Up to the Challenge (An Anchor Island Novel) (10 page)

He moved the fork to one side, changed his mind, and switched to the other side.

“Just stick the fork in it, Dempsey. It’s not going to fight back.”

“You’re right.” His fork sliced through the meringue, pierced the Key lime, and scooped up a chunk of crust. “Here we go.” Somehow he managed to get the entire bite in his mouth on the first try, though a hint of meringue lingered on his upper lip.

Without thinking, Sid reached out and wiped it off with the tip of her finger. Lucas caught her wrist, sending heat sizzling along her skin, and stared with one brow raised.

“That’s my meringue.”

Sid stuttered. “I was … It was … You had …” She might have regrouped and finished a sentence but his next move struck her mute.

Lucas licked her finger clean, holding it in his mouth longer than necessary for such a small amount of cream. Sid’s brain shut down while the rest of her came alive. Her skin tightened. Her legs loosened. Her toes curled.

With a satisfied smack of his lips, Lucas relinquished her finger, but continued to hold her wrist. His eyes met hers and the usual light hazel shade turned to liquid green. Like damp moss in the sunlight.

“Mmmmmm,” he said, “so good.”

Sid jerked her hand away and slipped it under the table. Her body’s reaction to his seemingly innocent flirtation would prove much more difficult to hide. Looking down, she noticed her nipples showing through her T-shirt. With a quick tug she undid the knot holding it tight in the back, loosening the material enough to fall away from her body.

Thankfully, Lucas was too busy staring at his pie to notice.

They ate their desserts in silence from that point on, Lucas’s attention centered on his plate. Who’d have thought a woman could feel jealous of a slice of pie? If Lucas ever reacted to her the way he was drooling over Opal’s Killer Key Lime, Sid would die a happy woman.

Such a stupid thought. Lucas would never drool over, melt for, nor lust over her. He’d nearly sucked all her brain
cells out the tip of her finger, then returned to his food as if they’d been discussing the weather. All the more reason to keep her hopeless fantasies to herself.

Lucas had to keep his head down the rest of their meal so Sid wouldn’t see how much he wanted her. The taste of her on his tongue had been better than the Key lime pie, and that pie might have been the best thing he’d ever tasted in his life. When she dropped him off at his parents’ house, there’d been no offer of a ride for the following morning. Maybe he’d freaked her out. Or grossed her out.

If a brush of the neck made her bristle, sucking on her finger definitely crossed a line. But she hadn’t pulled away, and the heat he felt beneath his hand on her wrist wasn’t from tension.

At least not the unwelcome kind.

Not working together for two days helped create plenty of distance. Joe’s charters had canceled for Sunday and Monday, so they’d switched things up. Joe ran the bar with Sid during the day, and Lucas covered nights with Beth, which went smoother than expected. The awkwardness was starting to fade, and he knew they’d be friends eventually. Beth was a difficult person not to like.

He’d been surprised to see her working the floor as if she’d been waiting tables her whole life. Beth reminded him she’d worked her way through law school as a waitress. Something she claimed she’d told him
while
they were dating. He had no memory of the conversation, and since he
doubted Beth would lie, the truth of his own douchery felt like one more smack in the face.

When had he become such a self-centered jerk?

He and Sid were back together on Tuesday, but something had definitely changed.

“Rum and Coke, two diets, and a sweet tea.” Sid barked off the order the same way she’d done every order of the day. Eyes down and back straight. Then she returned to the floor with the appetizers he’d placed on a new tray for her.

They couldn’t spend the next five weeks like this. He couldn’t anyway. In some masochistic way, Lucas enjoyed Sid’s jabs and steady flow of imaginative yet insulting names for him. And he had to give her credit. In front of customers, she kept the profanity to a minimum.

Lucas filled the drink order and considered how to approach Sid for a peace treaty. They needed to find some level ground where they could work together without all this tension. Maybe even be friends. Though he’d never had a female friend who could likely hold her own in a bar fight and still look sexy while throwing a punch.

