“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.
“Isn’t your restaurant opening up in a few weeks?” Melanie asked. “How do you have time to be here?”
“I’m pretty much ready to go now, except for the counter that Lucian is installing for me this week,” Sydney said. “The next couple of weeks after this one will be just handling details.”
“Oooh, look,” Abby murmured as she glanced around the room. “Tablecloths and flowers. How pretty everything looks.”
“Nice touch, Reese.” Cara nodded with approval. “Bringing a little elegance and sophistication to the tavern, are you?”
The tablecloths. Reese had gotten so caught up in his near kiss with Sydney, he’d forgotten about that. The pounding in his head increased. “It was Sydney’s idea,” he said tightly.
“Reese doesn’t like them.” Her neck stretched high, Sydney glanced at him. “We were about to discuss it, but we got distracted after I hit him in the nose. On accident, of course.”
Brows went back up again and everyone looked at Reese. He squirmed uncomfortably. “I’m fine,” he grumbled.
“Two minutes ago he was howling like a banshee.” Sydney shook her head. “You’d have thought I’d tried to murder the man.”
The only murder around here, Reese thought irritably, was going to be a long-necked blonde with a gorgeous mouth that wouldn’t quit. The sudden image of how he might silence that mouth with his own only made him more irritable.
“Hey, everybody.” Lucian burst through the door at that moment. “Please tell me I didn’t already miss hearing what happened with our dear baby brother and Sydney Taylor last night. She came storming into the tavern last night mad as a—” He caught sight of Sydney then and stopped abruptly. “Uh, mornin’ Syd.”
“Morning, Lucian,” Sydney said smoothly, then turned a bright smile on the group. “I have a large table by the window up front. Why don’t we get you all seated and I’ll bring everyone drinks and tell you about today’s specials.”
Teeth clenched, Reese watched as Sydney, with all the grace and charm of the queen of England, led his family to their table. Good grief, but the woman was infuriating. She wasn’t here an hour and she’d taken over. Tablecloths and flowers and—
Today’s specials?
He didn’t have any today’s specials. His gaze shot to the blackboard she’d carried in and set up by the hostess podium.
Crepes Almandine? Quiche Lorraine?
This was an English tavern, for God’s sake, not some frou-frou French restaurant.
Muttering under his breath, he snatched up the blackboard and easel and headed back to the kitchen. Within the hour, the restaurant would be full, so at the moment, there was no time to “discuss” anything with Sydney.
Something told him that these three hours with Sydney were going to be the longest of his life.
Three hours somehow stretched to four, but with the tavern as busy as it was, Sydney hadn’t even noticed she was an hour over her agreed schedule. Apparently Reese hadn’t noticed, either, Sydney thought as she slipped into the small employee lounge behind the restrooms, because he hadn’t booted her out yet.
With a tired sigh, she sat on the vinyl sofa in the lounge. After losing the poker game last night, she’d tossed and turned all night, then dragged herself out of bed early to get ready for the day. With only two waitresses, plus Reese and herself to see to the customers, she hadn’t stopped until now.
The truth be known—and she’d certainly never admit it to Reese—she’d enjoyed every minute of it.
Even as a little girl, Sydney had loved helping out at her mother’s endless string of dinner parties and her grandfather’s business functions. Whether it was in the kitchen or helping serve in the dining room, she had loved the excitement, the elegant food, the pretty table settings, the flowers, all the wonderful smells and sounds of music and people having a good time.
Sydney had once foolishly told her mother about her dream of opening a small French restaurant in Bloomfield. “Absurd,” “waste of time” and “exercise in futility,” had only been a few of her mother’s choice words for the idea.
Sydney had never brought the subject up again, but one year to the day after her mother had died, four weeks after Bobby had left her standing at the altar, Sydney enrolled in culinary school in Paris, bought a ticket for France and never looked back.
She knew people still talked about her behind her back: Well, is it a surprise?, they would whisper. Nobody ever really thought that a handsome jock like Bobby would marry Sydney the Hun. He’d simply felt sorry for her after her mother had died, and after all, her grandfather is the town judge and her family does have loads of money.
Sydney wasn’t stupid. She’d known all that. But she’d really thought that Bobby, even if he hadn’t loved her, had cared a little about her, enough that maybe, just maybe she could have a life at least close to what other women had. Husband, children—how desperately she wanted babies!—a little house with a yard.
So maybe she wouldn’t have that. But she’d have her restaurant. That was one dream no one could take away from her. Just these few hours this morning in the tavern, showing customers to their tables, taking orders and serving food, had made her feel alive again. She’d felt…needed. And she’d enjoyed every minute. Almost as much as she had enjoyed aggravating Reese.
Closing her eyes, she laid her head back on the sofa and smiled slowly. She knew she was driving him crazy. He’d hated the tablecloths and flowers and had thrown a fit about her additions to the menu. Her smile widened.
Reese Sinclair would rue the day he made that bet with her.
