Playing with Fire (3 page)

They’d just served last call and had started cleaning. A couple of small groups still hung around the high U-shaped counter skirting the perimeter of the shack, and closing time was only ten minutes away.

“Hey,” Macey said, clearly nervous for some reason. “I meant to ask you earlier…would you mind if I stayed at your place while I’m here?”

He’d been mopping up spills on the counter with a towel that was too wet, but froze at her question. A houseguest appealed to him about as much as having someone take a baseball bat to his head. He’d let her stay there last night only because she’d been sound asleep when he found her. He didn’t want anyone witnessing his nightly living room–TV pattern or anything else about his screwed-up life. Especially someone who would report back to his mom. He was surprised she hadn’t trooped down here herself.

“I don’t know, Mace….”

She quickly shook her head, disappointment in her eyes. “Forget I said anything. I can find a hotel.”

He put the towel down. “Look, I know my mom sent you. I’m okay. I don’t need anyone spying on me.”

“Spying? I wasn’t going to spy.”

“But my mom did send you. Didn’t she?” There was no question in his mind; he just wanted Macey to admit it.

“Actually, she advised me not to come. Mentioned you were difficult to be around.”

That summarized it well. “I came to the island to be alone. No offense, Macey, but I need some space. From everyone.”

“I understand.”

But he could tell she didn’t. No one did, and he didn’t expect them to. As long as they left him alone.

“I’m not good company. You’re better off staying somewhere else.”

“Yeah. I get it.” She finished putting everything in its place. “Okay if I head out?”

“Of course.” Considering he’d tried to get her to go hours before. Multiple times. Not to mention she wasn’t an official employee. “Come by tomorrow and I’ll pay you for the day.”

She nodded absently and got her orange soda from under the counter before leaving.

“Macey,” he said, knowing what a complete asshole he was being not to let her stay with him.

She looked back over her shoulder.

“Thanks for helping today.”

The smile she sent his way was forced, nothing like the genuine one she’d had for customers all day. But he supposed it was better than the response he deserved.

This was exactly why he’d told her no. As mean as it was for him to turn her away, his transgressions would stack up higher if he agreed to let her stick around. While he didn’t like to hurt her, he was just doing what he had to do.

She pounded the steering wheel and started the ignition. Pulling onto the street, she had no idea where she was going. All she knew was she needed a bed, preferably ten minutes ago.

The island apparently had two main streets—one on the bay side and this one, on the gulf side. Hotels, condos, souvenir shops, bars and restaurants lined both, and houses—some of them built on stilts in case of flooding—lined the perpendicular streets in between. She’d stop at the first hotel she came to that didn’t look as if it would cost her a fortune, and get a room for one night. Tomorrow she’d search for a longer-term rental. Derek might think he could scare her off, but he was wrong with a capital
W
. He’d ticked her off enough tonight that she’d stay around to bother him just out of obstinacy.

Thirty minutes later, Macey struggled to come up with plan B. There were no vacancies. Not even at the seedy hotels. According to the night manager at the last one, she’d be lucky to find anything tonight.

Her options were limited—okay, almost nonexistent. She could keep trying hotels, hoping that one of them had a spare broom closet to rent out before she keeled over, or she could find a place to park and succumb to sleep.

She drove up to the next chain hotel and turned into the driveway. Scanning the parking lot, she couldn’t see an empty space anywhere. As she pulled into the check-in lane outside the main door, she peered inside. Might as well give this one last place a try. If they didn’t have something, she’d sleep in the car.

She had her answer within thirty seconds. Toyota Inn it was. She fell into the seat and started the engine. Without knowing where she was heading, she went back the way she’d come, driving slowly, looking for a place to park where she wouldn’t be bothered, wouldn’t have a bright light in her face and hopefully wouldn’t have the police called in.

She was back to Derek’s bar before she realized it, and almost didn’t recognize it all sealed up tight for the night. Closed and dark. And owned by someone she knew wouldn’t call the cops. She turned in and pulled up as close as she could get to the building.

Her eyes watered from fatigue as she turned off the ignition. She popped the trunk from inside, then climbed out to open her suitcase. She dug through it until she found her University of Texas sweatshirt, and pulled it over her head. She didn’t even bother to reclose the suitcase, just shut the trunk and went back to the driver’s side and sank in. She reclined the seat all the way back, curled up on her side and passed out almost immediately, not allowing herself a single thought about Derek.

After grabbing a change of clothes from her suitcase, Macey hurried to the public restroom outside Derek’s bar. She’d shower as soon as she had a private bathroom.

That was her first order of business this morning—finding a place to rent for the next five or six weeks. Actually, make that the second priority. Her stomach rumbled so loudly she was afraid others would hear it.