“Table nine is getting rowdy,” Sid said, slapping her empty tray on the bar. “Make sure there’s a fresh pot of coffee brewing.”

He nodded toward the back corner. “Frat boys giving you trouble?”

“Nah. Red hatters.”

“Red what?”

“Red hatters, “Sid said again, shooting him that “duh” look of hers. “Little old ladies who wear red hats and purple clothes everywhere they go.”

Lucas covered the snort with a cough. “Are you telling me you can’t handle a bunch of old ladies?”

Sid swiped the now drink-covered tray and balanced it on her shoulder. “You know all those rum and Cokes and whiskey sours you’ve been making?”

No way. “The hatter ladies?”

“Yep. Have that pot of coffee ready when I come back.”

Surely they could handle a few old women who couldn’t hold their liquor. Lucas stepped through the kitchen door, tossed the cold coffee, and put a new pot on to brew. Then he returned to the bar and surveyed the room.

Weekdays weren’t as busy as weekends. Most seats at the bar were empty, as was the majority of Daisy’s section. Sid carried the bulk of the load, but he could see several of her customers getting ready to leave. A glance at the clock showed Beth and Joe were due in less than an hour.

“Show ’em how to do it, Flo!” shouted a high-pitched Southern voice over the crowd. Lucas swung around the end of the bar looking for the source. Rounding the divider that split the dining room in half, he saw a floppy red hat bouncing over a swaying purple body.

The woman seemed to be doing some imitation of riding a horse. That’s what he
hoped
she was imitating anyway.

“Hello there, ladies,” Lucas said, slipping on his best gain-the-witness’s-trust smile. “You all seem to be having a lot of fun.”

“Well, hello to you, sugar breeches,” said the woman sitting next to the dancer. “You’re just in time. Flo here needs a partner.”

Before he could register that comment, a woman he assumed to be Flo sashayed up behind him and slapped her
hands on his hips. Removing her hands, he spun around to find tiny round glasses perched on the end of a button nose, and watery green eyes twinkling under bushy eyebrows.

“Come on, handsome. Shake your groove thing.” Flo then proceeded to bend at the waist and do what Lucas believed was called a booty pop.

Afraid she might break a hip, he pulled out a chair and slid it behind her until she was sitting. Then he scooted the geriatric dancer up to the table. “Appreciate the offer, ladies, but we need to tone things down just a little bit.”

The first woman spoke up again. “Relax, honey. We’re just having fun.” Reaching for her drink, she added, “Don’t get your panties in a wad.”

Maybe this was Sid’s grandmother and she hadn’t bothered to tell him. And maybe she’d had enough to drink.

“Nothing wrong with a little fun, but we have to be considerate of the other customers.” Lucas reached for an empty glass. “Why don’t we bring out some coffee?”

The elder version of Sid popped out of her seat and poked him in the chest. “Look, sonny. We’re old enough to drink whatever we want, and no one is going to tell us when we’ve had enough.”

“You tell ’em, Maggie!” cheered a woman on the other side of the table.

Maggie poked him again. “Now send over that little waitress of ours. We’re ready for another round. And it ain’t going to be coffee.”

Handling a gang of angry bikers would be easier than this. Lucas opened his mouth to speak, but that little waitress of theirs joined the fray and spoke first.

“Is this man bothering you, ladies?”

She had to be kidding.

“He’s cramping our style is what he’s doing,” Flo said, wiggling in her chair.

Sid raised a brow in Lucas’s direction, as if
he
were the problem.

“I’m trying to keep order here.”

“This isn’t a courtroom, Dempsey,” she whispered. Then louder so the group could hear, “He’s just a natural born flirt. We never can keep him away from a table full of hot women.”

That got cheers from the geriatric set. The dirty looks coming his way stopped, but the looks that replaced them made him feel dirty.

Sid tapped him on the arm. “Take your time heading back to the bar so these ladies get a good show for their trouble.”

