The Bachelor Takes a Bride (Those Engaging Garretts!) (16 page)

She was working on a pint of Guinness and a pitcher of Murphy’s Irish Red when Hailey squeezed past with a tray full of empties. “Can you tell Aaron that I need more garnish out here? Lime wedges and olives.”

“Got it,” the waitress said.

She grabbed her glass of water, swallowed a mouthful.

“Where the hell is Scott?” Phil demanded, reaching past Jordyn for the lemon zester.

“He went to drop off the bank-deposit bag.”

“Almost two hours ago,” Phil noted.

Jordyn exchanged a draft and a glass of wine for a twenty.

The customer winked at her. “Keep the change.”

“Thanks,” she said, as grateful that she wouldn’t have to take the time to make change as she was for the generous tip. She turned to the next customer. “What can I get for you?”

“A bottle of Bud and a gin and tonic, extra lime.”

She popped the top off the bottle, scooped ice into a highball glass. She’d never understood why customers chose to sit in an Irish pub and drink domestic beer when there were so many other options. Ordinarily she would have chatted with the customer a little bit and encouraged him to try something new. Tonight, she didn’t question choices but focused on filling orders.

Hailey slid a plate of lime wedges and olives across the bar. “Thanks.”

She squeezed two wedges over the ice, then added the gin and a squirt of tonic from the soda gun. She passed over the drinks and took the money, and when she glanced up again—Marco was there.

“You need an extra hand back there?”

“I could use a couple,” she admitted.

He came around the bar, rolled up his sleeves, washed his hands and immediately got to work.

He didn’t invade her space, but she was conscious of him there. Close enough that she could touch—if her hands hadn’t been full of glasses and bottles and various garnishes.

Melody squeezed up to the bar. “I need six more tequila shots, a pitcher of Smithwick’s, two G&T, one red, three white, a pint of Kilkenny, two Harp and your opinion of the blond guy in the closest booth.”

“Bottle or draft?” Jordyn asked.

“What?”

“The Harp—you didn’t specify pint or glass and we also have it in bottles.”

“Oh.” Melody huffed out a weary breath. “Let me check on that.”

“Busy tonight,” Marco noted.

“It’s been like this since four o’clock this afternoon.”

“Why are there only two of you behind the bar?”

“There were three,” Jordyn told him. “But Scott went to drop off the bank deposit.”

“Two hours ago,” Phil interjected again.

Melody came back. “Pints.”

Jordyn nodded. “The guy in the booth—did he ask for your number?”

“Yeah.” The waitress’s cheeks flushed.

“You card him?”

“Of course. He’s twenty-two.”

Jordyn, because she knew Melody had recently celebrated her thirty-fifth birthday, lifted her brows.

The waitress sighed. “He’s just looking to take down a cougar, isn’t he?”

“I think you need to consider the possibility.”

Melody glanced over at the booth again as she lifted her tray. “What if I don’t mind being taken down?”

Jordyn chuckled. “Your call.”

* * *

It was almost 3:00 a.m. before they were able to get away from O’Reilly’s.

As soon as she slid into the passenger seat of Marco’s car, Jordyn kicked the shoes off her feet.

“I’m going to sue the salesman for false advertising,” she grumbled. “He said things like ‘arch support’ and ‘comfort sole’ and enticed me to hand over a hundred bucks.”

“No shoe is going to feel comfortable after ten hours on your feet,” Marco said.

She glanced at the clock. “It was actually closer to eleven.”

“Then you can’t blame the shoes.”

“But it was good, wasn’t it?” she said.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that the party was an incredible success.” He pulled into her driveway and turned off the engine.

Jordyn looked at the shoes and winced, and he knew she couldn’t stand the thought of shoving her feet into them again, even for the short walk to the door.

He went around to the passenger side, handed her shoes to her, then lifted her off the seat and carried her to the door.

“My hero,” she said.

“Don’t you forget it.”

She unlocked the door and he took her directly to the sofa, setting her down so that her back was against the arm and her legs were stretched out on the cushions. Then he sat on the opposite end and lifted her feet into his lap to massage them.

“Oh. My. God.” Her eyes closed, her head fell back and a low moan sounded deep in her throat.

Gryffindor, intrigued by the sound, left the comfort of his bed in the corner to come over and investigate. He hopped up on the sofa, demonstrating the agility Jordyn had told Marco about, climbed over her outstretched legs and settled against the back of the sofa, his single eye fixed on Marco.

She moaned again. “Seriously,” she said. “Your hands are...magic.”

“That’s what all the girls say.”

She summoned the energy to open one eye—an effect that was eerily similar to the look Gryff was giving him. “
All
the girls?”

“Well, Anna and Bella, anyway,” he said. “Because I can make quarters appear from behind their ears.”

