Melt For Me (Against All Odds Book 3) (3 page)

A frown turned his lips down. Yeah, she’d been real impressed. Impressed enough to pretty much tell him to get out of her bar and never come back.

The bartender set his mug in front of him, and, not feeling up to singing again, Tate shrugged and nodded toward his beer. The group answered with overly enthusiastic waves, then went back to their conversations.

Which was great, except as Tate swiveled toward his glass, the taste he suddenly had wasn’t for beer. It was for a cute brunette who obviously didn’t want to have anything to do with him anymore.

“So, you know Ella, huh?” The bartender wiped out a glass and set it on the shelf behind her.

Tate licked the foam from his lips and lowered his mug. “Yeah. We go back a few years.”

“Interesting. She’s never mentioned you.”

Tate huffed. That wasn’t a surprise either.

He glanced toward the door on the far side of the bar, the one he’d noticed earlier led to stairs that went up to the second floor and what he assumed was Ella’s office. Then to the old double doors that opened to the street. Wide windowpanes in each door were painted with the words
Yuletide Spirits
. Beyond, white flakes floated in the air, growing in thickness, catching in the trees and already covering the cars and sidewalks in a layer of white.

Yeah, bolting now before the snow got any worse was probably the best idea. Every man had regrets, right? That didn’t mean there was anything he could do about them. Some things were probably safer left in the past. If he’d really seen a spark in Ella’s eyes like he thought, the universe would have given him a sign he was supposed to stay. Such as that group hounding him to play again until he said yes, or Ella coming back into the bar while he sat here, or—

The bells above the double doors jingled, and a man dressed in a khaki sheriff’s uniform, a wide-brimmed hat, and dark jacket, stepped into the bar and shook snow from his shoulders. “Quick announcement, folks. The highway’s closed until further notice. Landslide took out both lanes. Make yourselves comfortable.”

—or a landslide blocking his only route out of town.

Wide-eyed, Tate turned back to his beer. The bartender winked as she wiped out another glass. “Hope you don’t have anywhere to be just yet.”

Swallowing a mouthful of beer, Tate shook his head, more stunned by the timing than he wanted to admit. “Not just yet. No.”

“Good.” She set the clean glass on another shelf at her back. “Got a place to stay?”
 

Tate hadn’t even thought about a place to stay. He’d only rolled into town an hour ago. But right now getting a room wasn’t a bad idea. It’d give him time to decide how to approach Ella next. “There’s gotta be a motel in town, right?”

“There is. A couple, actually.”

Tate reached for his wallet to pay for his beer.

“But they’re all full this time of year.”

His fingers stilled against the leather. Shit. Of course they were full. It was Christmas week in America’s cutest holiday town.

“Good thing I know of a room you can rent,” the bartender said. “And it’s cheap.”

Tate’s eyes narrowed. “How cheap?”

“Free.”

Crap
. The girl was pretty, midtwenties, attractive in a girl-next-door kind of way. But in his line of work, he had plenty of attractive girls offering him free rooms with benefits. And she wasn’t the girl he was interested in. No, the girl he’d come for was upstairs somewhere, hiding from him. “Thanks, but—”

“Don’t thank me, handsome. Not yet, at least. Wait’ll you see the room.” She winked once more, put the glass away behind her, then moved down the bar toward a couple who’d just come in. Before she reached them, though, she turned his way and added, “She plays your music, you know. I hear it late at night when I’m locking up. Your pipes aren’t half-bad, Kendrick. You should try singing for her sometime without the groupies.”

She turned away from him, smiled at the couple in front of her, and took their orders. And as Tate watched, he knew he’d just been given a second sign.

Ella listened to his music.

He didn’t care where he stayed or with whom. He wasn’t ready to leave Holly, North Carolina. Not until he saw for himself that the girl he’d fallen crazy in love with one summer long ago was truly gone.

CHAPTER TWO

E
lla tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and bit her lip as she studied the proposal—again—that Rob Henry had put together to buy Yuletide Spirits. Her gaze shifted back to the laptop on her desk, and she hit a button, flipping screens to check her calculations.

As much as she wanted to sell now, there was just no way she could afford it. Kyle had left her with too much debt when he’d had the kitchen remodeled. She wasn’t going to be able to recoup that cost if she sold now, which meant she needed at least three more months—probably six—before she could seriously consider the offer.

Sighing, she tossed the proposal on her desk, then tugged off her reading glasses and rubbed her tired eyes. It was well past three a.m. She needed to get some rest before the bar opened for the lunch crowd at eleven, but she was still too keyed up to sleep, and she wasn’t sure why.

That’s a big fat lie.

Dropping her hands into her lap, she frowned at the cool blue light radiating from her laptop screen. She knew exactly why she couldn’t sleep. Because every time she closed her eyes, she saw Tate Kendrick standing in her bar, and she heard his sexy voice telling her he’d gone to see her mother.

She slammed her laptop closed and stared across the room at the television she’d turned on so she didn’t feel so alone, then muted. Why the heck was he here? Nine years had gone by. He hadn’t come looking for her once in all that time, but he’d stopped by
now
?

It was probably a good thing he’d taken her hint and left. If she was lucky, he was already past Charlotte. Where had he said he was heading? Miami? As far from her as possible was a good start. Not that she cared. She hadn’t thought about him at all in nine years.