She drove to the grocery store she’d spotted on her way into town. Minutes later she took a maple-frosted doughnut, a bottle of grape juice and a vacation rental magazine out onto the beach, down a ways from Derek’s bar and in the opposite direction from his condo. She wasn’t ready to see him yet. Would have to prepare herself mentally—and physically, for that matter. It was going to take some effort to act as if everything was fine and he hadn’t hurt her.

Best of all, she had a minuscule view. Her budget didn’t come anywhere close to covering an apartment directly on the beach, so she’d have to settle for a bedroom window a block and a half from the gulf. While the view was partially blocked by condos, she could see actual blue water. And sand and sky. There was a desk in front of the window, which would make a perfect place for her to work.

She’d already unpacked her outdated pre–Peace Corps laptop and set it up on the desk, and couldn’t wait to dive in. The Peace Corps Web site and literature had promised a life-changing experience, and that’s exactly what Macey had gotten. Not only had it altered her personally, given her more confidence, a broader view of the world and more appreciation for the advantages of growing up in the U.S., but it had changed her career goals significantly.

Prior to Asia, she’d hoped to use her business degree to go into project management with a large firm somewhere. Her job in Thailand had been to help villagers and rural residents set up their own businesses to provide for their families. Compared to her corporate dreams, she’d been working on a minute scale—with farmers, fishermen, weavers and so many other services that Americans gave little thought to. She’d loved it. The change those people had been able to make in their lives with her assistance in business planning had humbled her, lit a spark deep inside of her.

Now she wanted to do something similar in Dallas, her hometown, specifically assisting single women. She intended to use her so-called vacation on the island to develop her nonprofit foundation’s own business plan. She wanted to start it up before the end of the year.

Macey finished unpacking her clothes and putting them into the beat-up dresser in the furnished apartment. She checked her watch to make sure it was late enough for her next objective of the day: lobbying Derek for a job.

It was twelve forty-five. Perfect. She had just enough time to get dressed and head over there. And if a little manipulation had to come into play to get her way, so be it.

“I need the cash.”

Stalling as he tried to come up with a good objection, he took a drink and checked that the fan pointing behind the bar was on high. “You don’t know a Tom Collins from an Adam and Eve.”

“I can learn.”

“I’ll teach her,” Gus said from right next to her.

“Why am I not surprised you’re on her side?” he asked his uncle.

Andie came in from the back room then, on her way out. She normally worked a split shift, helping over lunch and returning at dinner each evening until the grill closed. Except for yesterday… There’d been no split in her shift because business had never slowed down enough. Because, yeah…he needed more people.

“I’m leaving,” she said, then spotted Macey. “Hey, what were you doing sleeping in your car this morning?”

Macey’s cheeks turned pink and she stared at the plastic cup in front of her. “Um, sleeping. Everything was full last night.”

“And Super Derek didn’t take you in? Nice.” Andie shot a scowl his way and shook her head as she walked out of the bar.

Derek wanted to hit something. He was such a bastard. But what the hell was he supposed to do? The effort it took for him to be nice was more than he could handle.

“Mixed drinks are a foreign concept to you,” he said to Macey, refusing to acknowledge the whole sleeping-in-the-car conversation. “Your idea of a good drink is a wine cooler.”

“Which you sadly don’t even have, so I guess there’s no chance of me getting drunk on the clock.”

“She needs the exposure to more appealing cocktails, Derek, you’ve got to admit,” Gus said matter-of-factly. “You’d be doing her a service.”

She was trying to worm her way into his life, dammit. He knew this and he hated it, but he hated the thought of trying to find reliable employees more. The island had been full of flakes before high season, and he’d bet the whole bar and everything in it there’d be even more infiltrating the area now.

Besides, hiring her would be a peace offering after last night. He leaned against the back counter, which still needed cleaning.

He’d promised Gus to return The Shell Shack to being
the
place to hang out on the island, as it was before Gus had had to close down last year. If word got out the service sucked or there was a thirty-minute wait for a beer, that wouldn’t happen. Macey could help him turn things around. She was the business queen, after all.

“Fine,” he said. “Five bucks an hour until you have half a clue what you’re doing.”

“So start teaching me some drinks,” she said easily, and he felt like the worst kind of jerk. She was only trying to help him.

“Eat something first.” He motioned to the kitchen in back. “Fast, before the next bunch of people shows up.”

“Yes, sir.” Macey saluted him. “You should eat, too.”

“No, and don’t think just because I gave you a job that you can butt in to my life or make me eat.”

“Whatever you say, Dare.”

He could tell by the look on her face that she didn’t mean a word of it. There was no question in his mind he would live to regret his latest hire.