed Gilmore.”
She managed a weak smile. “Yeah. It’s a good thing that Diego had already left, because that might have been a little hard to explain.”
“Try explaining it to me,” he suggested.
“I think I’m going to need a glass of wine for that.”
“Are you allowed to drink on the job?”
She smiled as she shook her head. “I meant at home—I’m finished for the night.”
His brows lifted. “And you’re inviting me to go home with you—after only one kiss?”
“I’m offering to continue the explanation someplace where I can kick off my shoes and put my feet up,” she clarified.
He rose from his seat as she made her way around the bar.
“I’d offer to give you a lift home,” he said, “but I got a ride with my friends—and they all abandoned me.”
“So instead you’re asking me for a lift home?”
He flashed his usual bone-melting smile. “If it won’t take you too far out of your way.”
“Lucky for you, my car has a full tank of gas.”
* * *
He should have left the bar with his friends.
If Jay had walked out with Carter or Kevin, he wouldn’t have ended up kissing Alyssa. Because now that he’d kissed her, he couldn’t stop thinking about it—and wanting to do it again.
At twenty-nine, he was old enough to have learned that he couldn’t always get what he wanted. But as a bachelor and heir to the Blake Mining fortune, it wasn’t a lesson that seemed to apply in his relationships with women. Even back in high school, girls had practically lined up for the privilege of dating him, and he hadn’t wanted to say no to any of them.
It had taken some time—and the anonymity that came with being an unknown freshman at an out-of-state college—before he gained some perspective. He no longer hit on every attractive woman who crossed his path, he ensured that any woman he did go out with wasn’t under the illusion that a few nights in his bed would lead to a ring on her finger and he’d concluded that certain relationships tipped the scales against personal involvement—which was why he didn’t date friends, coworkers or neighbors.
Alyssa was the first woman in a long time who tempted him to break that rule.
Going back to her place—which was only one flight of stairs below his own—was an effective reminder of the most important reason not to make a move on his neighbor. And still, that reminder didn’t completely snuff out the temptation.
“You were going to tell me about your love-struck suitor,” Jay said, stepping across the threshold into her apartment.
She’d never invited him into her place before, and he was suddenly conscious of the fact that he was in her personal living space. A passing thought that turned his mind in a direction he was trying not to go. So he stayed where he was, just inside the door, while she crossed through the living room to the kitchen, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor.
“I don’t think he’s love-struck so much as misguided.” She took a glass from the cupboard and removed the stopper from a previously opened bottle of wine on the counter. “And that’s my mother’s fault.” She held up the bottle to show him the label. “Do you want a glass?”
“Do you have any beer?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Sorry.”
“Then I’ll have what you’re having,” he said.
She poured a second glass, then picked up both and carried them toward the seating area.
“Are you going to come inside and drink it?” she asked, the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth and lighting her dark eyes. “Or would you prefer to have it by the door?”
He’d stayed where he was in order to put as much physical space as possible between them, as if that distance might somehow dull his awareness of her. “It’s a nice door,” he said.
“Similar to the one on your apartment, I’d guess.”
“Similar,” he agreed as he crossed the floor to join her, though he chose a deep leather chair rather than the sofa where she’d settled. “And having spent some time with Diego tonight, I can tell you that he’s more than misguided. In fact, I’d say he’s somewhere between seriously infatuated and head over heels.”
“What was that about, anyway?” she demanded. “He was ready to turn around and walk out the door when you asked him to stay.”
“It was...an impulse,” he told her, because he wasn’t entirely sure of the reason himself.
“Why?” She lifted her glass to her lips.
He shrugged. “Doesn’t the definition of impulse preclude there being a reason?”
“Not necessarily.”
“And anyway, you’re the one who promised an explanation,” he reminded her.
“You’re right.”
“Am I also right in assuming that what happened tonight is somehow connected to the conversation you had with your mother this morning—the one in which you lied about having a boyfriend?”
She nodded.
“And the reason you lied?” he prompted.
“Because of Diego.” She sipped her wine. “No, that’s not entirely true. Diego is only the most recent of my mother’s matchmaking efforts.”
“How many have there been?” he wondered.
“It seems as if there’s a new one every time I go home,” she told him. “At Thanksgiving it was Tony. At Christmas it was Evan—until she realized no progress was being made there and brought Diego in to celebrate the New Year with us.”
“Is your mother a professional matchmaker?”
“No. She’s a financial analyst, but trying to find the perfect man for me has become her latest hobby. Or maybe it’s an obsession. But it’s not because she wants to help me find the perfect guy—she just wants me to find a guy who will convince me to move back to California. And not only is Diego her best friend’s favorite nephew, he lives in the same neighborhood as my parents.”
“That kind of relative and geographic proximity is a definite red flag,” he agreed. “You never want to get involved with somebody that you might run into on a regular basis after the relationship ends, because those encounters can be awkward and messy.”
She studied him over the rim of her glass. “On the surface, that sounds like a valid argument—except for one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“It assumes that every potential relationship is doomed from the start.”
“Have you ever had a relationship that didn’t end?” he challenged.