“Okay, so why are you here?”
“Looking for you. You haven’t been down to the bar in a while now. Why not?”
Had she been avoiding him? Maybe. A little. She’d also been working overtime on Matt’s side project. She shook her head. “I’ve been busy at work.”
“So you haven’t been avoiding me?”
He wasn’t going to give up, was he? Did she want him to give up? Her pulse quickened. No. But he needed to understand that she wasn’t one of those easy girls.
She leaned forward. “I meant what I said the other night. You know what I’m looking for. I want old-fashioned romance, Rory, not party time, not—”
She was interrupted by the arrival of her waffles, smothered in syrup and butter. Her stomach growled just as Gracie turned toward Rory. “Hello, handsome,” she said. “Can I get you something, or are you just visiting?”
Damn. Arwen had never actually heard Gracie ask a customer what they wanted.
“Cup of tea?” He turned those baby blues on Gracie, and she wasn’t immune.
“Nothing else? Really?” Gracie asked. “No eggs, no bacon, no sausage, no potatoes? No wonder you’re so thin.”
Rory’s face softened, and the bad boy disappeared for a moment. He might even have sighed.
“I thought so,” Gracie said, then turned and bustled away.
“You’ve never been to Gracie’s before, have you?” Arwen asked.
He shook his head. “I have a feeling I’ve been missing something.”
“You have been. And I have a feeling that your full Irish breakfast will arrive momentarily.”
He eyed her waffles. “I’m surprised to see you eating waffles. I always took you for a cereal and fruit sort of person.”
“I indulge myself once a week,” she said, cutting a piece of waffle and popping it into her mouth. The burst of sweetness on her tongue almost made her groan.
“I have a feeling that’s your problem.”
Arwen swallowed her waffle. “You think waffles are a problem?”
“No, but eating them only once a week is.”
“What, and you eat a full Irish breakfast every morning?”
“Bacon and eggs are not the same as waffles.” He delivered this line as if he were handing out some kind of deep philosophy. But hey, what the hell, the guy was a bartender. It came with the territory.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“To seduce you into doing something different. Whatever it is you’ve got planned for today, I want you to give it up and do something crazy. Have you ever ridden on a motorcycle?”
Her girl parts, which had always longed for that quintessential bad-boy experience, were totally down with the idea of a motorcycle ride. And her brain, which was probably drunk on maple syrup, suddenly thought a ride on his bike sounded like heaven. “No, I haven’t. Is this an invitation?”
He gave her a winning smile. “Only if it sounds like more fun than whatever you were planning to do today. What were you planning to do today?”
“Errands. And then a DIY project.”
“On a beautiful Sunday in June? Love, you need to get out and live a little.”
Yeah, she did. It was a tiny bit pathetic that her one and only weekly indulgence had become a habit, like everything else in her life. “Okay. I’m game,” she said.
The smile on Rory Ahearn’s mouth sent her girl parts into an ecstatic happy dance, which was both wonderful and scary at the same time. She could see where this was leading, and she almost wanted to go there, but not quite.
Rory wasn’t the man of her dreams. He would never court her or send her flowers or take her to a restaurant with cloth napkins. He wasn’t safe or sane or stable.
But he was incredibly exciting. And maybe that was enough for now.
Another late Sunday night at the Jaybird Café, unwinding from a long weekend at Eagle Hill Manor. It was well past ten o’clock, and Courtney sat at the bar facing the fact that her life had settled into a definite rut. Nobody needed her, unless she counted the endless lineup of demanding brides.
Leslie had called her tonight at ten o’clock to say that Sid had retired for the night and it would be best not to disturb him. Clearly Sid didn’t need her.
Nor did Willow, Melissa, or Amy. They were home with their husbands. Gone were the days when Courtney and her friends would gather here at the Jaybird after work and commiserate about single life.
Even Arwen seemed strangely absent. She’d been putting in long hours at work lately, and she hadn’t answered her cell phone this evening. Maybe Arwen had found someone too and didn’t want Courtney to know about it.
She stared down at her Manhattan and wished she’d ordered something different. Something she’d never tried before. Something without cherries maybe. Or without whiskey.
“You’ve hardly touched your drink. And your aura is ominously gray.” Juni leaned on the inner side of the bar and gave Courtney a gentle, dark-eyed gaze. Juni’s curly brown hair seemed wilder than usual, probably because of the killer humidity outside. Her vintage lace top fell low over her shoulders and exposed a tiny bit of midriff above her faded jeans.
“I do not wish to talk about it,” Courtney said, lifting her drink and taking a sip.
“Okay, but I’m just saying that a thread of dark gray is threatening the yellow around your head.”
Courtney put her drink down with a thump. “Not tonight, okay? I concede that my life is crap. I don’t need anyone to read my aura to give me that newsflash.”
“What’s wrong?” Juni asked, cocking her head to one side. Real concern radiated from her sober gaze.
“All my friends are married, and all of them are expecting babies, and my kitten fell for a lothario. I mean, how pathetic is that? I’m even a failure as a crazy spinster cat lady.”
“Ah. I understand.” Juni nodded.
Courtney hated when Juni behaved like some kind of Buddha, enlightened but unwilling to share.
