She loaded Misty’s tray and leaned close. “I’d stay away from those guys.”
Misty’s eyes widened. “Why?”
“Don’t ask. They’re bad news, so I’d steer clear.”
“Good to know,” Misty said and toddled off with her tray.
Lilith looked around until she spotted Benny at the far end of the bar. She worked her way in his direction, wiping up wet spots, replacing damp napkins with fresh ones and making small talk with customers until she reached him. “Can you cover for me for a few?”
“Oh, sure,” he said, getting to his feet. “Long as no one asks me to make one a’them—”
She patted him on the shoulder. “If they do, you just holler for me, okay?”
“You go out back,” Benny said, “watch out for them crows. I seen big’uns today. Whoo-ee! Almost made me crap my pants.”
“Yeah,” Lilith said, “I’ll be careful.” Benny was even more afraid of crows than Long Island Iced Teas.
She ducked through the swinging double doors, ran through the kitchen, slipped on the greasy floor and plunged through the back door into the alley.
Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, Magic
CHAPTER THREE
Tasha McNeil leaned against the hard back of the wooden bar chair and allowed conversation to flow over her. The round table before her was big enough for two people, but six of her newfound friends crowded around it, chattering excitedly. They drank frothy pastel-colored drinks with complicated garnishes—elegant cocktails with an ingredient list longer than the stemmed glasses were tall. Rewards after enduring organic, low-fat food and intense workouts followed by yoga that had stretched her body in ways Tasha hadn’t known possible.
She’d made it through ten days at the Lost Legacy Spa relatively unscathed and had weighed-in this morning minus 4.7 pounds. So what if she’d wanted to lose a pound a day like some of her friends? That was what the spa brochure had promised (these results not typical), but she hadn’t been foolish enough to believe that kind of metabolic magick would happen for her. The weight loss officially put her that much closer to her goal, although she might have to nibble celery sticks for the rest of her life to get there, while facing the fact that, in her case, a size six might be the stuff of dreams.
During her brief vacation, she’d come to love the funky vibe of the coast, falling asleep listening to the distant roar of the ocean. Returning to her house in Portland seemed like a dull and boring prospect. A lonely one, too.
“I can’t believe we’re finally free and you’re drinking ginger ale! Give it up, girl. It’s time to celebrate.” Erin Waverly, Tasha’s roommate during her spa visit, lifted her cocktail glass, swirled the rosy liquid and touched the tip of her tongue to the sugared rim. “There is no redeeming nutritional value to this drink. I’m going to savor every drop and every calorie, and then I’m going to have another.”
“I have no tolerance,” Tasha lamented. “One drink and I’ll be dancing on the tables.”
“Seriously? That would be incredible.” Erin lifted a hand and waved for the server.
“Seriously no,” Tasha said. “Me drunk is not a pretty sight.”
After what had happened the day before she’d arrived at the spa, she wasn’t sure allowing anything alcoholic or pharmaceutical to pass her lips was a good idea. Sex with a gorgeous stranger plus missing time followed by weirdness equaled a whole lot of stuff she couldn’t wrap her mind around.
She liked knowing what was what; she was an engineer for God’s sake. If it could be measured, plumbed, piped, reinforced or figured out, she would do just that and then provide plans, spreadsheets and production schedules to back it up.
Whatever it was.
When she was on the job, shit got done.
The final project she’d managed before selling her small consulting company had been the assembly of a massive crane at an industrial site. The working arm of the machine had been nearly as long as a football field. It had been the same kind of crane that had fallen from a skyscraper construction site in Manhattan a few years ago and at another site before that in Texas. Simply putting it together like the world’s biggest Lego toy had taken months. She’d made for damn sure no accidents happened on her watch.#p#分页标题#e#
Still, she wasn’t infallible. That was why plans were checked and double-checked and calculations verified and nothing, but nothing, went out of the office without at least three sets of eyes going over every detail.