Reese's Wild Wager

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Tip her tiara, indeed.

Not likely.

Squaring her shoulders, she marched back to the tavern, determined not only to honor her end of this ridiculous bargain, but to put all prurient thoughts about Reese Sinclair out of her mind.

She hadn’t spent nine months in culinary school and restaurant training for nothing. Squire’s Tavern was distinctly eighteenth-century English: Tudor design with dark woods, rough-hewn oak beams, peg and groove floors, and a massive stone fireplace. There was a warmth to the tavern that welcomed its customers, and the food was very good. She was particular to the hamburgers and French fries herself.

Still, that didn’t mean there weren’t areas that could stand a little improvement. A tweak here, a nip there. Why not pass along a few of the ideas that had popped into her head as she’d walked through the main restaurant area this morning?

And anyway, Sydney thought as she let herself in the back door of the tavern, no matter what she did, Reese probably wouldn’t notice at all.

Three

“Who the hell put tablecloths on these tables?”

Fists on his hips, Reese stood in the center of the tavern and glanced around the room. Crisp, white linen tablecloths covered the black oak plank tables. In the center of every table, small crystal vases each held one single pink rose. Though he kept the tablecloths and vases in his back storage room, he’d only used them a few times for private parties.

“Sydney!”

He’d left her alone too long, dammit. He’d showered in record time, threw on a white shirt, his Sunday blue jeans and black bullhide boots, then hightailed it over here. And still that wasn’t fast enough to keep the blasted woman from causing trouble.

Tablecloths and flowers, for God’s sake.

“Sydney!” He turned and stalked toward the kitchen door. “Where the devil—”

He was going in as she was coming out. The door slammed into his nose with a loud thwack. An arrow of hot pain shot straight through his skull, then exploded into thousands of tiny, blinding white stars. His oath was loud and raw.

“Reese Sinclair, what kind of talk is that?” Shaking her head, she moved past him, a small blackboard and easel in her hand, oblivious to the fact she’d just rearranged his septum. “Are you always this cranky in the morning?”

“Cranky?” Holding his nose, he followed her to the front door. “You haven’t even begun to see cranky.” His growl was nasally. “But I guarantee you, Syd, it’s coming in on a fast-moving train.”

She clucked as she slid open the heavy wrought-iron latch on the front door. “Maybe you should have slept in. Lord knows you shouldn’t be around people if this is how you behave in the morning.”

“If you recall, I was sleeping until you barged into my bedroom. And what do you mean, I shouldn’t be around people?” He winced as he gently touched the tender bridge of his nose, then pulled his hand away and checked for blood. Thank goodness there wasn’t any. “You’re a walking menace to society and I’m the one who shouldn’t be around people?”

“What in the world are you so excited about?” She set the blackboard on the easel by the hostess podium, then turned to face him. “Why are you holding your nose like that?”

“Tablecloths,” he snapped.

“Excuse me?”

“This is a tavern, not a teahouse. We don’t use tablecloths.”

She frowned at him. “That’s why you’re holding your nose? Because you don’t like the tablecloths? Heaven’s, Reese, even for you, isn’t that a bit childish?”

He counted to ten, drew in a slow breath. “No,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “You slammed the kitchen door into my nose.”

“Oh, dear.” She stepped closer and looked up at him. “Let me see.”

Protecting his nose with his hand, he backed away. “You’ve done enough, thank you very much. I’ll take my chances with a hematoma.”

“Stop being such a baby.” She came after him. “I just want to look at it, for Heaven’s sake. I won’t even touch.”

“Yeah, that’s what they all say.” He held up a hand to warn her off, but she just rolled her eyes at his nonsense and kept coming.

She backed him against the wooden bench for waiting guests, then laid her hands on his shoulders and pushed him down on the seat.

“Now, be still.” With her lips pressed firmly together, she placed her hands gently on each side of his jaw and lifted his face. “Hmm. It does look a little red.”

“Of course it’s red,” he complained, but the soft touch of her fingers on his cheeks made the pulsing pain subside. “You clobbered me with the door.”

“I’d hardly use the word clobbered.” She turned his head to the side, stared at him thoughtfully. “It does look a little crooked, though.”

“It was already crooked. Lucian broke it when we were teenagers.” Damn, but her fingers felt nice on his face. Her palms were smooth and warm, and she smelled good, too. Like last night. Lavender and something else. He breathed in deeply, concentrated on the familiar scent….

Vanilla. That was it. Sydney smelled like lavender and vanilla. It suited her, he decided.

“Your own brother broke your nose?” She gently touched the sides of his nose with her fingertips, raised her brows when he flinched. “That sounds a little barbaric.”

She wore a gold, narrow-band wristwatch and the tick-tick-tick echoed in his ears and matched the thump-thump-thump in his temple. He couldn’t remember a woman’s fingers ever being so soft. “He didn’t mean to do it. At least, not to me. He was swinging at Callan, who managed to duck the blow. I, unfortunately, was standing directly behind Callan.”

Shaking her head with exasperation, she turned his head the other way and stepped between his knees as she leaned in for a closer inspection. “So all those stories I heard about the wild, reckless Sinclairs were true, huh?”

“Bad to the bone, sweetheart. Don’t you forget it.”

