Page 31 of Seductive Nights

"Unless you're dancing with one of them." Her tone had changed slightly, and warning bells went off in his head. This one is a troublemaker.

"Unless that," he clipped.

Mason slid the tray of drinks across the bar to him and tilted his head slightly toward the redhead. Jace, grateful to have someone like him with intuition simply nodded once. Sierra looked the drinks over on his tray. She turned to look at a couple of them and grinned. “Quite the group out there.”

“That it is.”

He picked up the tray to leave, and Sierra stopped him by standing in front of him. Before he could say anything, Mason raised his voice to be heard over the speakers, filling the bar with the sounds of the band outside. "Can I buy you a drink on the house?"

Sierra's eyes glared into his for a moment, then shifted to Mason's. "Sure." She sauntered toward Mason, and Jace hurried outside without a backward glance.

He set the tray of drinks on the table, then one by one, delivered the drinks to his friends and their significant others, and Margo and Carly. As soon as he set Margo's drink down, her lips parted and formed a seductive smile. "Thanks," she mouthed.

That sent a spiral of emotion from his neck to his crotch. She'd loosened up this evening, and it was beguiling to watch her. Sierra exited the bar and Jace took a deep breath. He nodded to Margo and held his hand out to her. "Care to twirl around on the dance floor, so to speak, once more?"

Her smile grew. "Yes, I'd love that."

The women at the table all clapped, and he hurriedly took Margo's hand in his and led her to the area in front of the stage.

He turned to her and wrapped her body in his arms and a feeling came over him he'd never had before. Comfort? Longing? Desire? He'd had desire before, but this was different.

Sierra sauntered past them, letting her eyes shoot daggers toward Margo, and Margo took a deep breath and let it out.

He leaned his head closer to hers. "In case you haven't noticed, Sierra is a gold digger. Now I don't know this for a fact, but she isn't someone grieving for Logan, or anyone, she claimed to love. She's been handsy with me and a bit over-the-top, bold and seductive. She came into the sandbar this morning with some pudgy little man. They had lunch and the entire time she flirted with me. And you want to know what I thought?"

Margo shook her head. "What did you think?"

He said, "I thought that must be what Margo thinks of me when she sees me flirting. I didn't think what I was doing was flirting. I love this place, Margo. I love what I'm doing. It's the first time since..." he swallowed. "It's the first time since I came home from the service that I have felt like I found my calling. I've kicked around in jobs, and I've tended bar here and there. I didn't want to do this, and I didn't want to do that, and basically my PTSD kept me from doing anything regular. I would have attacks, and if the pressure got too high, I couldn't take it, and it caused me to flounder. Then Quinn asked me a couple of years ago to come down here. He said, 'Come down. Stay. You can stay with me. You can kick about all you want to. You can look for a job or not. But come.' So I did because I didn't really have anything to lose. So I came down here, and the first night Quinn and I came to this bar. It didn't look like this then. It was just a little hole-in-the-wall bar. It was dirty, but it was the only one on the beach. The old guy behind the bar was slow, making me practically crawl out of my skin because I saw all the lost opportunities. He wasn't getting people their drinks on time, and they would get frustrated and leave. He was slow. The place was dirty. There were so many things that could be improved without money. It was just getting someone competent behind the bar, and I don't know, maybe the old man didn't have the money, but I offered. I called him over to Quinn and me and said, 'I'd like to tend bar here.' He looked at me and he laughed. Then he glanced at Quinn and Quinn said, 'He's good people, man. He's good people.' The old guy knew Quinn pretty well and trusted him, so the old guy said, 'Okay, well why don't you come in tomorrow at eight o'clock and help me get things set up.' So I was here the next morning. I helped him set up. I cleaned up behind the back bar. I got beer coolers filled and made sure the taps were clean. Something that hadn't been done in a while, and when the first customers walked in, I greeted the pants off them. I was friendly. I was happy. I was serving them drinks, and the till kept going cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching. It didn't take long before the locals started bringing their friends in, and the bar started filling up, and the old man told me, 'You're doing all right, kid. Doing all right.' It was maybe a couple months later he came in one day and said, 'You know, watching you these past couple of months, I realize where I was lacking. I don't have it anymore. So why don't you buy the bar from me?' I didn't have to think about it. I said, 'yes.' I had some money stashed. Actually, I wasn't really living anywhere in particular, so I had money stashed from the service and from my deployment pay and from my parents when they passed. I bought the bar, paid cash, and then I dug in. I started cleaning. I started fixing things up. It doesn't hurt that my best friend, one of my best friends, owns a construction company. He sent a crew in, and we spent a weekend cleaning this place up. Then the business rolled in, and it got busier and busier, and I added a little bit here and I added a little bit there. And basically Margo, when I am telling women I think they're beautiful or they look good or I smile and greet people, it's because I love it here. I love being the host. I love greeting customers. I love that they want to come here. I didn't look at it as flirting, but you kind of made me think that maybe I need to pull back a little bit."

She shook her head. "No, Jace, no I didn't mean that. I don't want you to feel bad. You are good at what you do. I've been watching you tonight. You're just talking to people. You're making them feel good. Making them feel welcome. That's something that most businesses don't do anymore. You make me want to be here. You make me want to stay here. You've got music going, and the atmosphere is, well Sierra aside, the atmosphere is welcoming and happy and we're on the beach no less."

He grinned. " I see that you know what I mean."

"I do and I'm sorry I was terse with you earlier. I had just come off the news of Logan cheating on me and I thought all men were cheats and liars."

He shook his head. "Honey, I'm not a cheat and I'm not a liar. Those are qualities I don't like in other humans, and I will never have them in myself. Ask Sid and Quinn if you don't believe me. They're my best friends. We've spent years together. We spent a horrible time in the service together. Deployed, shot at, wondering if we were gonna make it home from each mission. But I have never lied, and I don't cheat."

She took a deep breath, and he watched her process his words.

She smiled sweetly. "Can we start over?"

He laughed. "I'd love that. Let's start over." He stepped back and held his hand out to her. She lay her hand in his and he smiled. "My name is Jace Marriott. I'm the owner of this fine establishment. Welcome to Sarge's Sandbar. The nicest place in the State of Florida."

She smiled, and it was spectacular. It reached her eyes. She looked genuinely happy. "My name is Margo Price, and I'm a real estate agent. I'm happy to meet you, Jace Marriott."

They shared a laugh, and he wrapped his arms around her once more and spun them in the sand.

He felt a tap on his shoulder, and dread filled his gut. He looked into Margo's eyes, which stared into his. She raised her eyebrows in the air, and he grinned.

He slowly turned his head to see Sierra standing there. "Mind if I cut in?"

He nodded. "Yes, I do mind. I'm dancing with the most beautiful woman in the place right now and that's where I'll stay. Thank you, though."

He twisted to spin Margo away from Sierra, and she laughed out loud. A quick glance at Sierra saw her stomping off looking pissed. While he wasn't one to chase away customers, he was happy to chase this one away.

18

Margo sighed when she and Carley arrived at her place. They'd been sensible and let Sid and Grace drive them home. She'd have to go pick up her car in the morning. Sure, she'd had a few drinks. So what? It was just what she needed to let go of some of the tension. And, dammit, Jace made her feel special. Beautiful. Desirable.

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