I’m proud of you, Josie.
But hell, if he said those words she’d probably demand another raise.
“I’m planning to sleep on the drive back,” he said. And God help him if he started dreaming about her. He had a feeling his mind would head straight for inappropriate with the woman who’d just proven to be his most valuable employee.
“I won’t bother you,” she promised. “But I have one question first.”
“Shoot.”
“Is there any reason Caroline can’t work for you?” she asked.
“What?” he said.
“You need a dishwasher, especially on the busy nights. It wouldn’t pay much. But it would be something,” she continued if he wasn’t staring at her profile trying to figure out if he’d missed something. The nap on the way down had helped his sleep-deprived mind. But after working and worrying twenty-four/seven for five days, he needed a solid five or six hours before he felt fully functional.
“So any reason she can’t join the Big Buck’s team?” she asked, glancing at her blind spot as she merged onto the highway.
He grinned and shook his head. Yesterday, he’d told her he had a rule against dating his employees at the bar. And now she was asking . . .
His smiled widened. “You’re fishing.”
After five long days of torturing himself with images of Caroline dead in the woods, or injured and alone, after six days of working with Josie, knowing she’d come to him for help after losing her child, and facing the fact that he still wanted her, she wished to know if he’d slept with Caroline. All the pain and mental torture of the past few days, all the hard facts, had been reduced to a question innocent seventh graders asked each other: Do you like her?
“Yes.” She glanced over at him.
“Thinking about taking me up on the offer to lick you clean?” he asked mildly.
She let out a laugh and then fell silent. Finally, she said, “I want to help Caroline.”
“So you’re looking out for the woman who tried to shoot you earlier?”
The color faded from her cheeks. “She wasn’t going to discharge her weapon.”
Probably not, but Caroline had still scared the hell out of him.
“You’ve been searching for her after work,” she said. “I know you want to help her.”
“I do,” he admitted. “And now that I’ve taken on more management, I’m thinking about relaxing some of the rules.”
“Oh,” she said. “Really?”
“Like maybe I could pay one very part-time, temporary employee off the books and in cash.”
“That’s not the rule I was talking about and you know it,” she said.
Yeah, he knew. But he couldn’t resist the urge to tease her.
“Plus you paid me in cash out of the register that first night,” she added.
“I’m thinking about relaxing the other rules too.”
But not because Caroline showed up.
He leaned his head back, knowing he needed another combat nap or he’d fall asleep standing up at work tonight. He closed his eyes and prepared to drift off into a dream that might become a reality—if he meant what he’d said about relaxing his rule. Sure, Dominic would still kick the shit out of him if he ever made his way back to Oregon. And after losing her baby, suffering a breakup with her asshole ex, Josie might be looking for a helluva lot more than Noah could deliver.
He frowned. She deserved a lot after all she’d been through. What had she said yesterday? Look all you want, I don’t fall for the good guys? But he wasn’t a saint. Not even close. If she accepted that, then maybe a night or two—
“I just wanted to know if Caroline was part of your naked-bull-riding club,” Josie murmured. “If her membership might be current.”
“No. We were never involved,” he said without opening his eyes. “And for the record, sweetheart, you’re the only member of that club.”
Chapter Seven
“I HEAR YOUR staffing criteria has shifted from experienced bartenders to women who need a job.” Chad Summers walked up to the nearly empty bar twenty minutes after noon on Friday.
Noah glanced at the door to the back room. Josie was in there teaching Caroline how to use the commercial dishwasher, a skill Josie herself had only picked up a few days ago. The two women got along just fine now that he’d erased Josie’s concern that he’d been naked bull riding, or naked anything else, with Caroline.
And it probably helped that Caroline had taken a shower. Plus, his fellow marine had agreed to let him keep her gun in his safe. He just hoped they didn’t break the dishwasher during the lesson or he’d be serving everyone in plastic cups until he could replace it.