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“So what did you decide on?”
“Robin.” Grace choked on a giggle. Susannah grimaced. “I told you I was delirious. I thought it was charming.”
“Christopher Robin?”
“As in Winnie the Pooh, yes. You see why he hates me. He’s refused to answer to anything but Tyler ever since first grade.”
Grace couldn’t think of anything to say. Moments ticked by in silence until she remembered her original reason for coming into the kitchen. She noticed that Susannah hadn’t put the knife down. No time like the present, she thought.
“I just wanted to apologize if I offended you earlier. I assure you I meant no disrespect when I questioned your cooking abilities.” She was proud to hear that her voice sounded steady and sincere. Since she hadn’t been thrown out of the kitchen yet, she thought it time to try a little charm. “My mother only goes in the kitchen to use the phone to order take-out. I’ve learned not to make any assumptions about mothers and cooking. But I’m glad you’ll be in charge here.”
“In charge?” Susannah laughed and the smile carved well-worn tracks in her still lovely face. “You don’t know my son very well if you think anyone but himself is in charge at this restaurant. This is his baby.”
“I don’t know your son at all, ma’am,” Grace said, letting her frustration show. She caught herself reaching to tug on her hair again and tried to force herself to stay still. But the frustration was pushing at her self-control and she couldn’t quite hide the irritation in her voice. “I don’t know him. I don’t have the hots for him. And I certainly don’t want to get involved with him!”
She punctuated each sentence with a pointed finger at Tyler’s mother and before she even finished the last words was already horrified by her outburst.
“So was that someone else I saw kissing him in the office doorway?”
“Oh, God, I was afraid you saw that.”
“Of course I saw it. You’re in my kitchen, aren’t you?” Susannah came around the kitchen island and walked up to the prep counter, detouring to pull a heavy steel ladle from a hook on the wall. “I saw you, too, trying to pretend that the kiss was nothing. Was it?”
Grace chewed on her lower lip for a minute, until she realized that that made her think of Tyler. She wanted to say that it had been nothing, a momentary weakness that had left her untouched when it was over. But I can’t lie about everything, not if I want to be able to look these people in the eye.
“He knocked my socks off,” she admitted. The blush that raced over her face, as Susannah laughed in delight, threatened to catch her hair on fire. “If your son runs a bar as well as he kisses, he’ll have nothing to worry about.”
“But you don’t want to kiss him again.”
Grace didn’t want to anger Susannah, but stuck with the truth—about her intentions, at least.
“No, I don’t.”
But because the part of her brain that said to hell with the consequences wouldn’t shut up, she crossed her fingers behind her back.
“Next time,” Susannah began, and Grace jumped as the forgotten ladle clanged against the steel countertop, “hit him with this.”
Grace gaped at her.
Susannah smiled.
“My boy can be pretty pushy.”
And with that, Grace knew she could relax a little bit around these women. Tyler still made her tense whenever they were in the same room together, but any mother who’d hand a girl a ladle and advise her to knock her son upside the head with it clearly had a sense of humor.
A little bit later she spotted Sarah stocking extra napkins up at the bar and took the opportunity to apologize there, too. With the kindness that she was coming to expect from this family, Sarah refused the apology on the grounds that there was no way Grace could have known.
One last pep talk for everyone, a brief panic because no one could find the chalk for the daily specials board and an argument over who’d been stupid enough to leave the chalk box in the beer cooler, and they were ready for anything.
At 5:00 p.m., Tyler’s Bar & Grill officially opened for business.
Three
Toward the end of her first week at Tyler’s Bar & Grill, Grace admitted to herself that the one possible turn of events that she hadn’t allowed herself to think of was failure.
The average dinner customer might know the Haley Group, the eleven variously styled restaurants owned by Grace’s family, as a string of fabulously successful businesses. But Grace knew from experience how tough it was to open a restaurant and that even with the financial backing and publicity connections her family provided, each restaurant took time to find its crowd and prove itself stable enough to remain in business. She also knew that most independently owned establishments folded in six months.