She did feel bad about hitting him in the nose with the door, though. Thank goodness she hadn’t broken anything or drawn blood. She didn’t believe in physical violence of any kind, and even though it had been an accident, she would have felt terrible if she had seriously hurt him.
But what had happened afterward between them still had her head spinning.
She’d told herself that she’d only touched him because she was concerned he might need medical attention. But when she’d placed her hands on his face she’d had trouble remembering that her inspection was strictly of a clinical nature. His freshly shaved cheeks had felt smooth under her fingertips and the faint scent of his spicy aftershave mesmerized her senses, tempted her to draw his essence more deeply into her lungs. To move closer still.
Had he noticed her hands shaking? Or how difficult it had been for her to breathe? And worst of all—that she’d wanted him to kiss her?
No, she doubted that he had noticed. She’d learned well enough over the years to hide what she was feeling. How else would she have survived an angry, bitter mother who’d never accepted that her husband had left and was never coming back? To the day she’d died, not one thing had ever made her mother happy. Not the family’s money or status in the community, not the traveling or fine home they’d lived in. Not even her daughter had ever brought her joy, Sydney thought sadly, though she knew she’d done her best. Her best simply hadn’t been good enough.
She wondered if it ever would be.
“What are you still doing here?”
Her eyes flew open at the sound of Reese’s voice. He stood in the lounge doorway, watching her. Not now, she thought with a sigh. The last thing she felt like doing at this moment was playing verbal Ping-Pong with Reese Sinclair.
“Even the prisons give five minute breaks, Sinclair.” She laid her head back. “I still have one minute left.”
“I mean—” he moved into the room and closed the door behind him “—why are you still here at all? Your sentence was up an hour ago.”
“I told Julie I’d cover her for a break in ten minutes. She hasn’t stopped once in three hours.”
“Neither have you. You’re going beyond the call of duty here, Syd.”
“Well, don’t get any ideas that I’m doing it for you,” she said, but there was no bite to her words. “I’m just trying to win Julie over so I can steal her away from you. It’s not easy to find employees who work that hard.”
“It’s not easy to find employees, period,” he said in agreement. “You have anyone lined up yet?”
She shook her head. “I’m putting an ad in this week.”
“Well, if you want long-term, take it from me and stay away from aspiring actors and artists. One day they’re here and the next, poof, they magically disappear.”
“Sort of like fiancés,” she said lightly, then wished she hadn’t. She saw the change in Reese’s eyes, the pity. More than she hated what people said about her, she hated the pity.
She felt the sofa dip as he sat beside her. Her senses went on immediate alert. She had no idea what was going on with her unexplained feelings toward Reese, but if she’d learned anything this morning, it was to keep as much space between her and him as possible. Especially when she was tired. Tired made her vulnerable, and that was the last thing she wanted to be around Reese. She knew better than to let her guard down with men like Reese Sinclair.
“Sydney.” He said her name with such trepidation that she felt her insides wince. “I need to talk to you.”
Good grief, if they’d been lovers, she’d have sworn he was getting ready to break it off. But they weren’t lovers, of course, and that was a ridiculous thought, anyway.
With a sigh, she sat and leveled her gaze with his. He actually looked worried, she thought in amazement. As if he hated whatever lecture he was about to give her. It had been nice, for two minutes, to have a discussion with Reese without verbal barbs, to talk business as if they were equals. Peers. Only he didn’t consider them equals or peers at all, she thought. She knew he considered her restaurant a lark, that she didn’t know one little thing about owning a business or the hard work attached to it.
Well, she did know what she was doing, and what she didn’t know she’d learn. And she’d be damned if she’d sit and cower while he reprimanded her like a child.
“If you’re still upset about the flowers and tablecloths, then fine, I won’t do that again. I simply thought it might add a certain…je ne sais quoi—” she gestured with her hand “—sophistication?”
“That’s not what I wanted to—” He stopped, narrowed his eyes. “Sophistication?”
She tucked a stray strand of hair back into the knot on the top of her head. “I wasn’t suggesting it for every day. I just thought that a couple of subtle changes would add a little refinement to your Sunday brunch.”
The green of his eyes darkened and a muscle twitched in his jaw. “You stick that nose of yours up any higher, Syd, you’re going to need a guide dog to lead you around.”
“Well, you certainly don’t need to be rude.” She forced her head to remain perfectly level. “For all it matters to me, you can throw peanut shells on the floor and serve beer in paper cups.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, that’s so.” She stood, shot a cool gaze at him. “Well, it’s been real, but if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to cover for Julie’s break before I leave. And I consider this hour overtime, Sinclair. Time-and-a-half.”
Guide dog, she fumed as she left the lounge without giving him a chance to respond. She wasn’t a snob. And she most certainly did not stick her nose up in the—
She tripped over a brass potted plant in the hallway outside the lounge and stumbled forward, barely catching herself. She heard the sound of Reese’s chuckle as he watched her from the doorway.
As childish as it was, Sydney wished she had a big fat banana cream pie in her hands. She’d love to rub it in that stupid grin Reese had on his face. Tugging her sweater down, she turned smoothly on her heels and walked away.