Redemption: Reckless Desires (Blue Moon Saloon Book 3) (8 page)

Which one should I take?
she’d asked Soren the first time she won, looking at the prizes.
The panda, the duck, or the bear?

Soren had answered immediately.
The bear. Definitely the bear.

It went the same way the second year, and the third, and she’d ended up with a collection of bears that crowded the lower part of the bunk bed her dad had built for her as a kid.

Soren stood in the doorway to the kitchen of the café, watching her with what seemed like bated breath. His eyes seemed to glow at her — a hallucination, probably, which either meant she was still crazy in love with him or about to faint from exhaustion.

Still crazy in love, she decided.

The corner of his mouth crooked a little higher, and she nearly sighed.

Then the bell over the door chimed as a new customer stepped in, and when she turned back to Soren, he was gone.

Sarah shook her head to clear all the crazy thoughts. Maybe pregnancy wasn’t just messing with her body. Maybe it was messing with her mind, too.

Another few days passed, and just as the crazy rush of a Sunday morning in the café faded, business over in the saloon started booming.

“Gotta love the NFL,” Janna sighed, heading over for her shift in the saloon.

“Installing those widescreen TVs in the bar was your idea,” Jessica pointed out.

“Widescreen TVs, football, and Soren’s special-recipe spare ribs. A deadly combination for the tiny bit of free time we have. We really, really need to get more help.”

“You do,” Sarah said. She nearly said,
We do,
but caught herself in the nick of time. She was just passing through. Sooner or later, she would have to hit the road.

But God, she sure liked the idea of leaving this safe haven
later
. Much later. Life was good here. She’d settled into a simple, honest routine that reminded her so much of home.

“You two are working too hard,” she added. The Macks sisters had been working back-to-back shifts nearly every day at the café and the saloon.

“Until we find more help…” Jessica trailed off.

“And if we’re ever going to get a second bathroom and renovate upstairs…” Janna added.

“Jess! Janna!” Simon’s voice boomed from next door, and they both took off.

Sarah and Emma were still closing up when Jess popped her head in. “Uh, Emma? Can you help out in the saloon? Looks like the sports bar across town has a technical problem, and all the customers are rushing over here.”

Sarah nodded toward her. “I’ll close up,” she offered.

“Are you sure?” Emma and Jessica asked at the same time.

“It’s the least I can do.”

They made her swear not to clean the floors, only to close out the register and do the books. By the time she finished, the saloon seemed busier than ever, so she went over for a look.

“Whoa,” she murmured, standing just inside the swinging doors of the saloon, beside the faded old sign that said,
Check your guns at the door.

The place was packed, and the football game was still in the first quarter. The poker tables in the middle of the saloon were crowded with extra chairs, and the booths lining the sides were packed, too. All she could see of the bar at the opposite side of the room was the top section — her favorite part — carved with a scene that might have come straight from home. A bear waded through a stream, a wolf howled at the moon, and an eagle soared over their heads. The whole bar was a masterpiece carved by some expert decades back — maybe as far back in time as the antique Winchester that hung high on the wall above the intricately carved shelves glittering with bottles of booze. The varnish gleamed with the light reflecting in the mirror centerpiece, and she suspected Soren, who loved woodworking, was responsible for that.

“Can you believe this?” Jessica bustled by with a tray of drinks, shaking her head.

Sarah spotted Janna and Emma hurrying through the crowd, too, delivering orders. Simon and Soren were both busy behind the bar, which Simon usually ran on his own. Even Cole was flipping burgers in the saloon kitchen, as she noticed when Jess rushed through the door. Everyone was helping.

Everyone but her.

Sarah bumped her way from the door to the bar, where Soren stood. His brow furrowed deeply as he juggled an overflowing beer glass, a bill, and a customer’s credit card.

She slid in behind the bar and plucked the credit card out of his hand. “I got this. You concentrate on the bar.”

“But—”

“I got this,” she said, tapping away at the register.

Simon pushed a spare barstool in her direction, and she took a seat to ring up the payments coming through. It was just like the café, except with bigger orders, higher bills.

That, and when the cash drawer slid open, something else slid, too. A couple of rolling cylinders clinked and clanked in a subdivided section of the drawer right above the dimes.

Sarah handed a customer his change, then picked up one of the cylinders.

A bullet. She held it up to the light and gaped. A silver bullet?

She peered up at the antique rifle hanging over the bar. A .44 Winchester, by the look of it. A furtive glance at the Voss brothers showed them both busy pouring drinks, so she jammed the bullet back in the drawer and slid the till shut. Out of sight, but not out of mind. Why on earth would the Voss brothers keep silver bullets around? A whole handful of them, not just a single lucky charm.

The next couple of customers paid with credit cards, but whenever anyone used cash, she snuck a peek at the bullets rattling in the back.

“Everything okay?” Jess asked the next time she swung by for drinks.

“Sure,” Sarah replied, trying to get her mind back to work.

The noise in the bar ebbed and peaked. Simon’s deep voice would call out occasionally beside her, while Soren stuck to nods and intense looks. Good old Soren, communicating more with his eyes than his mouth. He’d slam a glass on the bar, fill it with scarcely a splash, and slide it all the way down the varnished surface of the counter.

No wonder customers loved the place. There was even a pianist, hammering out a jaunty ragtime tune that could barely be heard above the crowd. Live music was another of Jessica’s new ideas they were trying out for the first time. The football game was muted, and if Sarah looked away from the screen, the scene was as Wild West as she could imagine, right down to hand towels hung at intervals along the bar — the type used in olden days to wipe handlebar mustaches — plus a row of brass spittoons. Thank goodness the customers didn’t actually use
those
, except for the occasional tip.