A woman next to Maggie, who looked to be pushing the century mark if she hadn’t hit it already, said, “I’d better put on my glasses.”

Lucas knew not to argue in front of customers, no matter what. So he did as ordered and tried not to feel like a side of beef on display as he crossed the room. Sid had it coming for this one. Distance shmistance. He’d get her back.

CHAPTER NINE

S
id figured if the old ladies could enjoy the show, so could she. Tray pressed against her chest, she watched the play of Lucas’s firm ass beneath his Dockers until the derriere disappeared around the bar. How did he manage to look that good in such sissified pants?

“You’ve got a hot one there, honey child,” said the woman she’d overheard called Maggie. “I bet he’s a killer in the sack.”

Sid’s turn to blush. “He’s not my boyfriend.” She unclenched the tray and cleared three empty plates off the table. “We just work together.”

“Couldn’t prove it by the way he’s been watching you.”

“What?” Sid nearly dropped the plates on the floor.

“That boy has been undressing you with his eyes ever since we sat down at this table. And I’d wager since long before that.”

Sid grabbed a chair from the next table over, which was thankfully empty, and sat down next to Maggie. “He has?” She glanced over her shoulder toward the bar. Lucas had his head down and was filling a glass. “How can you tell?”

Maggie chuckled and leaned back in her chair. With sharp eyes, the older woman sized Sid up from head to toe,
making her squirm. “Flo,” Maggie said, keeping her eyes on Sid. “This little thing doesn’t know her own power.”

“With that centerfold body?” Flo said. “I don’t believe it.”

Centerfold? Sid? Maybe it
was
time to cut these ladies off.

Flo leaned so close, Sid could smell the whiskey on her breath. “Every woman has
the power
, but you’ve got more than most. You could have any man in this room with one crook of a finger.”

“Bullshit,” Sid said, bolting from the chair and adding three empty glasses to her tray. “You ladies have had way too much to drink.”

Maggie nudged the ancient woman next to her. “Tell her, Frannie.”

The octogenarian looked nearly asleep, but perked up at the sound of her name. “What?”

Maggie raised her voice. “What do you think of this one?” she asked, motioning toward Sid.

Frannie put on the glasses she’d removed once Lucas’s derriere had gone out of range, and squinted through lenses that made her eyeballs look three times their size. Now Sid knew what those chicks on magazine covers felt like. Who would volunteer for this kind of scrutiny?

“Little short, but those tits are perfect. Curves in all the right places.” Frannie nodded in what Sid assumed to be some kind of approval. “Hef’d like her. She’s got enough vavavoom to light up Atlantic City.”

This woman was on something way stronger than alcohol.

“See there?” Maggie said, looking pleased with herself. “Frannie worked for Hugh back in the sixties. If she says you’ve got it, you’ve got it.”

She might have something, but not what Maggie was insinuating.

“Look, ladies, I appreciate the effort. But that man,” she motioned toward the bar, “has known me since I was fourteen years old, and until five days ago, barely acknowledged my existence. Whatever I’ve got, he’s not buying it.”

“Darling,” Maggie drawled. “That boy is buying, investing, and dreaming about what he could do with the inventory. You just have to let him know the store is open for business.”

Sid gnawed her bottom lip, and looked back to Lucas again. What if these ladies were right? What if she could have him, even for a few weeks?

Snagging the last two empty glasses from the table, Sid avoided Maggie’s direct gaze. “I’ll think about it.”

And she thought about nothing else until the moment she joined Will at Opal’s for their Tuesday night treat, a standing appointment instituted when Beth had moved to the island. Curly had wanted the three of them to get to know each other, something about her not having had a lot of female friends, but tonight was a duo since Beth was working at Dempsey’s.

“What’s up with you?” Will asked, sliding Sid’s favorite cupcake and a sweet tea across the table.

“Nothing,” Sid lied, dropping onto the metal seat. “Why?”

“Because you have that look you get.”

“What look?” She kept her head down, hoping Will would drop the interrogation.