Catching Tyler’s eye from the wait station at the end of the bar and calling out her drink order, she realized she shouldn’t have worried.
Apparently the man did everything well. And had personally invited everyone in a ten-block radius.
“Two pints of Bass, a Ketel One and tonic with a twist, and a very dirty martini, for the best waitress I’ve got.” Tyler repeated the order back to her with a wink as he set the drinks on her tray.
“I’m the only waitress you’ve got, Tyler. Your sister just told me that she’s a civil engineer. I had to ask her what that was.” She looked to where Addy moved through the dining room, weaving between tables with one of the enormous food trays propped on her shoulder like a pro. “She goes back to designing new neighborhoods on Monday.”
“Isn’t she great?”
“Terrific,” she agreed, thinking that her mother wouldn’t cancel a manicure to help her daughter. Whereas Tyler’s entire family had taken the week off to help him, without his even asking and it looked like Sarah and her mother would be sticking around on a semi-permanent basis. “But if even half this many people continue to show up daily, we’re going to need another server on the floor, and Sarah’s happy washing dishes.”
“Not to mention stitching up dogs and cats and hamsters.”
Grace blinked in confusion for a moment before figuring out how the conversation had drifted to house pets. “You mean, she’s a vet?”
“Veterinary student, last term. She’s completing her internship at a clinic downtown.”
“Even better. But we’re still going to need more help. Did you put an ad in the paper saying ‘free beer’ or something?”
“Nah, most of these people are just good friends who hope I stay in business long enough for them to talk me out of a free meal.” He winked at her and called to a red-cheeked man at the far end of the bar, waving a twenty for his attention, “Keep your pants on, Benny. Can’t you see I’m trying to make time with my waitress here?” As she blushed, he smiled wider and flicked the tip of her nose gently with his finger. “Thanks for worrying about me, darlin’. I’ve got some new help coming on Monday, promise.”
Then he strolled off to the opposite end of the bar and poured Benny his Chardonnay, taking drink orders and chatting up his customers with an ease that hid the half-dozen things he managed to do at one time.
“I’m not worried about you, you jerk,” she muttered as she pulled her tray off the bar and balanced it on her left hand. “I’m the one who’s stuck serving all of these people.” She looked out over the crowd. Nearly every table was full and the bar area was standing room only. She made her way to table six, a two-top up against the wall, dropping the two Bass off at a larger group along the way, and smiled cheerfully at the couple holding hands across the table.
“Here you are. And a very dirty martini for you, sir. Are you two ready to order or do you need another minute?”
They were ready to order, and Grace assured them that they would indeed be very happy with both the Greek Chicken Wrap and the Chicken Vesuvio. In fact, every dish she served from the kitchen looked delicious.
Before she stepped away from the table, the man asked her, “How’s the boss treating you?” He was very eye-catching, with gray-shot blond hair pulled back into a silky ponytail and several days worth of stubble on his face. She thought of pirates and called herself silly.
“Like your typical slave-driver,” she said with a wink to them both. Even before Tyler had mentioned it to her, she’d figured out that just about everyone who walked in the door knew him somehow. The man obviously did not lack for friends. Or female companionship, based on the number of women flirting outrageously with him at the bar. “How do you know Tyler?”
The man snorted. “He was the best damn employee I ever had.” The redheaded woman seated across from him nodded her agreement with mirthful eyes. “At least, before he got this damn fool idea in his head. Opening his own restaurant. Ungrateful brat.”
The redhead burst into outright laughter and tugged sharply on his hand. “Don’t be such a curmudgeon, Richard.” To Grace she said, “My husband is just mad that Tyler wouldn’t let him invest in this place after he quit working for us.”
“Was Tyler your bartender?” Grace asked the man, Richard, politely.
“Bartender? For about three days, he was.” At her look of perplexity, he continued, “He couldn’t have worked more than a couple of shifts at my joint, I hadn’t even met the boy yet when he came marching into my office one day, demanding to run the place.” He smiled with pleasure at the memory. “Told me that my manager was robbing me blind and that if I gave him her job, he’d straighten out the books, double my profit margin and triple my clientele.”
