Her breath caught in her chest when his blue eyes blazed into hers. What was the right answer? The yes her brain was cautioning her or the no her body was screaming. Her gaze broke away from his to stare at the full mouth...so tempting... “Yes. Both just a one-time thing,” she said, hoping she sounded more confident to him than she did to her own ears.

He straightened as several customers claimed the free stools next to her. “That’s too bad. I’m not sure which one disappoints me more,” he said with a wink, moving on to serve them.

And damn, if that simplest gesture didn’t make her wish she could change her answer.

CHAPTER EIGHT

IT FELT AS though he’d just closed the bar and now he was back. Tank was sleeping off his night shift at the station, therefore it fell on Reed to do inventory that month. He unlocked the back door and secured it again before heading into Tank’s office for the supply sheets. He could ask the waitstaff to help, but he preferred to take stock alone. It was faster and it would be done right.

This time of year, their inventory doubled—the shelves were fully stocked with all their regular alcohol and mixes and then the addition of the holiday-themed junk. He wished Tank would just change the names of their drinks to festive sounding labels instead of making him come up with actual Christmas-inspired cocktails, like Candy-Cane Explosion and Frosty Twist, but it was his buddy’s bar and there was a reason it was the local hot spot.

Grabbing the sheets, he worked his way through the bottles of wine in the cellar, double-checking the counts before moving on. When his gaze landed on the California merlot Erika had been drinking the night before, an image of her licking a drop of wine from the rim of her glass flashed out of nowhere.

A dozen women had ordered this particular wine and yet none of their pretty faces and delicious-looking lips sprang to mind. Nope. Just hers. Man, having her around for two weeks might be the death of him. One minute they were on the edge of flirting and he was tempted to kiss her and the next they were arguing, and it only made him want to kiss her more. She was his sister’s friend and most siblings had a rule about these things, but it had never really applied to them. Growing up, Cassie had crushed on or dated almost all of his buddies and in recent years she’d set him up with a few of her friends.

But none had gotten a rise out of him or stolen his focus quite like Erika.

Her words about his chosen career had lingered with him longer than he liked. He’d taken offense to them because she’d struck a nerve. He’d been honest when he said he loved bartending...that didn’t mean he wouldn’t prefer doing something else. His high school grades had been good enough to get him into college and he’d worked since he was fourteen, putting money aside for his future. He’d just decided not to enroll that September, instead joining the search and rescue crew. Then it had been impossible to leave.