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Russ was trying to channel all his worries into polishing glasses. At this rate, he was going to have the cleanest glassware in all Heaven’s Limits.
He kept finding himself wanting to play some kind of idiotic “she loves me, she loves me not” game.
If I get to the end of this row of glasses before I hear from her, it means my hellhound won’t screw all this up. It means I can tell her about being mates.
If no customers come in before I finish, it means she could love me back.
He knew it was ridiculous. There wasn’t going to be a magic answer to his problems. The universe wasn’t going to suddenly intervene and give him a sign that he should talk to her; that just wasn’t how life worked—
Anita walked in, a warm summer breeze accompanying her and stirring the dark waves of her hair.
“I heard you need a waitress,” she said.
His hellhound looked at him pointedly. This is the universe talking. This is a sign.
“I haven’t tended bar before, but I’m a fast learner. And I’ve been a server and a hostess. Look, I have tray-carrying muscles.” She extended one arm and did a loose bicep curl that made his stomach flip-flop. She was soft and round, but he could see the strength underneath her velvety curves. She had the vibe of someone who was ready for anything and who could take on anything.
Maybe even the truth about him.
But the words froze up inside him. He couldn’t risk her safety and happiness just because she had good arms—what the hell was he thinking?
And that wasn’t what she was here for, anyway. She was here to... interview for Suzy Lynn’s old job?
Russ pulled himself together. “I believe you. But maybe we could backtrack to what happened with your car.”
She gave him a sheepish smile. “Sorry. I planned my pitch on the way over here, and I got carried away. My car needs a lot of work. From what Buzz was saying, I think they’re basically going to have to rebuild it from the ground up, and the only thing that’s going to survive the transition is the air freshener. It’d be cheaper to just get another car, but I like this car. It’s stuck with me through a lot of tough times, and I want to stick with it. And...” She took a deep breath. “And I might want to stick with Heaven’s Limits, too. The only reason I was going to my original destination was because I knew I had a place to sleep there, and that was as good a foothold as any. I wanted to get away from home more than I wanted to go any one place in particular. And I like it here. It seems like this would be a nice place to settle down.”
She wanted to live here?
And... she wanted to work at the bar?
Giving her what she wanted meant he would run into the daily temptation of her day after day. Could he handle that?
You can handle it by giving in, his hellhound growled. I would never hurt our mate.
You hurt me, Russ said. You destroyed my life.
Its ears twitched forward and, bewilderingly, its tail edged down between its legs, like he had hurt its feelings. Our life looks fine to me.
He didn’t have time to get into an argument with his mythical shifter animal. He forced all his attention back to Anita.
It was his responsibility to keep himself from blurting out his feelings, if that was really what he had to do. If Anita wanted to live in Heaven’s Limits, then she should.
Even if the truth about hellhounds was too wild to spring on her with this little notice, she deserved as much honesty and fairness as he could give her otherwise.
“It’s a great place to live,” he said truthfully. “My whole life blew up a couple years ago, and this town gave me space to put myself back together again. You couldn’t pick a better place if that’s what you want to do too.”
“It is.” She looked serious and completely sincere. She knew what she wanted.
“Then I’d be happy to have you as a waitress.”
She blinked at him. “That’s it? No trial run? No interview? I don’t even have to fill out an application?”
“I’ve never gotten around to making one up,” he admitted. “And I’ve been so swamped lately that I’d take anybody who could open a beer bottle.”
“I can open a beer bottle,” Anita said gravely. “I never thought that would be one of my most marketable skills, but it’s true.”
“Then we’re all set.” He held out his hand.
Another handshake. It showed how lovestruck he was that he knew that and was so eager for this seemingly mundane experience to repeat itself.
They sealed the deal only for him to remember that he hadn’t gotten around to telling her what kind of pay she could expect or what kind of hours she would work, let alone things like vacation days and insurance. Since the roadhouse was going to be a wasteland for the next few hours anyway, they both took seats at the bar while they talked it all over.
He didn’t know everything she’d been through before she had decided to overhaul her life with nothing but a suitcase and a tiny, beaten-down car, but he didn’t know that he liked her old life or anybody in it. Her expectations were so low. She was blown away by the pay he could offer her—which wasn’t nearly as much as he would like to be able to offer—and when he got to how of course she could keep the apartment above-the-bar for free, her jaw literally dropped.
“You can’t mean that.”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “It’s not like I’m losing money. I wasn’t renting it out anyway.”
“But you said your old waitress lived there. Didn’t she pay you rent?”
That was hard to answer.
“Yes,” Russ admitted. “But...”
“But what?”
But she wasn’t my one true mate. But she wasn’t this surprised by the idea that the world wouldn’t treat her badly.
“But she wasn’t in your position.” That was at least partly true, even if he left out the “true mates” detail. He was pretty sure he would have made her this offer anyway. “She didn’t have any urgent need to stockpile her savings, not as far as I know. No kids, no medical bills, no car trouble. I want you to live above the bar if you’re going to be working here, especially if you’re going to be stuck without a car for a while. It’s convenient for me, so if I can make you an offer that’s cheaper than you’ll get anywhere else...”