She smiled at that and her eye drifted shut again.

Marco massaged her feet for a few more minutes and she encouraged his ministrations with soft sighs and murmurs. Eventually even those sounds faded as exhaustion overcame her.

She would be more comfortable and sleep better in her bed, but he was reluctant to wake her, reluctant to leave her. So he stayed where he was and watched her sleep for a while. She was so beautiful—her thick, dark lashes casting a shadow on her creamy skin, her soft lips curved, just a little, as if she was having a pleasant dream. Her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm.

But it was more than her physical beauty that appealed to him—it was her sense of humor and her quick mind, her strong sense of loyalty and obvious love of family. He loved every part of her and, despite what he’d said when he’d walked away from her that fateful day almost four weeks earlier, he knew that he couldn’t let her go.

“Come on—let’s get you into bed.”

“Hmm.” She struggled to open her eyes. “What?”

“You’re falling asleep,” he pointed out.

“Oh. Right.” He lifted her feet off his lap, then stood up and helped her do the same.

In the bedroom, Marco undressed her, then found a nightgown in her drawer and tugged it over her head. The soft fabric floated over her skin, gently caressing her curves in a way that made him envy the silk and lace.

The week had been a busy one for both of them, and though they’d been together on Tuesday, that now seemed like a lifetime rather than only four days. His body ached with wanting her, but he could tell that she wanted sleep, so he tucked her into bed and touched his lips to her forehead.

“Sweet dreams.”

She caught his shirt as he started to draw away. “Wait—where are you going?”

“Home,” he said. “You’re exhausted, and you’ll sleep better if you don’t have to share your bed.”

She shook her head. “I sleep better with you here.”

It wasn’t a declaration of love, but it was more of an admission than he’d expected. “Really?”

“Stay,” she said. “Please.”

“Well, since you asked nicely.” He stripped out of his clothes and slid under the covers beside her.

She immediately snuggled up against him. “What time do you have to work tomorrow?”

“Not until late afternoon.”

“Maybe you could make your special French toast for breakfast?”

He brushed his mouth against hers. “Maybe I will.”

She shifted closer. Her breasts grazed his chest through the thin silk, her nipples immediately hardening into twin points that caused all of his blood to rush south. Then she reached her hand between their bodies and into his boxers, her fingers closing around him.

“You’re supposed to be going to sleep,” he reminded her through gritted teeth.

“I’m not tired anymore.”

“In that case...” he said, and proceeded to show her that he wasn’t tired, either.

Chapter Sixteen

H
e made French toast for breakfast and, after they’d eaten their fill and cleaned up the kitchen, they went back to her bed and made love again.

Jordyn no longer denied that what they shared was lovemaking. She wasn’t yet ready to put her feelings for Marco into words, but she’d finally stopped pretending that their relationship was purely physical.

They lingered in bed as long as they could, cuddling and talking, but eventually Marco had to head back to his own place to get ready for work. He was scheduled to be at the restaurant at four o’clock, and she didn’t protest when he left. After the hours she’d put in at O’Reilly’s over the weekend, she had no right.

But she found herself wishing that she had more time to spend with him. Both of them had demanding schedules, but while Valentino’s closed at ten o’clock because it was primarily a restaurant, O’Reilly’s didn’t stop serving drinks until at least midnight—and not until 2:00 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

She recalled Marco asking if she really wanted to serve drinks from behind a bar for the rest of her life. She hadn’t given him an answer, but even then, she’d realized that the hours she worked would present a challenge for any relationship. She didn’t doubt that she and Marco could work around the erratic hours because they had been doing it for several weeks already. But their relationship was still fairly new, in the early stages where everything was hearts and flowers. And it was only the two of them. She knew it wouldn’t be nearly as easy to juggle their conflicting schedules and responsibilities when they had kids—

The thought had barely formed in her head when she dropped onto the edge of the mattress, her chest tight, her head spinning.

Kids?
Where had that idea come from? What was she thinking?

Obviously she’d been spending too much time around people with children, because her mind didn’t usually travel down the traditional path of marriage and children. At least, it hadn’t in the past three and a half years.

Until Marco. He’d changed everything for her, made her want things she thought she’d given up on forever. The biggest question now was—did she have the courage to go after what she wanted?

* * *

Monday afternoon when she went into work, she found Wade staring at an array of receipts spread out on his desk. She didn’t understand why he was frowning.

“Is everything okay?” she asked him.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted.

Jordyn took a seat across him. “I think the weekend was a bigger success than any of us anticipated.”

“The cash register receipts definitely bear that out,” her boss agreed. “Unfortunately, the bank deposits tell a different story.”

“What are you talking about?”

He showed her the bank deposit records indicating the amounts that were put into the account on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The numbers were good, but not nearly as good as she’d expected.