“And?” Grace asked, fascinated in spite of herself by this glimpse into the character of the man behind the bar she was finding more appealing the more she knew him.
“He did it all.” Richard shook his head. “Everything except triple the crowd. He pointed out that that would be beyond my fire capacity for the joint, and then he talked me into adding another room on.”
“Smart guy.” Richard’s wife stated the obvious. “We miss him.”
“Stupid boy,” Richard said and shook his head. “Took him an extra two years to open this place because he was too stubborn to take us on as backers.”
Grace grinned. “Some people just have to do it all themselves, don’t they? You’d better come in as often as you can, then, to make sure he doesn’t go under before Christmas.”
Richard’s shout of laughter caused heads to turn all over the room, including Tyler’s, to whom he called, “Looks like you’ve got a real saleswoman over here, Tyler. I may have to steal her from you.”
“And I might have to cut you off, old man,” Tyler shouted back to general laughter as Grace rushed off to put in her food order.
Fifteen minutes later, when she was back at the bar for yet another round of drinks, Tyler waved her in closer so he could shout in her ear.
“If you’re not in the weeds, I could use a hand with some glass-washing back here.”
“Yeah, right,” she said, eyeing the narrow walkway behind the bar with suspicion. There wasn’t room for two people to work back there without them constantly bumping up against each other.
“I’m serious, Grace. The automatic washer comes in next week, but right now I’m doing them by hand, and with no bar back tonight, I’m not keeping up.”
She scanned her tables and decided they all looked happy and occupied with their meals. It was late enough in the evening that walk-ins were slowing down, and Addy could probably handle the floor for a few minutes.
“We’ll be serving martinis in paper cups soon, Grace. Please.”
“Fine.” She knew she sounded ungracious, but she had her hands full already. Then she ducked through the cutout section of the bar, her tray of empties on the bar preventing her from lifting the flap of counter, and discovered the extent of the disaster.
Red wineglasses, white wineglasses, steins, pints, rocks glasses, highballs, shots and flutes. Glasses piled on the counter next to the three-compartment sink, stacked on the floor, and cluttering up the tops of coolers. She was surprised there was a single clean drinking vessel left in the house.
“‘Not keeping up’? Did you learn your task management skills in Pooh Corner?” She skewered Tyler with a look.
“Don’t even start that,” he snapped, but then had the grace to look sheepish. “Okay. So I might have understated the problem.”
“I’ll say.” She flipped the switch that started the brushes spinning and said goodbye to her manicure.
For fifteen minutes she sweated and splashed and scrubbed her way through what felt like, and very well might have been, five hundred dirty glasses. Plunging each glass repeatedly down onto one of the spinning brushes in the sink of hot, soapy water, dunking the glass into the sink of clean, hot water tinged blue with disinfectant, and finally dipping it in the last sink of cold water to rinse. When she came across the glass someone had been using as an ashtray, she cursed Tyler under her breath.
When she realized she’d washed the wineglasses from a table of neighborhood office assistants and hadn’t managed to remove all of the lipstick from any of them, necessitating a second trip through the cycle, she planned his death.
In several slow, excruciating scenarios. Most involving sharp objects being inserted beneath his fingernails.
She pulled the plugs to let the dirty liquid drain from the sinks before she refilled them with fresh water, and felt Tyler move behind her again. He’d done so a number of times already as she’d washed glasses, each time brushing past her with a minimum of contact. A very professional manner that didn’t keep her from being extra aware of his movements behind the bar. She swore she could feel the heat radiating off his body when he paused behind her and rested a hand lightly on her hip for a moment, talking to the customer at the bar directly in front of her.
She ignored him and thought with pleasure of the end of her shift. For the first time in a month, she wouldn’t be going home to the dubious pleasure of her room at the Sherradin Hotel.
When she’d come into work this evening, Tyler had again asked her to fill out her as-yet-uncompleted paperwork. Although she’d been surprised he hadn’t reminded her of it before this, she’d still panicked at the question and blurted the first words that came into her head, cursing herself for repeating her original pathetic excuse.
