Page 1 of Jett in Jeopardy

Chapter One

Jett

TheDuneswassurprisinglyquiet, even for a Thursday night, and for the first time since I’d started coming to this bar almost four years ago, I was glad. I didn’t really even know why I bothered coming in tonight except that I didn’t want to go home, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.

I made my way past the tables near the front of the bar. A few tables were crowded with college students, pitchers of draft beer and plates of hot appetizers. I dropped onto a stool at the bar. There were a handful of Oceanwind Square residents also sitting a few stools down whom I recognized from living in the community but didn’t really know, except for Daniel Quinn. Coincidentally, he sat at the far end of the bar. Daniel ran the hotel in The Square where Alistair, my friend and former roommate, worked.

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the gleaming, dark-wood bar top, waiting for Brody, the bar’s owner, to notice me—and if history was anything to go by, I could be waiting for days. He was talking to Daniel and had yet to glance my way. I don’t know why, but the guy did not like me, and no matter how charming I tried to be, how much I flirted, the most I ever got back was a grunt when he brought me a drink, and that was on a good day. Normally, he just glared and ignored me—as he was doing now while he chatted with Daniel.

Fuck, he looked good tonight though. His long brown hair was pulled back from his rough-hewn features and tied in a messy bun on top of his head. He dressed in his usual battered jeans and a t-shirt—this one white with Led Zeppelin in psychedelic lettering across his broad chest—the short sleeves exposing colorful swirls of tattoos on both his arms.

Even as miserable as I was just then, I couldn’t help but think what it would be like to be under him, his big solid frame pressing me down, those tattooed arms caging me beneath him. I shoved the image out of my head before it could take root, and evidence of what I was thinking became apparent.

Though, the idea of distraction after the day I’d had held a certain appeal, but if history had taught me anything, I definitely wouldn’t get that from Brody Harris. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t tried in the past. He was not interested.

Maybe I should go home. I was probably making a bigger deal of all this than it deserved. After all, it’s not as if I hadn’t been fired from a job before. I didn’t think my roommates would be angry or even all that shocked when I told them I’d been let go from the campus bookstore where I’d been working since July—almost six months, a personal best.

It took everything I had not to let my head fall forward and bang off the bar top. Instead, I dragged my hands through my hair while I played the exchange between me and Paula, the store manager, in my head for about the one billionth time.

“I’m sorry, Jett, but we’ve had complaints about you being inappropriate with the customers,” she’d said, shaking her head sadly. She was a kindly middle-aged woman who had been running the store for close to twenty years. She always wore her dull brown hair tied back from her round face in a ponytail. As managers went, she was fairly laid back, and until earlier this month, she and I had got along pretty well.

“I would never,” I had said, a cold sinking feeling settling in the pit of my stomach. “Who’s complaining?”

“It’s not important,” she said, pushing her thick-framed glasses back on her snub nose with a finger. “I’ve spoken to you about this before, and I told you it had to stop then.”

It had never started, I wanted to say. She had spoken to me a couple of weeks back and told me someone had complained that I had been flirting with customers and saying things that some might have construed as inappropriate—and I was as baffled then as I was now. I would never have done that.

“Paula,” I’d said, knowing exactly where this conversation was heading. I’d been fired too many times before, not to know the script by now. “I would never do that to someone.”

If anyone knew how shitty it was to be hit on by someone who just wouldn’t take no for an answer, it was me.

“I’m sorry, Jett,” Paula said, and in her defense, she did seem genuinely sorry. “This is the university bookstore. We can’t risk one of our staff behaving inappropriately with customers. I have to let you go.”

Her words had been ringing in my ears for the last hour. I wasn’t sure what was worse, getting fired for something I didn’t do or what I’d been accused of doing. Both sucked, frankly.

“I didn’t think you even got out of bed before nine p.m.”

Brody hovered over me as I looked up, his usual scowl more of a confused frown. I blinked, surprised, my mouth turning dry. I must have been lost in my thoughts not to have noticed him make his way over to me. Glancing down at the far end of the bar, Daniel was still sitting there, smirking down at his beer.

I rallied quickly, smiling coyly at Brody and cocking my head to one side. “You think of me in bed? Tell me more.”

He rolled his eyes. “What are you drinking?”

“An Oceanwind, please.”

Honestly, I really hadn’t planned on drinking anything too strong. I had my car with me, having come straight from the store. But I could always walk home, leave my car in the lot around the back and pick it up in the morning.

It wasn’t every day that Brody Harris spoke to me on his own without me having to flag him down as if I was landing jets on an aircraft carrier, even if it was just to take my drink order. I counted that as progress.

Brody started putting together his bar’s signature drink, his gaze bouncing between what he was doing and me.

“You okay?” he asked.

I nearly fell off the barstool. These might have been the most words Brody had spoken to me at one time since I’d first met the man.

I leaned closer to him, propping my elbows up on the bar and shooting him a smile that had most men stumbling over themselves to get closer to me. “Better now.”

He turned his attention to my drink, lips flattening in annoyance. Whatever interest he’d shown had vanished. Apparently, I’d fucked that up, too. Not shocking. It seemed to be my MO.

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