Liar…

Ella threw up her hands and pushed out of her seat. This was ridiculous. She needed to stop thinking about Tate and get some sleep. Grabbing the remote from the edge of her desk, she held it up and was just about to hit the Power button when the TV and lights abruptly went off, shrouding her in nothing but darkness.

Her heart rate shot up, but common sense rushed in on its heels. Power outage. It had snowed earlier. Not heavily, but it didn’t take much to cause trouble up here in the mountains.

She moved toward the window and pulled back the curtain, but instead of the sea of darkness she expected to find, streetlamps glowed orange in the lightly falling snow. Shop windows on Main were still illuminated by white twinkle lights. Even the traffic light was working, flashing green, then yellow, then red in the middle of the winter wonderland.

The hair on Ella’s nape stood straight as she let go of the curtain and turned back to face her dark room. But before panic could push in, she realized the old building must have blown a fuse. It happened now and then—not often, but the temperature had been colder the last few weeks, and the heaters were undoubtedly working overtime. She hoped it was just a tripped fuse.
 

Grumbling under her breath at how much of a money suck the place was, she fumbled through the entry closet in her apartment and found a flashlight on the shelf. A beam of light illuminated the hallway as she flipped it on. Since she was the only person who lived in the old building, she didn’t bother getting dressed. Just grabbed the fleece shawl she wore when she was working late and pulled the door closed behind her.

The second-floor corridor above the bar was silent but for the creak of boards beneath her slippers as she headed for the stairway. Sometimes she missed the space she’d had in the three-bedroom house she and Kyle had lived in after they got married, but most days she was glad she’d given it up. She hadn’t wanted to waste money on the rent after he died, not when her goal was to sell the bar and get out of Holly for good. And she definitely hadn’t wanted to live with the memories. But there were times, like now, when she missed modern conveniences like electricity that worked, and—she shivered beneath the shawl as she headed down the stairs—heat that wasn’t connected to that electricity.

The pub was silent as she made her way around tables topped with upside-down chairs. Her flashlight beam bounced over barstools and reflected off bottles along the shelf behind the bar. Ella moved behind the bar and through the adjoining kitchen. Still no lights. No sound. Nothing but her and the darkness. When she reached the cellar door, she told herself it was no different than it had been earlier in the evening.

She pulled the door open and shone her light down the cement stairs. She really didn’t like the cellar. It was cold and dark and creepy on a good day, and when the power was out, it was even creepier. Shining her light around, she scanned the back hallway for something to keep the door propped open. It locked automatically when it closed, a feature Kyle had installed to prevent theft. But for Ella, it was nothing but a headache. Her worst nightmare would be to get locked down there alone.

A crate in the corner of the hall caught her eye, so she pulled it over and propped it in front of the door. Shuffling down the steps, she shivered in the cooler temperature, wishing she’d thought to grab her coat. As she turned to her right, she shone the light past the shelves, searching for the breaker box. Took a step—

The door slammed shut at the top of the stairs.

Ella’s heart rate spiked, and she jerked around, but the flashlight slipped from her fingers before she could shine it over the stairs. It landed against the cement floor with a clank.

The light went out. Muttering a curse, Ella knelt to grab it, but footsteps on the stairs above her brought everything to a shuddering halt.

Footsteps that shouldn’t be in her pub at this hour.

Footsteps that told her she wasn’t alone.

T
ate bumped something hard in the dark as he stepped past the door and into the cellar. Pain shot up his leg. Muttering a curse, he hopped on his good foot and reached down to rub his sore toe, then jumped when the door snapped shut with a
clank
at his back.

Great. He winced as he glanced up toward the ceiling, hoping the sound hadn’t woken Ella. He could only imagine how thrilled she’d be to find him not only staying in the building, but waking her up at this hour.

Kelly’s “free room” hadn’t been at all what he’d expected. After most of the patrons had left the bar, she’d explained that her father owned the building, then taken him up to the third floor and shown him the space she’d mentioned. It wasn’t fancy by any means, just an open loft with a peaked ceiling, dormer windows, a cot, a working bathroom, a tiny kitchen, and heat. But Tate didn’t need fancy. And the minute he’d learned that Ella lived in the apartment on the second floor above the bar, he’d jumped on it. Even without heat, he’d have taken it.

Maybe he was just asking for trouble, but he wasn’t ready to leave. Not until he put this plan into action and found out for himself whether the old Ella—the one he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about for nine long years—was somewhere in the hardened businesswoman she’d become.

The pain subsided, and he held up his phone and swept the light over the steps as he descended. Cool air washed over his bare feet, making him shiver beneath the flannel shirt he’d tugged on over his jeans. When he hit ground level, he turned to his right, flashing his light over the shelves and walls, sure he’d seen a breaker box earlier in the evening when he’d followed Ella. The edge of a gray metal box came into view. He took a step in that direction, but from the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow moving toward him—something big and heavy headed right for him.

“Holy shi—” Tate swiveled in the other direction and ducked. The phone flew from his fingers. Something hard just missed his head and slammed into his shoulder. A crack echoed, followed by a rush of cold liquid that spilled over his shoulder and chest and ran down his legs, ending in a shatter of glass at his feet.

It was pitch-black. He couldn’t see a single thing. But adrenaline had him swinging out and reaching for whomever had broken into Ella’s bar and attacked him. His fingers closed around an arm or wrist—he wasn’t sure which—and he jerked the person toward him. Pulling his free arm back, he closed his hand into a fist and was just about to throw a punch when a high-pitched shriek met his ears.