“They’re not pouring shots and mixing drinks,” Noah said.
“Yet,” Chad said.
“Yet,” Noah agreed. “What can I get for you?”
Moore Timber’s number one helicopter pilot pointed to Fern’s Hoppy Heaven, the special IPA half the country had stopped by to sample yesterday. At this rate, they’d need another keg by tomorrow. “I hear Josie helped you get that crazy beer. Pretty damn impressive for one of your strays.”
“One of my what?” Noah set the beer in front of Chad.
“Elvira told everyone in the coffee line at The Three Sisters this morning about how you’d taken in two women desperate for work and given them jobs. She claims you have a heart of gold.” Chad raised his glass. “All I can say is that it’s a damn good thing I found Lena in my bed before she met you.”
“Elvira’s full of shit,” Noah said and Chad laughed. Hell, they both knew that was a lie. He had a cocktail waitress with a week’s experience who’d shown up on his doorstep damn near begging for the job. And a dishwasher who was wanted by the police. Plus, his former commanding officer might be hunting for Caroline. Oh, and she lived in his spare bedroom for now.
“Hey, Josh is planning to stop in later,” Chad said after taking one long drink from his beer. “Can he slip into the back and talk to Caroline? He wanted to check in and apologize for mistaking her for a tree-hugger.”
“Sure, though I don’t think she took that as an insult.”
Chad snorted. “It is to Josh.”
Noah nodded. The men who’d built their lives around the timber industry, who took pride in caring for the land, harvesting and then replanting, they didn’t exactly get along with the tree-huggers.
“After all the time Josh volunteered to the search, yeah he can head back when he gets here,” Noah said. “But he can’t see her alone.”
“Of course.” The door to the back room swung open and Josie walked in. Chad held up his beer. “To Josie, for making Big Buck’s the only bar with Fern’s Hoppy Heaven on tap outside of Portland!”
“To Josie!” a pair of college students echoed from the other end of the room.
She smiled and took a bow, then headed for the service side of the bar. He walked over to meet her. And yeah, his wide grin pretty much matched hers.
“You’re not getting another raise,” he said before she opened her mouth. She’d been angling for another increase since she’d witnessed the Hoppy Heaven’s popularity.
She leaned over the counter. “How about a bonus for giving the customers something else to raise their glasses to?”
He crossed his arms in front of his chest and watched her gaze flicker to the tattoo on his bicep. Just for a second. Then she was staring back at him again, but he was the only one smiling like a fool. The challenge in her big green eyes erased the sullen mood she’d accused him of wearing like a cloak.
“I’ll think about it,” he said, flexing his arms. He hoped she wanted the kind of extra benefit he was thinking of offering her—a kiss that would prove she’d carried the memory of that night in the barn around with her too.
JOSIE HAD STOPPED writing down orders by seven that evening. Nearly everyone who walked into the bar asked for a Fern’s Hoppy Heaven. And the few who requested a pop or a mixed drink, well, she’d gotten pretty good at remembering orders and linking faces with drinks.
One of the weekend bouncers had arrived early to help manage the crowd. She’d packed this place and secured her job. Noah wouldn’t dare take it away from her now.
She’d walked out of that meeting at the brewery feeling as if she could do anything. She could run this bar, pay her bills, and even secure a job for a woman trying to find her way back from a hell Josie could only imagine.
And I could fight the fear holding me back from stealing a peek beneath Noah’s Big Buck’s T-shirt at the muscles he fine-tuned over the past few years.
A touch. A taste. Nothing serious. Nothing that might lead to more.
Well, physically she was ready. It had been almost two years since she’d had sex. But sex led to broken hearts. Especially sex with Noah. And if they messed up with the birth control—a baby.
She couldn’t risk losing another child. It would break her. She wasn’t strong enough. Not yet, when she hadn’t even finished paying for the first loss. But even after she sent that last check, she knew the grief, the guilt, the feeling of failure, none of it would ever fully recede.
Still, a kiss, maybe two—that was different. She wasn’t afraid of one simple kiss. OK, maybe a little scared that she might start to feel something for him the second his lips touched hers. But she didn’t want to live in fear.