“Free is pretty cheap.”
“That’s what I’m hoping. Besides, you liked it.” He smiled at her without meaning to, just from remembering how her face had lit up as she had looked around the apartment. “I like it too, and it means something to me to know that it has a tenant who gets a kick out of it.”
She shook her head, and it took him a panicked second to understand that she wasn’t saying no as much as expressing astonishment. “Believe me, I’ll wake up every morning and look around and be so, so grateful that my car broke down here. I still feel like this place has to be a dream. Especially since—” She cut herself off so sharply that for a moment he thought she’d bitten her tongue.
“What?”
Anita just shook her head again. When she answered him, he had the funny feeling that she still wasn’t saying what she had been about to say earlier.
“Especially since I’m now officially employed. And housed.” She looked around. “Is there anything I should be doing right now? Wiping down tables? Cutting up lemons? Learning how to make the perfect margarita?”
“All of that can wait, trust me. Most of our patrons won’t ask for anything more complicated than a beer, anyway.” He thought of Lu and her Harvey Wallbangers and neon blue Aqua Velvas. “And I can handle the one who does. You should take the afternoon to get settled into the apartment. Oh, that reminds me. Just a sec.”
He disappeared into the bar’s back office and leaned against the door for a second, his heart pounding.
Had he just invited the woman of his dreams to be his waitress?
Yeah, he had.
Good, his hellhound said in its rumbling voice.
Russ pushed back at it. You stay out of this.
She needed the job, and she needed Heaven’s Limits—or at least she wanted the job and wanted Heaven’s Limits, and Russ wanted her to have everything she wanted. He just needed to keep his distance. Emotionally and literally, because God knew that if he had too many more hot and heavy handshakes, he’d lose his mind and blurt out everything.
He gave himself until the count of five to just breathe in and out and calm down, and then he got down to business and grabbed the cardboard box he’d come in for.
He hoisted it up and brought it out to Anita.
It occurred to him at the last second that she might see this as an insulting kind of charity, and his face started to burn as he deposited the box on one of the barstools.
“I wasn’t sure how long you’d be staying, originally, and I didn’t want you to have to keep spending every night in a sleeping bag...” He cleared his throat. “I mean, you don’t need to take any of it, obviously. I just thought there were probably a few things you could use.”
“Russ, this is incredible.” She dug through the box, and, reassuringly, her face was glowing with pleasure and excitement like it was Christmas morning. She lifted up one of the squashed, folded squares of bedsheet and pressed a corner of it to one cheek, like she was luxuriating in the texture. She caressed it against her skin.
Russ experienced the unusual sensation of being jealous of his sheets.
He had wanted to get her a new set, but now, he wouldn’t be able to afford anything this good. The linen he’d given her was all left over from his old life, when he’d had more money than he’d known what to do with. The sheets were Egyptian cotton, with a thread count so high that the fabric felt as smooth as butter. He’d given them a wash this morning before he’d packed them up, and the lavender smell of his fabric softener sweetened the air as Anita shook the corner of the sheet out to straighten it again.
“Mm,” she said. “They even smell good. And towels!”
The towels were new. They were the thickest he’d been able to find in the town’s unevenly stocked general store.
He’d thrown in everything he could think of—hand soap and bath soap, cleaning stuff, basically everything but food, since he didn’t know what she liked. He hoped it was okay, and he said so.
“Okay?” Anita said incredulously. “It’s more than okay. You don’t understand: my family spent my whole life paranoid that the world would smash me flat, that everybody in it would hurt me and take advantage of me. But this... this is one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me. You’ve done all of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me.” She looked at him for a second and then launched herself at him, going up on her tiptoes so she could put her arms around his shoulders.
Russ froze.
KISS HER, his hellhound roared.
It took everything he had to turn his head away. She wasn’t trying to kiss him anyway, he realized after an unsteady, wrenching moment of doubt. She was just giving him a thank-you hug, the kind normal, nice people gave each other all the time.
But if that was true, why was she holding onto him so tightly? Why was she leaning her head against him, pressing her cheek to his chest with such fervency?
She rubbed her cheek against the sheets, too, he reminded himself. She just likes feeling things.
Except his shirt wasn’t made out of Egyptian cotton, so it was probably a less satisfying experience.
When she pulled away from him, she looked confused—and maybe even a little hurt. It took him a moment to understand why. He’d been fighting the urge to sweep her up in his arms and never let her go, and as a result, he hadn’t held her back at all. His arms had stayed stiff at his sides.
“Sorry,” Anita said. Her face was flushed, her smooth, light brown skin now reddened along her cheekbones. “I guess I got a little carried away.”
It was probably the right choice to put some distance between them, but he couldn’t stand her thinking it was her fault. “No, not at all. I’m sorry. I’m just... not a hugger.”
She forced a weak smile. “I’ll remember that.”
You don’t have to! Russ’s hellhound put in eagerly.
Russ had to bite his tongue to keep the same thing from coming out of his mouth. He had to keep himself from saying a lot of things, and he needed to go ahead and just start getting used to it.