“This doesn’t make any sense. It’s barely more than we take in on a regular weekend.”

“I know.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, because the one possibility that niggled at the back of her mind—that someone had skimmed money from the till—was one she didn’t want to consider.

“Scott told me that he counted the cash but you double-checked each deposit before he took it to the bank.”

“I did,” she confirmed, still trying to comprehend the discrepancy. Her initials were on the deposit forms, confirming that they hadn’t been altered. The only possible explanation was that the money had gone missing somewhere between the time it was taken out of the register and when she counted it in the back room.

And the only person who’d had access to it during that time was her boss’s nephew.

She remembered Wade mentioning that Scott had left Vegas because of a gambling problem. Then there was the fact that Scott had been quick to volunteer to take the deposit bag to the bank, and he’d been gone a lot longer than that simple task had warranted. And when he finally did return, he’d had the gall to act all disapproving because she’d enlisted Marco’s help behind the bar.

“Did you question Scott about the numbers?” she asked her boss.

“Of course,” Wade assured her.

“Did he have any ideas about where the money might have gone?”

“He was as confused as me—but then he remembered that you had a customer helping out behind the bar Saturday night.”

“Marco?” she echoed in disbelief. “You think Marco took the money?” She shook her head. “No. No way.”

“It’s the only explanation that makes any sense.”

“It doesn’t make any sense at all,” she told him. “Marco isn’t just a customer—he’s a bartender at Valentino’s. And there is no way he took ten cents from the till, never mind the more than ten thousand dollars that’s apparently missing.”

Wade scribbled
Valentino’s
and
Marco
down on his notepad. “What’s his last name?”

Jordyn had to curl her fingers into her palms to resist reaching out and tearing the page away from him. “Marco did
not
take the money.”

“I’m sure he’d appreciate your loyalty, but I think, at this point, that’s a determination for the police to make.”

“Go ahead,” Jordyn said. “Call the police. And when they come in to talk to me, I’ll be sure to mention the fact that Marco was helping out behind the bar that night because your nephew, who was supposed to be working with me and Phil, was gone more than three hours when he went to drop off the bank-deposit bag.”

Wade frowned. “If that’s true, why am I only hearing about it now?”

“Because I didn’t want to stir up trouble.”

“Or maybe you’re grasping at straws to protect your boyfriend.”

Jordyn pushed her chair back and stood up. “If you really believe that, then you don’t know me at all.”

“I don’t know what to believe,” Wade admitted. “I’ve worked with you for almost three years, but Scott is my sister’s son—he’s family. Why would he steal money from me when he knows I would give him almost anything he asked?”

She understood his reluctance to suspect his nephew—she did. But it still hurt that he would prefer to suspect her. And pointing a finger at Marco was suspecting her, because she was the one who had asked Marco to help out. She was the one who had put him behind the bar.

“I’m not telling you not to call the police,” Jordyn said to him. “In fact, I hope you do because I’m confident that they’ll figure this out. I’m just suggesting that you ask your nephew some hard questions before you turn the investigation over to the city’s finest.” She moved toward the door. “I will, of course, answer any questions that they have, but that is the last thing I owe you. I’m done here.”

“What?” He looked sincerely baffled. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I quit.”

“Come on, Jordyn—you’re overreacting.”

“I don’t think I am.”

“Don’t do this. Please. You know how much I need you—”

“No,” she interrupted. “I fell for that once. I gave up a weekend in New York to stay here because I believed you needed me. You don’t. And I don’t need to tie myself to a job that has already limited other opportunities for me.”

She didn’t even care that she’d missed out on the final round of A. K. Channing’s contest, not really. She did care that she’d given up the chance to spend that time with Marco. She’d chosen her job over the man she lov—

She severed the thought, pulling herself back from that edge, not quite willing to take that final leap—even in her own mind.

* * *

It was Thursday before she saw Marco again.

Although they talked and texted every day, he was spending most of his time at the new Valentino’s, overseeing all of the work that was being done there. So far, everything was on schedule for the planned soft opening in September. The new appliances had been installed in the kitchen and given Nonna’s nod of approval, and Rafe was apparently as giddy as a kid in a candy store as he arranged pots and pans and worked on the menus.

But he wanted some feedback before any new recipes were approved, which was why Jordyn had been invited to the restaurant for lunch. Her stomach had been tied up in knots since her confrontation with Wade three days earlier and she didn’t feel much like eating, but she wanted to help Rafe out. On her way to the restaurant, she got a call from her former boss, who wanted to apologize for the ‘misunderstanding’ after Scott confessed to the police.

When she walked into the dining room, she found Marco’s enormously pregnant sister, Renata, supervising the hanging of pictures on the walls while her sexy firefighter husband, Craig, wielded the hammer. They bantered and bickered as they worked, but there was an obvious affection in their voices—and the smoldering glances they exchanged when they thought no one was looking.