“Spare-rib special for table four,” Jess hustled up to say.

“Pitcher of beer for table seven,” Janna added a second later. “Can you bring it to them, guys? I have to get the food.”

Simon looked blankly out over the saloon.

Sarah pointed. “Table seven — over there.”

“You already know the table numbers?” he gaped.

“Sure.” She counted them off. “Don’t you?”

The brothers exchanged weary looks. Soren went back to pouring drinks while Simon went off to deliver the beer, murmuring something about women. Or had he said wolves?

“Another couple of hours like this, and we’ll be able to afford that new bathroom,” Janna noted the next time she swept by.

Another couple of hours did pass, and they flew because Soren was right beside Sarah, practically brushing her elbow. In spite of her weary feet, her aching back, and the ringing in her ears from the hubbub all around, it felt good. They didn’t exchange a word — probably couldn’t have, given the noise level — or look at each other. But that just made it easier. Each of them went about work quietly, but that was enough. Something deep inside her hummed with sheer pleasure, as if they were cuddling on the mattress in the old cabin they used to sneak off to and not standing behind a bar.

Yes, she was kidding herself again. Yes, she knew the feeling wouldn’t last. But damn it, she’d take the little bits of goodness as they came and try to forget about the rest.

“Thanks, honey,” a man said, signing his bill.

Soren glared —
Honey?
— and all but showed his teeth.

That was just like the good old days, too, when he couldn’t stand seeing any other man come too close to her. So why, oh why, did he ever let her go? Why had he insisted on breaking up when he’d left Montana? Why did he tell her to find someone else? It didn’t add up.

She glanced over at Soren exactly as he turned away. When he turned back, he was inscrutable as ever. Maybe even more than ever. The man wore emotional armor thicker than buffalo hide. There’d been a time when he let her in, but now…

She closed her eyes, feeling all the regrets well up.

“Tip is for you, sweetheart,” a man at the bar said, and she snapped herself back to attention.

“Thanks.”

Janna winked from behind the man’s back. She’d brought the tip jar over from the café, and it was working its magic again. A born hustler, that Janna.

Sarah could sense Soren bristle every time a customer called her
honey
or
sweetie
or even
peaches
— which just about made her gag — but she put up with it because it was part of the job.

“Thank God we’re in the fourth quarter,” Jessica said, eyeing the TV screen.

They’d long since run out of spare ribs and desserts, but the crowd stayed on, drinking and cheering at the football game.

“Tip for the pretty lady,” the next customer said as he staggered up to the bar.

“Thanks,” she said in a flat voice while she made change.

“And for the baby,” the guy added, waggling his eyebrows.

She counted to five slowly. God, she hated the gleam in people’s eyes when they so obviously speculated about the act that created the baby rather than the child itself. As in, when and how and with whom.

Soren stood looming behind her — she could feel him there, with more than just body heat radiating off him — but the customer was too drunk to let up.

“That the lucky guy?” the man asked.

If Sarah could have wished herself to another part of the continent — or to a tiny cave where she could curl up and die, she would have.

Soren growled so deeply, she could feel it in her bones. She could picture the scene that was sure to unfold if she didn’t do anything. The customer would make another stupid remark, and Soren would lose it. He’d grab the guy by the collar and jeans and pick him up straight off the ground. Chairs would scrape as people hurried out of Soren’s way, and with a mighty heave, he’d launch the guy right out the door. Or worse, right through the window of the saloon.

Oh, God. He wouldn’t. Would he?

A glance to her right showed her Soren’s face, the scariest shade of red she’d ever seen.

Jesus, she could see it all now, right down to the hush that would fall over the bar as the glass shattered. The crowd in the saloon would gasp. The pianist would break off midnote, and the referee on the television screen would raise both arms in a mute call.

Touchdown!

She pictured Soren dusting his hands off and everyone backing up a step or two. Then Jessica — good old Jessica — would hurry the pianist into another tune and invite everyone to drink a discount round. It wouldn’t take long for everyone to focus back to their drinks, but it wouldn’t take long for the police to show up, either. Probably just as they were all kicking back and counting up the profits from the night.

“Well, that might have gotten us our new bathroom,”
Janna, ever the optimist, would say.

A cool breeze would whisper in around the jagged edges of glass hanging in the front windowpane.

“Minus the shower, maybe,”
Simon would add.

Then the toothy fragments of glass would flash red and blue as a police car pulled up outside, and when the cops asked Soren what he’d thrown out the window, he’d answer in a flat voice.

“Trash,”
she could imagine him grunting.
“Trash.”

A scenario she really didn’t want to see unfold, so she pointed the customer to the exit. “Have a nice night.”

“Bye, sweetheart.”

She put a hand on Soren’s arm and felt the tension coursing through him. Closing her eyes, she sent him calming thoughts, because Soren was Soren, and though he had a long fuse, she sure didn’t want to see him get anywhere close to the limit.

She thought of the golden grove of aspens on the way up Cooper’s Hill. The whispery sound of snow tumbling off pine boughs. The taste of honey, nibbled right off a chunk of honeycomb in summer. The soul-nourishing energy of sunlight pulsing over a south-facing meadow swaying with wildflowers. And slowly, surely, she felt the pent-up frustration bottled under Soren’s skin ease.

The bar faded away — the crowd, the din, the malty smells — until it was only her touching him. Soren turned his forearm and slid it back until his fingers tangled with hers and played across her palm. For an instant — the briefest of instants — they were like one. The way she sometimes imagined it, when the boundaries between her and him melted until there was only
them
. A perfect, limitless unit of two.