Harlequin Special Edition November 2014 - Box Set 1 of 2: A Weaver Christmas Gift\The Soldier's Holiday Homecoming\Santa's Playbook (3 page)

At the sound of his cousin's voice, Casey looked up from the pool table where he was lining up his next shot. Erik was holding the fishbowl that usually sat on the end of Colbys' wooden bar top.

Casey shrugged and focused on his shot again. “She gives away a free meal every week. Has for a long time. So what?” It was Friday night. Colbys was typically crowded. And even though Casey hadn't really wanted to meet his cousin here after his encounter with Jane the night before, he hadn't been able to come up with a good excuse not to. He'd located Bax, the missing asset in Nepal. He and the emir's niece were no worse for wear, and though Bax hadn't yet gotten her returned to her London apartment, at least they knew she hadn't been abducted by her father's terroristic cousin. For now, things were back on track.

At least in that world.

Casey involuntarily looked over to the bar where Jane was busy pouring out drinks. Her long hair was pulled back in a thick ponytail that swayed every time she turned to grab a glass off the shelves behind her. She was in her usual working garb of black T-shirt, jeans and cowboy boots, but the fact that
she
wore them transformed the ordinary into something extraordinary.

She was a smart cookie. Never missed a thing. So he knew she was well aware of his presence. She just hadn't bothered to give him so much as a glance.

He, on the other hand, couldn't stop looking toward her.

He took his shot and sent the balls rolling.

None landed where he'd intended.

“Not just her usual free meal,” Erik was saying. He set the fishbowl on the rail near Casey before leaning over the table with his cue. “Looks to me like she's shaking up the status quo between you two.”

Erik was the only one who knew of Casey's involvement with the woman.

Past involvement, he reminded himself, since she'd pretty much kicked him to the curb the evening before.

He dragged his attention away from the smooth curves of Jane's lightly tanned arms. “She's over twenty-one,” he said casually. “Free to do whatever she wants.”

“That why your game seems shot to hell all of a sudden?”

He ignored Erik and glanced at the fishbowl.

When the words on the side of it penetrated, he very nearly tore the white index card free of the tape holding it in place.

She certainly wasn't wasting any time with her husband hunt.

He held up the glass bowl, studying the contents. The damned thing was more than half full. Evidently, adding herself to the free-meal menu had spurred a whole new interest in her drawing.

“She's out of her tree,” he muttered. Glancing around the bar, he spotted Keith Lambert, who was one of the game designers on the legitimate side of Cee-Vid, whom his uncle had recently hired straight out of school. The young guy, his usual plaid bow tie in place, was sitting in a corner booth with a couple other Cee-Viders. All three of them had their noses stuck in their cell phones as if they didn't know how to communicate face-to-face.

Casey moved over to their table and plunked the fishbowl in the center of it, startling the young men. He knew plenty of designers who didn't look as if they needed a good dose of sunshine, but these guys sure did. Collectively, they were pretty much the embodiment of every clichéd computer-geek joke. “Step right up, guys.” He tapped the bowl with Jane's hand-printed invitation stuck to the side.

Keith squinted through his horn-rimmed glasses as he read the card. Then he craned his neck to look at Jane behind the bar across the room. “Sweet. I hear older women are hotter in the sack.”

Casey's fingers curled. He'd bet his favorite shirt that Keith had never even kissed a girl, hot or otherwise. The same went for his pallid companions. Jane would make mincemeat of all of them before they ever got to dessert, much less anything after that. “So I've heard,” he said blandly. “Might consider stuffing the ballot box to up the odds in your favor.”

Keith's Adam's apple bobbed. “Cheat?”

“She doesn't specify one entry,” Casey reasoned. “The only restriction is you have to be single.” He plucked the pen from Keith's ink-stained shirt pocket and tossed it on the table in front of him. “Go for it, man.”

Keith's buddies were grinning and nearly bouncing in their booth.

Before he either rolled his eyes or knocked their heads together, Casey returned to his pool game.

But the game was already done. Erik had already cleared the felt. “You owe me twenty,” his cousin said, looking as if he wanted to laugh.

Casey pulled out his wallet and slapped down the money. “Why aren't you home in the loving arms of your wife, anyway? Wedded bliss already wearing off?” His cousin and Isabella had gotten married the previous year and Casey knew good and well that they were besotted with each other.

“Izzy's in Cheyenne with Lucy for a few days. They've taken some of their students for a dance workshop down there before school starts up next week for the fall.”

Lucy was another of their cousins, and she ran the only dance school in Weaver. Isabella taught a few classes there. “Little girls in tap shoes or big girls in belly-dancing costumes?” He felt his gaze straying back toward the bar but mastered the impulse and picked up his beer mug instead. “Your wife teaches both.”

Erik grinned wryly. “Don't forget the pole-dancing-for-fitness classes.” He rubbed his jaw. “She actually had me try it, you know.”