She tore her gaze away from the couple to check out the decor. The ivory-colored walls contrasted with the dark wood floors to create a simple and elegant first impression. The chairs were padded in dark brown leather and the tables, bare now, would be covered in ivory linens.

Jordyn moved closer to the wall to examine the sepia-toned pictures that had already been hung. They were photographs, she realized, mostly of a vineyard, probably somewhere in Italy. A panoramic view of rolling hills covered with neat rows of grapevines; a simple stone farmhouse set deep in the hills; a gnarled hand inspecting the fruit; a barefoot child skipping between the vines. As Jordyn moved from one picture to the next, she realized that the photographs told a story—an enduring tale rich with history and tradition.

“Where did you get these pictures?” she asked Renata. “They’re absolutely stunning.”

“My brother Gabe took them when he and Francesca were in Italy in the spring,” Marco’s sister told her.

“I didn’t know he was a photographer.”

“Actually he’s a lawyer, but he can take decent pictures when he’s in the mood.”

“What do you think?” Marco asked Jordyn, coming through from the kitchen.

“The whole place looks fabulous,” she assured him.

“It’s starting to come together,” he agreed modestly. “There are some finishing touches to be added—including the fixtures in the bathrooms. And we’re still waiting on the liquor license, but we’re starting to sort through applications and do interviews for staffing.”

“Do you need a bartender for the new place?”

“I’ve got half a dozen interviews set up for tomorrow afternoon,” he told her.

“Want to see my résumé?”

“I’d love to see your... I’m sorry—did you say résumé?”

She nodded.

“I think I missed something.”

“I’m looking for a new job,” she said, deliberately keeping her tone light.

“Why? What happened?”

“Wade questioned me about more than ten thousand dollars that was missing from the weekend bank deposits.”

“Seriously?”

She nodded.

“He can’t honestly believe you took it, if you needed the money...oh—not you,” he realized, when her gaze shifted away. “He thinks
I
took it.”

“Not anymore,” she assured him.

“The nephew?” he guessed.

She nodded. “It was obvious to everyone but Wade—until he brought the police in and Scott finally confessed.”

Marco shrugged. “Everyone wears blinders, to a certain extent, when it comes to their families.”

“Maybe,” she acknowledged.

“I can understand why you were upset,” he said. “But are you sure that quitting your job wasn’t a little hasty?”

“No,” she admitted. “In fact, I’m pretty sure it
was
hasty. And impulsive. But I also feel that it was the right thing for me. It turns out, I don’t want to work at O’Reilly’s for the rest of my life.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“I think I need to take some time to figure that out, but if you need some help here in the interim, I’d be happy to pitch in.”

“Would you really want me to be your boss?”

“I think we could make it work.”

He took a minute to consider her offer. “Well, my brother’s the head chef at the original Valentino’s and his wife is the hostess, and no one seems to have an issue with that. So maybe, if you agreed to marry me...” The words trailed off suggestively.

She knew he was teasing, but that knowledge didn’t prevent her pulse from skipping. “You better be careful,” she warned. “If you keep throwing out proposals like that, someone might surprise you one day and say yes.”

“Is today that day?”

“No.”

He pulled her closer and kissed her softly. “Okay, here’s an easier question—are you hungry?”

Now that the mystery of the missing money had been solved, she discovered that she was. “Hungry and eager to sample whatever Rafe’s cooking up in the kitchen.”

“It was supposed to be homemade tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms.”

“Has the menu changed?”

“Not changed but expanded,” he told her. “In addition to the tagliatelle, he’s trying his hand at pork medallions with a shallot-and-red-wine sauce served with baked apples and yams on the side, and grilled salmon with roasted root vegetables and asparagus spears.”

“Mmm—everything sounds good.”

“Those are just today’s offerings,” Marco said. “Tomorrow he’s planning to serve osso buco with saffron risotto, roast duck with marsala gravy served with red-skin mashed potatoes, and lobster ravioli in a tomato-cream sauce.”

“Am I invited back for lunch tomorrow?’

Marco chuckled. “Absolutely.”

* * *

After they’d sampled all of Rafe’s creations and deemed them worthy of inclusion on the new menu, Lauryn came by to get Jordyn so they could go pick out the paint for Kylie’s bedroom.

When she was gone, Marco wandered back to the kitchen and found Renata scooping up tagliatelle with the fork in one hand and rubbing her back with the other.

“So everything’s okay with you and Jordyn now?” she asked.

“Better than okay,” he told her.

She nodded. “I hope so, because I’ve never seen you look the way you look when you’re with her.”

“I love her, Nata.”

She touched a hand to his arm. “I know you do—but how does she feel?”