Page 11 of Sirens
…was his record over the next hour and the extra Manhattan he’d ordered to wash out the flavor of the one before it.
How the hell was she gettingworseat her job as the night wore on?
Every time Trent looked up at her, she was watching the door, her shoulders tense until they drooped in disappointment when she didn’t recognize the face.
“Expecting someone?” he finally asked around a sip.
Maggie’s head snapped up, her cheeks flushing slightly. “What? Oh, nope. No one special.”
Trent raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that? You’ve been watching that door like a hawk all night.”
“Pfft, how would you know?”
“Because I’ve been watching you all night,” Trent murmured.
The flirt was out before he could call it back, landing with an extra swoop of her butterfly-wing lashes.
He couldn’t call it back, but he could stuff it down and smooth it over. Smooth was his calling card. His specialty. His motherfucking descriptor.
“Watching you commit multiple offenses against Townsend Harbor’s post-dinner drinks crowd.”Clearlyhe shouldn’t have had that fourth awful drink. It was giving him equally awful ideas.
Oh damn, he was a sucker for a woman who could laugh at herself, and her laugh wasn’t just infectious—it imbued every smile within its blast radius with an extra glow. “Well, so long as you don’t turn me into the authorities.”
“Please, Iamthe authorities.”
“And humble, too.”
His entire vocabulary abandoned him as a familiar feminine expression darkened her eyes from jade to forest and her gaze set fires of appreciation to all the right places. Not just the fit of his suit over his more sculpted parts…
She checked his empty ring finger.
Twice.
He liked that. She was ethical. Or…at least careful.
Trent McGarvey from Albuquerque’s fifth precinct would have pulled some stupid show-off shit with the maraschino cherry stem and had her screaming his name before midnight.
But that wasn’t him. Not anymore.
Trent McGarvey of Townsend Harbor had this village tucked in by ten on a school night and did nice things for dangerously pretty, mysterious ginger women without any of the moves from his player’s handbook.
“Listen, I have all day tomorrow free and an apartment down the block and around the corner. How about you come around to my place and we can go over a few bartending basics?”
Her hesitation was almost as offensive as her mixed drinks. Eyes darted just about everywhere as an entire conflicted conversation splashed across her ultra-expressive features.
“You’re asking me to your place?”
“Yup.”
“In the middle of the afternoon.”
“Uh-huh.”
She tucked an invisible hair behind her ear. “Like…a date?”
“Like…an intervention.” He softened his tease with a wink, and she choked on her next inhale.
“I work the lunch shift tomorrow,” she warned with a licentious quirk of her lips. “I don’t get off until five.”