“I’m so sorry, Tyler. I left my wallet back at the hotel room.”
“Your hotel room?” he’d asked sharply. She was certain he didn’t buy her lie for a second. “Where are you staying?”
“At the Sherradin Hotel over on Broadway” she’d said, and flinched at the anger that bloomed over his face in an instant.
“Are you an idiot? Do you know what kind of a place that is?” His voice had been loud, booming throughout the room. His eyes, which she’d once thought of as being like dark, starlit water, had been hard and jabbed at her like wrought-iron spikes. “Most of the people staying at that place are renting a room by the hour, whether they’re hooking or dealing. What the hell are you doing there?”
Gathering her pride around her like a tattered shield, Grace had answered him calmly.
“It’s cheap and the door has a lock.”
“A lock? At the Sherradin, you’d better wedge a chair under the doorknob before you go to sleep.”
“I do,” she’d said truthfully.
At her short answer, he’d stopped and stared at her, flexing his hands on the smooth varnish of the bar like a man looking for something to strangle. Pride alone had kept her looking evenly back at him. She might be embarrassed to be living in a room at a hotel patronized almost exclusively by prostitutes and drug dealers, but she’d be damned if she’d be ashamed of it.
After thirty seconds and a short, pithy curse, Tyler strode to the phone and started punching in numbers with stiff fingers.
“Sarah, it’s Tyler. I need a favor from you, darlin’. Can you go over to the Sherradin Hotel on Broadway before you come in here?” He let out a short bark of laughter at the woman’s response. “No, not me. You’ll be meeting Grace.” He looked over to where Grace sat stiff-backed at the bar and grimaced. “That’s exactly what I said when she told me where she was staying. I was hoping you could meet her over there in ten minutes, help her pack her bags and bring everything back here. We’ll figure out where she can stay later.”
When Grace started to protest, Tyler’s stare and the finger he pointed sharply at the chair next to her had her sitting without saying a word.
“Thanks, Sarah. She’ll be out front.” Another pause, and this time when Tyler ran his eyes over her, Grace could feel the heat in them from across the room. “Don’t worry. She won’t open that smart mouth to argue. Thanks again.” He hung up the phone.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but—”
“Shut up and sit down.”
“I am perfectly fine at the hotel.”
“Grace.”
The single word had her shutting up and sitting again. Tyler let out an audible sigh and pressed his fingers against his temples, shaking his head. When she worked up the nerve to meet his eyes again, she saw that all the anger had drained out of them and a calm sympathy remained.
“Grace, when I hire someone, I like to think that they’ll be able to go home and get a decent night’s rest before coming back to work the next day. At that hotel, you’re as likely to get your throat slit as sleep through the night. Now, Sarah’s going to meet you there and you are going to check out this afternoon. We’ll figure the rest out later.”
To her horror, Grace felt the tears fill her eyes again. She blinked them back. The thought of not having to sleep on nerves’ edge at every sound in the hallway was something she’d never thought to be so grateful for. But she wouldn’t cry, damn it. She stretched a hand toward him across the bar uncertainly. She let it drop after a moment, her palm resting flat against the silken grain of the wood.
“Thank you.” She hoped he could hear the sincerity in her words.
After a moment she looked down at her hand, feeling the break of the visual connection with Tyler like the sudden snapping of a taut cord. Would she ever get over the sheer presence of this man? As she watched, both of his hands came sliding over the bar to rest on top of hers, and the sudden catch of breath in her chest made it clear that, no, she might never get past this. His fingers curled around the sides of her hand to tug gently upward on her palm, pulling her hand toward his mouth.
“Don’t thank me, Grace. I try to take care of the people I like. And I like you.”
She felt his breath on her knuckles. Glanced up. Tyler’s eyes were heavy-lidded as he watched his thumbs trace small circles on the backs of her hands. Then his eyes met hers and a slow grin slid over his face as he leaned to kiss her fingertips.
“Just get your butt back here as fast as you can.”
She jerked her hand from his, turned and sprinted out the door.
