Now That You're Here

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She shrugged. “I didn’t want to get between you and Emma.”

Guilt grabbed him by the throat. He drummed a quick rhythm pattern on the bar. “You’re right, Tiff. I’m a jerk for blaming you. There’s only one person I should be talking to about this.”

In the kitchen, Emma looked up from a plate of salad as he stepped through the door and let it swing shut behind him. “Hullo, Jimmy. How are you tonight?”

“Surprised. What are you doing, Emma?”

She met his gaze straight on. “I wanted to show you how successful a different menu could be. I think the customers are enjoying the wider selection of food.”

Brains and beauty and guts. A powerful combination. The recognition expanded his irritation. “What’s the profit margin on those salads?”

“The same as the sandwiches. I don’t want you to lose money.”

He leaned against the door frame to rest his hip. “Does that include the plates and silverware?”

Her face and throat flooded with red. “Um…no.”

“Right.” Hands in his pockets, he tried to figure out the real point here. A power struggle between them? Maybe. Emma was a woman used to running a classroom, a career. But he’d established his own life, ran his club to meet his own standards. He didn’t like having decisions taken out of his hands, even by Emma Garrett.

“I meant this for the best, Jimmy.”

“I’m sure you did.” He sighed. Staying mad at Emma for any length of time had been impossible when they were kids, something between them that didn’t seem to have changed. “The money doesn’t really matter a damn.”

“I know.”

“But if I wanted this place to be something different, it would be.”

“The question is, why wouldn’t you want it?”

“Because…” He shook his head. “That doesn’t matter, either. No more surprises, Emma, okay? At least talk to me first.”

“I did talk to you.”

“And then you ignored what I said.”

“I was right—the customers like a more sophisticated menu.”

“You were. You will be again.” Jimmy straightened. “In fact, you might just be right about everything one hundred percent of the time. But this is my place and what I say goes. Clear?”

Emma lifted her chin. “Yes, sir. Perfectly clear.”

“Thanks. You can keep the salads and the chicken. And the dishes. But that’s as far as we go.”

A minute later, behind the closed door of his office, Jimmy aimed a pencil and sent it flying, straight as an arrow, toward the opposite wall.

Emma was shaking up his world again. Only he wasn’t seventeen anymore. He hadn’t believed in happy-ever-afters since he was eight years old.

And he really hated being tempted to change his mind.

CHAPTER FIVE

DARREN’S FIVE-PIECE BAND played at The Indigo for the first time the following Sunday night. The crowd was small, but the music surprisingly good. Emma listened for most of two sets—she got only three orders, for nachos, all evening. When the last of the customers left about eleven-thirty, cleaning up the kitchen took her all of five minutes.

She stepped across the threshold into the darker club room and instinctively glanced to the right, toward Jimmy’s office. He hadn’t made any kind of appearance tonight. But a patch of light fell through his open doorway, signaling his presence. Now was as good a time as any, she supposed, to make her request.

He sat behind the desk with his chair turned sideways. At the sight of his strong profile, Emma caught her breath. Proud, intelligent, compelling, and obviously a man of Native American descent. A heritage he was determined to ignore.

Lost in thought, he didn’t notice her for a moment. Then, though she hadn’t moved, he turned his head. “Hey, Emma. I just called—the cab should be here in a few minutes.”

“Good.” She took a step into the room. “Before I go, I have a favor to ask.”

“What’s that?”

“I would like to borrow the medallion and its box.”

His straight black brows drew together. “Any particular reason?”

A deep breath steadied her voice. “I’ve made a list of galleries in the area specializing in indigenous artifacts. I thought I would visit some of them tomorrow, since the club’s closed on Mondays. The dealers will be able to give me more information if they can see the actual piece.”

He shook his head. “Emma—”

She held up a hand. “I’m not asking you to participate. But I can’t forget what my dad wanted, either. I’ll pursue the research by myself, if you’ll lend me the medallion.”

Without a word he turned his chair to face the wall behind him. For the first time, she noticed a built-in safe there. The combination lock whirred, the door opened, then Jimmy turned back to set the box on the desk.

Emma picked it up and flipped the catch. Struck by the overhead lighting, the disk inside gleamed like an actual sunrise. “It’s so unusual. I haven’t found anything quite like it listed anywhere online.” She traced a line of fine engraving with her fingertip. “I think it must be more than an ordinary concha,” she said, referring to silver disks used as decorative elements in Indian jewelry. “Perhaps part of a necklace, for which the chain has been lost.”

Jimmy cleared his throat. “There are rough places at two o’clock and ten o’clock that look like there might have been rings welded on at one point.”

Holding the medallion close to her face, she squinted at the edges. “Ah. I see them. They’ve been polished smooth, but not quite erased.” She glanced at the man across the desk. “You must have looked at this again.”

“I’ve looked at it a lot. I really appreciate that your father thought of me.” He let his head rest against the back of the chair. “Not that I know why—we didn’t see each other even once after that summer. You went back to England to start college, he left for some other research site. And the Christmas cards stopped after a couple of years.”

“Yes, they did.” Emma sat down without being asked, still cradling the disk in her palms. “Once you finished basic military training, you seemed to be awfully busy, and I couldn’t tell if you wanted me to write or not.”

“I liked hearing from you. But I didn’t have all that much to say. Army life’s pretty much the same every day.”

“What you think about is always different.”

Jimmy grinned slightly. “In the army, you’re trained not to think.”

“You didn’t like the service?” After his curt behavior over the chicken and salads, she supposed she should be distant, reserved. But an opportunity to hear Jimmy talk about himself couldn’t be wasted.

“More or less. I got to see places—not tourist spots, but the real world. I usually had a meal and a place to sleep, unless the operation went wrong. That didn’t happen too often. Made a friend or two, learned to live with malaria—”

“My father contracted malaria in Africa.”

Jimmy nodded. “Me, too. We were doing reconnaissance in Angola. I lost my pills in the mud somewhere and didn’t get back to base before my immunity wore off. But at least there’s treatment.”