Page 35 of Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Normally he’d be all over the vibes these women were throwing out, but not tonight. Something about the whole situation felt…wrong. As he poured their cocktails, it hit him. The whole town, including his siblings—most of whom were only a few feet away—thought he was engaged to Cassie for real. It’d take some kind of colossal dick to cheat on his fiancée where everyone could see. He may be a lot of things, but a cheating asshole wasn’t one of them.

A strange buzz filled his head as he realized that wasn’t it. Sure, he didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize their plan, but there was more. Since entertaining the idea of an actual relationship with Cassie, even a purely physical one, other women held zero appeal. Even blondes one through three, stacked and sexy though they were, created not one ounce of desire within him.

He wasn’t entirely sure he liked it.

“Here you are, ladies.” He slid their drinks across the polished oak bar top. “Shall I start a tab for you?”

“Oh yes, please,” blonde number two said, pulling out a credit card and handing it over. “We’re going to make a night of it.”

“Our poor friend Allison here broke up with her boyfriend and we’re trying to cheer her up with a girls’ weekend.” Blonde number three threw an arm around blonde number one. “She’s having a bit of a rough time. Any idea on how we can cheer her up? Or, maybe, who can cheer her up? We’re all good friends. Really good friends.”

All three women gazed at him with unchecked invitations in their eyes. Holy shit! If he wasn’t mistaken, he’d just been offered every man’s dream. Too bad Del’s dreams had changed the moment he had an opportunity to prove himself to his family. A small part of him screamed he was being an idiot—his stupid, horny sixteen-year-old self—but he wasn’t going to screw up his chance to get the money for his restaurant.

Plus, no way would he do anything to hurt Cassie. And boning the blonde brigade while supposedly engaged to her would hurt.

“Ah, ladies.” He feigned a sigh. “As tempting as the offer is, I’m afraid I’m a happily taken man.”

At their pouting expressions, he gave them a wink. “Don’t fret. I see a table full of Kismet’s finest over there just dying to give beautiful women such as yourselves some mouth to mouth demonstrations.”

The women turned their heads to the back of the bar where three off-duty officers, still in uniform, sat enjoying some gin and tonics. Happily, they hopped off the barstools and made a beeline for the cops. He may pour the drinks, but Del knew women loved a man in uniform.

Grateful to have the potential hairy situation averted, he waved to Kelley at the other end of the bar. “I’m going to grab some more cranberry juice.”

Judging from the gales of laughter coming from the back table, they were going to need it.

“Sounds good,” Kelley replied, placing a couple of drinks in front of the couple at the bar.

Del pushed through the door into the back room. The low hum of the stills drowned out the muffled noises from the tasting room. Most of the back area held their distilling machinery: the mash bins, stills, proofing tanks. Their finished product took up the entire sidewall. In addition to selling in the tasting room, they also had a few local distributors they sold to.

Making his way to the small walk-in refrigerator that held their perishable items, like juice and fruit, he smiled. A few years ago, he would have taken those women up on their offer. Everyone may think he was a party-time guy, but he’d changed. Now if only his family could see it.

He entered the walk-in, shivering as the cool temperature of the fridge hit his sweat-slicked skin. Running around behind a bar tended to make a person hot, and the weather wasn’t warm enough to crank the AC yet. Glancing around the shelves, he swore. Ace must have done inventory last. He always messed up Del’s system, who had told his annoyingly anal brother he had a specific spot for everything. But Alfa Jackson had always been true to his name. He took shit from no one and did things his way.

“And your way causes me to spend ten friggin’ minutes looking for the damn cranberry juice,” Del mumbled.

The bottles weren’t on the top shelf where he liked to put them. Bending down, he saw the juice-filled containers on the middle shelf, back behind the orange juice.

“How the hell does that make any sense?”

He needed to talk to his brother about his organization system.

Suddenly Del felt a push and found himself falling forward. His head smacked into the cold metal rack of the shelving unit. Yelling out a four-letter word his mother would smack him upside the head for, he stood and turned to face his assailant.

“What the shit, Charlie?!” He glared at his sister, rubbing the sore spot on his forehead. “You trying to bash my brains in?”

She stood there, eyes flaring. “Like you have any.”

Ouch. And people said women were the sweeter sex.

“What was that for?”

“Seriously?” Her eyebrows rose, hands going to her hips in a defiant pose. “You were out there flirting with the bimbo triplets when you’re supposed to be engaged to my best friend.”

“I was working, dumbass. Being friendly is part of the job. You wouldn’t know because you crunch numbers all day. Numbers don’t give you a bigger tip if you’re nice to them.”

“Numbers don’t tip at all.”

He pressed his hand to the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on. From his annoying sister or the whack she just gave him, he didn’t know. Both probably.

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