Page 15 of Devlin

"Not on land?"

"That depends. And sometimes it's better to go slow," he couldn't help adding.

She flushed a little at his words, and he found himself entranced by that wash of red through her cheeks, as well as the uncomfortable sparkle in her eyes.He hadn't felt this charged up in a while. Fighting with Hannah was probably more fun than it should be. And he was amused that he'd finally found a way to apparently leave her speechless.

Fortunately for Hannah, a waitress stopped by their table. Shelby was an attractive redhead in her early twenties, the daughter of one of his employees, and he'd known her since she was about ten.

"Hi, Devlin. How are you?" she asked, setting two glasses of Blackthorne Gold whiskey on the table. "Your brothers sent this over."

He turned his head to see Ross and Logan looking on with speculative gleams in their eyes.

"You can take mine back," Hannah told Shelby, handing her the glass. "I'll have a chardonnay."

"Are you sure? This is top of the line," Shelby said.

"I'm positive," Hannah said definitively. "And you can bring the bill when you come back."

"All right."

"You can leave the whisky for me," he told Shelby. "I have a feeling I'll need a second drink sooner rather than later."

She set the glass down in front of him. "You got it."

"Not a whisky drinker?" he asked Hannah.

"Not really, but I'm also not interestedin drinking anything that comes out of a bottle with a Blackthorne label on it."

"Yet you're here in the Vault, which is owned by my family."

"I know," she said with a sigh. "My dad loves the chowder, and he said he wasn't letting you take anything else away from him. I would have preferred to go anywhere else."

"My family is not that bad. And until this week, your fatherwas very happy with his job."

"Well, everything is different now, isn't it?"

"That's certainly true," he muttered.

Her expression softened. "I am sorry about your mom, Devlin. She was always very nice to me." She paused. "I actually know what it feels like to watch the end of a marriage. It sucks."

"It does suck. My parents have always been so strong together. I'm surethey disagree, but they always kept that away from us. They were all about being a united front. Apparently, that front was an illusion."

"Or perhaps your mother just got angry and needed to get away for a bit. Do you know where she went?"

"No idea, but I'm sure my father has someone looking for her." He paused, thinking about Hannah's family. "How did it happen between your parents?Did you know a divorce was coming?"

"In retrospect—yes. They fought a lot. But I didn't want to believe it would actually happen. It's actually ironic to think my dad told your father to stop working so much and try to save his marriage, when he refused to do that for my mother or for me."

"Was that the main problem between them?"

"It was certainly one of the biggest ones."She paused as Shelby brought her wine and the bill. "Thanks," she said to the waitress.

Shelby nodded and moved on to the next table.

"Your dad loves to work," he commented. "Boats are his passion."

"I know," she said, sipping her wine. "I think he also felt that long hours were expected. Before you were at the Boatworks, your father was in charge and then that other guy—whatwas his name?"

"Bill Walker?"

---