Cold Dark Heart by Julie Kriss

Five

Andie

Damon’s background checked out.I wasn’t surprised, because for some reason I hadn’t thought he was lying to me. I just had to be sure. After all, apparently I had terrible taste in men.

“He was a Fed,” my dad told me, sounding suspicious when he called me with the results of his background check. “Probably a friend of Terry’s. Why do you need a Fed working at the bar?”

“Maybe he’ll keep some of the lowlifes out,” I said. “You know the window got broken. It might be useful having him around.”

“Terry was a Fed, and he never did screw-all,” Dad grumbled. He never swore.

He was right. Terry had bought the bar when the old owner retired. He’d claimed he was going to turn the place around and make a success of it. I’d worried about the money, but after years taking down drug dealing scum, I’d figured Terry deserved to take a shot at a second career where he didn’t put his life on the line every day. I’d backed him up and believed in him, made it work like a spouse was supposed to do.

And Terry, as my dad put it, hadn’t done screw-all. He hadn’t updated the bar, done any marketing, or even bought a new sign. The Wild made some profit because of its regulars, but it wasn’t as much as it could be. Salt Springs was full of oddballs, but parts of it were slowly gentrifying with people moving from Denver for cheaper real estate, and we got more and more tourists every year. There were also a lot of college kids in town who never came here. The bar could have more customers, but Terry had never listened to my suggestions. Instead, he’d said that this was his project, one he needed to do alone—which meant back off.

Worse, he’d never let me look at the books. I was a professional bookkeeper, and it seemed like the easiest way to save money would be to let me do the books. But he hadn’t. I’d never even seen the books, and since I took over, I hadn’t actually found them.

It had only been two weeks. I tried not to think about that. The books would turn up, and when they did, I would go through them, and they would be fine.

I’m not in over my head,I thought as I got Miles off to school, alone on his bike, and got in my car to go to the Wild. I’m not.

Damon had said he would come back today, and I wondered if he actually would. Maybe he’d decided that Salt Springs wasn’t his kind of place, and he’d left town already. Maybe he’d thought twice about working for a woman who was a bit bitchy because her life was falling apart. Weirdly, I hoped he would actually show. I wasn’t sure how I would feel if he didn’t.

Of course, I could simply call him. He’d left me his number. But I had too much pride to do that, and these days it felt like pride was all I had left.

Instead, I worked the morning with a weird sense of anticipation. The West wasn’t open in the mornings, so it was a good time to do things like inventory and cleaning and office work that was best without interruptions. I was still going through the old computer in the office, trying to figure out where all the files were and how the bar was run. It was like trying to piece together a mystery after someone has died—except that Terry wasn’t dead, he was in Florida with the woman he’d been sleeping with instead of me. I wasn’t going to call him and ask him about suppliers or tax returns. I’d rather die.

When it got close to the time that Damon was supposed to show up, I got too distracted to work. We were open by then, and Jimmy was behind the bar, serving a few daytime regulars. I did a wander through the main bar, which I didn’t often do, thinking about what Damon had said about security. The cash box really did look like it came from a dollar store. We really didn’t have any security system, any cameras, or any wiring for it. What the hell had Terry been thinking?

I was standing next to the bar, staring up at a spot in the corner where a camera might go, when I heard a familiar voice at my shoulder. “What are you looking at?”

I jumped. It was Damon, and he was right next to me, so close I could catch a whiff of his scent. I turned and looked at him. “What?”

He pointed to the spot on the ceiling. “What’s so interesting?” he asked. He was wearing jeans and work boots again, but he was wearing a clean white Henley beneath the brown leather jacket. He’d left off the baseball cap, and his dark blond hair looked soft and clean. The beard on his jaw was neat and trimmed close to his skin. He looked at me curiously from those gray eyes, rimmed with dark lashes.

“Um,” I said, stupid for a second. It was the eyes, maybe. Or the scent, which was clean male skin mixed with leather. Or just the presence of him, so close. His presence hadn’t hit me like this yesterday. When was the last time a man made me stupid? I couldn’t remember.

Damon raised his eyebrows, waiting. And oblivious.

I gathered myself. “I’m looking for spots where cameras would go. You’re right, this place doesn’t have any.”

Damon nodded. “Does that mean I’m hired?”

It took a second for me to form the words, even though I’d already decided. It was just so, so hard to ask for help. So goddamned hard. “If you’re still willing to work four weeks as a trial, then yes,” I ground out.

The corner of his mouth twitched, as if he had an idea of what that sentence had cost me. “I guess that means you looked me up.”

I shrugged. “You check out well enough.”

“Good. I’ll start right now.”

“Fine.” Why did that sound like a challenge? I cast my mind around, trying to think of what came next, now that Damon was actually working for me. “How about you write up a list of your security suggestions?”

He actually rolled his eyes, as if he was Miles. “Really? A list?”

“Yes, a list.” I straightened my spine and looked him in the eyes. I’d thought that sounded pretty good. “Make a list, and when I get back, we’ll go over it and cost out each suggestion so I can make a budget. You can use the office.”

“When you get back? Where are you going?”

“I’ve set up a series of meetings with our suppliers. The first one is this afternoon. I’m meeting with our whiskey supplier in Denver.” I needed to meet our suppliers in person. I also needed to discuss with them the stack of late and unpaid invoices in the office. It wasn’t going to be fun, but I was ready for it. We had to keep the booze coming into the Wild.

“That’s a good idea,” Damon said. “I’ll come with you.”

I frowned at him. “No, you won’t.”

“Yes, I will.”

We stared each other down, and then I said, “You’ve only been employed by me for two minutes, and already you don’t take direction very well.”

“I never said I’d take direction,” Damon said, and something about his voice made the sentence sound dirty. Was that intentional? Or did he just sound dirty all the time?

Or was it me that was dirty?

No, it definitely wasn’t me. I was a bookkeeper, for God’s sake. And a mom. And an ex-wife who was absolutely done with men. “There’s no reason for you to come with me,” I argued.

Those gray eyes softened a little. “Andie. If I come with you, I can learn more about how this place runs. What kind of relationships Terry had with his suppliers, that kind of thing. It will help me do my job.”

I hesitated. In fact, I’d been sort of dreading the drive to Denver to deal with this alone. Lately, it felt like I’d been dealing with everything alone. Probably because I had.

Truth be told, I’d been dealing with everything alone for a long time before Terry had even left.

I crumbled. Just an inch.

“We’ll take my car and I’ll drive,” I said, not willing to give in completely.

Damon smiled, and then he shrugged. “Fine with me.”