Page 54 of Saint's Sinner

“And just when did that aspect of club business concern you?”

As Teddy stood blinking and struggling to formulate an answer, Saint focused on Scout, who didn’t seem the least bitconcerned about the atmosphere he’d found himself in. While Saint couldn’t be certain without seeing the rest of the tattoo, what he could make out was some kind of creature with more than one head. If it was what Saint thought it was, trouble on two legs had just swaggered around the side of the bar looking like he’d just stepped off the stage at a rock concert.

“Let me be clear on something, Scout,” Kat said, completely ignoring Teddy’s sputtered attempts at an answer. “Teddy does not recruit for this bar or this club. Bringing you here is another example of him overstepping his bounds, something we’re all rapidly growing tired of. Just about the only thing he got right is that we are in need of someone to clean up around the place. Looking at you though, I can’t see it being a good fit.”

“I’ve mopped a floor before.”

“And?”

“I don’t mind being a janitor if that’s the only job you’re hiring for.”

“Really, let me see your hands.”

Whatever she saw when she studied them left her lifting one eyebrow and appraising him in a slightly different light.

“Calloused and scarred. Shocking. And here I was thinking you were little more than a bit of eye candy.”

“I can be that too, if you need me to be.”

She laughed at that.

“If you’re trying to suck up, try harder. Instead of swaying my decision, you’re starting to piss me off,” she replied with a hint of a sadistic grin. Which of them she was having more fun toying with, Saint didn’t know at this point. Teddy might well have set his new friend up for one hell of a collateral damage incident.

“Will it piss you off less if I out and out admit that I’m every bit as desperate as Teddy said and then some?” Scout admitted.

“No, but it will make me ask how many applications you’ve put in recently and how many times you’ve been turned down?”

“Seven,” Scout admitted. “People don’t tend to like it much when I put down the campground east of town as my address.”

“I wonder why. Could it be because they don’t want to waste their time training someone who has the potential to up and vanish on them without a word.”

Her sarcasm was showing, and it was a grand and glorious thing, especially when Mark stalked through the room to stand behind her and rest his hands on her shoulders while he stared Scout down. Saint had to hand it to him, the guy didn’t flinch or look away.

“Who the hell are you?” Mark asked in the same tone Kat had used a few minutes before.

Saint snickered, then damn near snorted an impressively made Old Fashioned out of his nose when his brother glared his way. Too bad. It was downright amusing how many of each other’s mannerisms they’d assimilated over the years.

“Scout,” Teddy said.

“Scout got a last name or was that it,” Mark asked, while Kat’s eyes narrowed so much it looked like she was trying to shoot laser beams out of them.

“McKinley,” Scout said as he brushed a shaggy mop of hair out of his eyes.

“And what are you doing behind my bar, Scout McKinley?” Mark asked.

“Provin’ that I can bartend.”

“Are you old enough to bartend, ‘cause you look like you ought to be in a classroom, not fuckin’ around with a bottle of Bird Dog?”

“He’s legal, I can vouch for that,” Teddy said.

“With as shaky as the ground you’re on is right now, I don’t know if you ought to be vouching for a flea in a puppy mill,let alone bringing a whole ass person in here. You ever bartend before Scout?”

“Not officially.”

“He mixes a hell of an Old Fashioned though,” Saint remarked as he raised his glass in salute.

“He mix anything else yet?”

---