“Ah, but you didn’t see us back then,” Ford said. “Two scrawny, bony-ass kids. The best that could be said of us was we knew how to take a beating.”
“And run fast,” Jax reminded him.
Maddie looked horrified. “How awful.”
“It wasn’t so bad.” Ford lifted a shoulder. “We had Sawyer.”
“Sawyer?”
“Our secret weapon. He’d been wrestling with his older brothers since before he could walk. It’s why we let him hang out with us.”
Maddie finished her beer and set the empty down, looking infinitely more relaxed. “Another, please.”
Ford obliged. “So is this a social second round or a get-shit-faced one?”
She pondered that with careful consideration. “Does it matter?”
“Only if I have to peel you off the floor and call you a ride.”
She shook her head. “No floor peeling.”
Ford nodded and smiled, then turned to Jax and pointed at the puzzle before moving off to serve his other customers.
Maddie sipped her second beer. “So you and Ford are close.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you two fight?”
“Occasionally.”
“And how do you settle these arguments?”
“Depends. Fight night in town square usually works.”
At that she gave him a long look, and he smiled, making her shake her head at herself. “You’d think LA would have beaten the gullible out of me,” she murmured.
“Nah. I’m just good at pulling legs.”
“So what do you and Ford argue about? Women?”
“We try to avoid that.”
“Okay, not a woman. Something else. Would you solve it with, say, a diplomatic coin toss?”
“Probably not,” he admitted. “Loudest usually wins. A well-placed punch is always a bonus.”
When she narrowed her eyes in blatant disbelief, he smiled again. “See, you’re catching on to me already.”
“Actually,” she murmured, “it’s not a bad idea. But I’d lose a fight against my oldest sister. Tara’s got some serious pent-up-aggression issues.” She considered her beer for a minute, her fingers stroking up and down over the condensation, drawing Jax’s full attention.
“Probably I could take Chloe on account of her asthma,” she said. “But that’d be mean. Plus I’m out of shape, so…”
At that, he gave her a slow once-over, fully appreciating her real curves, and shook his head. “Not from where I’m sitting.”
She blinked. Compliments obviously flustered her, which only stirred his curiosity all the more. “You could challenge your sisters to a street race in your Honda,” he said. “My money’s on you.”
She choked out a little laugh, set down her beer, and pointed at the opened puzzle book. “Four.”
“Excuse me?”
“Four goes there. And six goes there.” Leaning in, she took his pencil and filled in the two spots while he found his mouth so close to her ear he could have taken a nibble. Instead, he inhaled her scent. Soft. Subtle. Nice.
She cocked her head sideways, concentrating, and he just breathed her in. Which was how she filled in the rest of the puzzle before he realized it. “Damn.”
“Don’t be impressed,” she said. “I’ve got a little compulsive problem. I can’t stand to leave anything unfinished.” She hopped off the barstool. “Unfortunately, they don’t have a twelve-step program for such things.”
“Ford’s going to owe you,” he said, snagging her wrist to halt her getaway.
“You could have done it if you’d worn your glasses.” She pulled free. “It was only a moderately hard one. Oh and FYI? Women think glasses are a sign of brains, and also, they’re sexy.”
Cocking his head, he took in the slight flush to her cheeks, the humor in her gaze, and felt something stir within him. She might be struggling with some demons, but she was sweet and sharp as hell and a breath of fresh air. “Are you flirting with me?”
“No. The porn thing was a dealbreaker.”
That made him laugh, and even better, so did she, and something flickered between them.
Chemistry.
A shocking amount of it. Clearly she felt it, too, because suddenly she was a flurry of movement, pulling some cash from the depths of her pockets, setting it on the bar for Ford, and turning for the door like she had a fire on her ass.
“Maddie.”
She turned back, looking a little frenzied again, a little panicked, much as she had when he’d first seen her across the expanse of highway. He wondered why.
“I have to go,” she said.
“Puzzles to solve?”
“Something like that.”
“It’s not really a puzzle-solving night,” he said, slipping her money back into her front jeans pocket, his knuckles grazing her midriff. She went stock-still while he pulled his own money out to cover the drinks. “It’s more of a make-new-friends night,” he said. “And Ford’s putting out peanuts. We can throw them at him. He hates that.”
She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, emotion flickered there. “I’d really like that, but tonight I have to have that fight with my sisters.”
She was clearly vulnerable as hell, and he needed to get away from her before he took advantage of that. But then her bright blue gaze dropped and homed in on his mouth, and all his good intentions flew out the window.
“I’m working on a new beginning here,” she said.
“New beginnings are good.”
“Yeah.” Her tongue came out and dampened her lips, an unconscious gesture that said maybe she was thinking of his mouth on hers. Seemed fitting. He’d been thinking about her mouth on his since he’d seen her outside the bar.
It’d been a hell of a long time since he’d let himself feel something, far too long. That it was for this woman, here, now, was going to make things difficult, but he was good at difficult and wouldn’t let that stop him.
Reaching for her hand, he pulled her in, lowering his head. His jaw brushed her hair, and a strand of it stuck to his stubble. He was close enough now to watch in fascination as her eyes dilated. Her lips parted, and-
“You two need a hotel room?”
Ford, the resident nosey-body.
Maddie jumped and pulled free. “I’ve really got to go. Thanks for the drinks.” She whirled around and stumbled into a table. With a soft exclamation, she righted the spilled drinks, apologizing profusely. Then she hightailed it for the door, not looking back.
“You’re an ass,” Jax said to Ford, watching her.
“No doubt. So, you going to collect her, too?”
Jax slid him a look.
“Come on. Try to deny that out of guilt you collect the needy: the homeless dog, friends who need loans, the chick with the sweet eyes and even sweeter ass-”
“You know I’m not interested in a relationship.” It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in the concept. In spite of his parents’ failed marriage and Jax’s own close call with his ex, he understood wanting someone, the right someone, in his life. But he wasn’t sure he trusted himself. After all, his past was freely littered with the debris of his many, many mistakes.
“You don’t have to have a relationship to get… involved,” Ford said. “Not the naked variety of involved, anyway. But she did run out of here pretty darn quick. Maybe she wasn’t feeling it.”
No, that hadn’t been the problem. There’d been chemistry, so much that they could have lit all of Lucky Harbor’s Christmas lights from the electricity. And that chemistry had scared her. She’d been hurt, that was plain as day. Knowing it, hating it, Jax headed for the door, because bad idea or not, he felt compelled to get to know more about her.
“Hey, what about my tip?” Ford called after him.
“You want a tip? Learn to keep your big trap shut.” And Jax stepped out into the night.
“Rule number one of drinking without a wing man,” Maddie chided herself as she walked away from the Love Shack. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
She walked faster and found herself at the beginning of the pier, pushed around by the wind. But she hardly felt it. Nope, she was still all warm and tingly thanks to a certain gorgeous guy with a mischievous, bad-boy smile and an even better body-