Her lips turned up at that, and he could see the laughter in her eyes. His gaze settled on that sassy mouth of hers and without his approval, his pulse jumped. Damn, but those lips were enticing, turned up slightly at the corners and the upper lip shaped like a cupid’s bow. The kind of lips that would be a perfect fit for a man’s mouth. And in spite of her sass, he knew she’d taste sweet. Somehow, just knowing that didn’t seem to be enough. He had the craziest desire to experience that sweetness.

Something shifted in the air around them. As if an electrical storm were coming; a heaviness that made it hard to breathe. And with him sitting and her standing so close, directly in front of him, between his legs, no less, he became increasingly aware of Sydney as a woman. A woman with curves, very nice curves. He was certain she wasn’t aware of it, but her breasts were no more than a handsbreadth from his face. From his mouth.

His heart started slamming around inside his chest like a punching bag. He couldn’t be thinking this…feeling this way about Sydney. Sydney and sex simply didn’t compute. The blow to his nose must have rattled his brain. Except for the fact that he’d already had a fleeting, mildly sexual thought about her earlier in his bedroom. Okay, so maybe the thought was a little more than mild, but it had been fleeting.

And now it was back. With nuclear force.

She moved in closer as she gently touched the bridge of his nose, and his blood began to boil. God help him, he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to slip his fingers under her sweater, feel the warmth of her skin and fill his palms with her soft flesh.

He fisted his hands at his sides and pressed his lips tightly together.

“We should probably put some ice on it,” she suggested. There was hesitation in her voice. Uncertainty.

“Probably.” But he didn’t move, and neither did she. “Does it still hurt?” she asked softly, a little breathlessly.

“Yes.” Only it wasn’t his nose he was talking about. There was another part of his anatomy that was now throbbing.

“I’m sorry.” Her cheeks were flushed, her lips slightly parted, and her hands had moved back to tenderly cup his face. “It does look a little swollen.”

He started to choke at her choice of words and she quickly pulled her hands away and slapped him on the back. “Reese! Are you all right?”

Certain he couldn’t speak, he simply nodded, then stood so fast that their bodies collided. Sydney started to fall back, but he grabbed her by the shoulders to steady her.

His hands tightened on her arms as he stared down at her.

Blue eyes wide and soft, she stared up at him.

Damn that mouth of hers.

Damn the torpedoes….

He started to lower his head—

The tavern door swung open wide; Gabe and Melanie came in first, with five-year-old Kevin, Melanie’s son, Callan and Abby came next, then Cara and Ian. The noise level in the tavern increased tenfold as his family spilled like a burst dam into the room.

“Hail, hail, the gang’s all here!” Gabe scooped a laughing Kevin up in his arms, and Reese saw the lift of Gabe’s brows as his gaze landed on the sight of Reese holding Sydney’s arms. Reese quickly dropped his hands. Terrific, just terrific. He could only imagine how this must look to everyone. Exactly like what it was, he realized with a silent groan. Good Lord, he’d almost kissed Sydney!

Thank God his family had rescued him from making a mistake like that. Reese knew he’d take some ribbing for it, but that was a small price to pay to be saved from insanity.

“My mom won’t let me say hell,” Kevin announced to everyone in the way only a five-year-old can. “She gets mad if I even say heck.”

“Hail—” Melanie carefully enunciated the word as she pulled a black felt hat from her head, spilling her thick auburn hair around her shoulders “—means hello,” she explained. “It also means hail as in pellets of ice, but we can talk about that later. Sydney, how nice to see you.”

“Hello, Sydney.” Abby smiled sweetly, ran an unconscious hand through the layered golden curls of a new hairdo she wasn’t quite used to yet but her husband seemed to love.

“You here for Sunday brunch?” Cara asked, shrugging out of her navy peacoat. Though she had barely begun to show in her pregnancy, her hand instinctively moved to her stomach. Ian, her husband, slipped an arm around her from behind and covered her hand while he pressed his lips to the top of his wife’s blond head.

“Sort of.” Sydney folded her arms and looked up at Reese with a smug why-don’t-you-tell-them expression on her face.

The room was once again quiet, all eyes on him.

Dammit, dammit. He’d never intended for that silly card game to go this far, let alone be standing here trying to explain to his family.

And based on that smirk on Sydney’s face, she sure as hell had no intention of making it any easier on him, either.

“Well, it’s kind of funny, actually…” He cleared his throat. “See, Sydney and I were playing poker last night—”

That certainly lifted a few eyebrows, but still, no one said anything. “Well, we sort of had a bet, and, uh, I, well, I won.” He paused, blurted it out in one quick breath. “So Sydney’s going to work here for me for a couple of weeks.”

How absolutely ridiculous it sounded to say it out loud. Eight sets of eyes bored into him.

Then all hell broke loose.

“You did what?” Cara narrowed her eyes disapprovingly.

“A couple of weeks?” Ian’s jaw went slack.

“This is a joke, right?” Gabe frowned.

“Sydney work here?” Callan started to laugh, but Abby elbowed him and shook her head in disbelief.

A pounding started in Reese’s head. “I told her I’d waive the deal and cancel all debts. In fact, I even insisted. She refused my offer.”

“A deal is a deal,” Sydney concurred. “I lost, Reese won. I’m here for two weeks, three hours a day.”

“With full pay and tips,” Reese added quickly, hoping to redeem himself even a little. It was obvious his brothers thought it was hilarious, while the women all looked at him as if he’d kicked a puppy.