Casey nearly dropped his beer. Despite being Tristan Clay's son, Erik had gone into the ranching side of the Clay dynasty. But even in that, he had to go his own way, choosing to maintain his own brand rather than use the Double-C brand started by their grandfather, Squire, that was already one of the most well-known in the state. His cousin was salt-of-the-earth steady and more than a little old-fashioned, so the image that sprang to mind was one for the record books. “Swinging around on a
pole
?”

His cousin looked chagrinned. “It's harder than you think. I fell on my ass. Izzy's never gonna let me live it down.”

For the first time since Jane's wanna-baby bombshell, Casey actually laughed. “She's not the only one. I just don't want to picture it in my mind. Afraid it'll do permanent brain damage. What about Murph?”

Murphy had been Isabella's teenage ward when she'd first come to Weaver. Now she was legally his mother and soon Erik would legally be his father. And Casey could rib the other man—who was his best friend as much as his cousin—about anything under the sun, including his new family, but he knew Erik had never been happier.

Erik grinned. “He was no more successful at it than I was, but you didn't hear that from me. So what's Jane really up to?”

Casey hid his frown in his beer and shrugged. He hadn't shared Jane's sudden life goal with Erik, mostly because it might lead to discussions he didn't want to have. “Don't ask me.”

Erik gave him a disbelieving look, but thankfully let the matter drop. Instead, he waved at the pool table. “Double or nothing?”

“Rack 'em up.” Casey's gaze started to slide to the bar but he physically turned his back so he was looking toward the front door instead.

He took one last glance toward Keith. He and his buddies were busily stuffing business cards into the fishbowl.

God help them all.

Chapter Three

J
ane managed a tight smile before shutting her front door in Prospect Number Three's face.

The past three weeks—especially the past three Thursday-night dates with Number Three and his predecessors, One and Two—had been abysmal.

Number One, a real estate agent from nearby Braden, hadn't understood the difference between Thursday and Friday and, after standing her up at the restaurant where she'd arranged to meet him, had instead accused her of standing
him
up when he'd expected her there the following night. She hoped he handled his real estate transactions with more accuracy.

Number Two was a veterinary technician from right here in Weaver. Nothing really wrong with Two. Except he spent the entire evening talking about his ex-girlfriend, with whom he was clearly still in love. Jane had felt like a matronly aunt, advising him to contact the girl and make things up with her.

And Number Three...

Jane heaved a sigh and leaned back against the door she'd just closed. Number Three might possess some genius intellect, but conversing about anything outside of the video games he designed had been impossible. And then the nitwit had believed she was going to invite him in for some dessert of a very personal variety after the dinner she had paid for.

She wouldn't have gone out with him at all, because he worked at Cee-Vid, which was too closely connected to Casey, except that Number Three—like Two and One—had won the weekly fishbowl drawing.

The first thing she was going to do when she went to the bar the next day was throw out the fishbowl and all of its contents. If the only way she could get a date was through a drawing, she'd be better off looking into that whole mail-order-husband thing.

She rubbed at the pain between her eyebrows caused by the past ninety minutes of mind-numbing boredom and headed into her bedroom, shedding her knee-length sweater dress as she went. It was still relatively early, and she was too keyed up to relax. So she changed into jeans and a bright red turtleneck and headed back out to Colbys.

She'd throw out the fishbowl when she got there.

Her assistant manager, Merilee, had worked for Jane long enough not to show her surprise when she walked in the door on what was supposed to be her night off. Jane went straight to the glass bowl and dumped the contents in the trash, along with the card displaying the “rules” of the drawing. Then she stuck the bowl beneath the counter and glanced around the sparsely occupied tables.

She didn't want to acknowledge what she was really doing: looking to see if Casey happened to be around playing pool. The pool tables were his primary interest where Colbys was concerned. Far more than any libations that she offered in the bar or food that they served in the restaurant.

But the tables were quiet.

“Everything all right?” Merilee asked when Jane sighed a little.

“Just fine.” Jane grabbed a bottled water, then pushed through the door to the storeroom, where all the shelves were neatly packed with supplies. She went into the minuscule office squeezed between the storage room and the draft cooler where her beer kegs were housed and threw herself down on the squeaky chair behind the beat-up metal desk.

But instead of opening the water bottle or booting up her computer, she picked up the photograph of her sister that sat in a wood frame on the corner of the desk. Julia was cuddling her infant son, Drake, and Julia's husband, Don, was cradling them both in his arms. Happiness radiated from their eyes.

Jane rubbed her thumb over the picture glass, melancholy weighting her down. Julia, who now lived in Montana, was two years younger than Jane. She and Don had been married only eighteen months, though they'd been sweethearts since high school.

Would Jane's marriage to Gage have been more successful if they hadn't gotten married so quickly, while they'd still been in college, where they'd met?

She rubbed her forehead again and set down the picture frame.

Melancholy. She hated it.

Annoyed with herself, she started up the computer and drank down half of the water while waiting for it to chug to life. For the past year, ever since she'd made the mistake of asking him for a little help with the recalcitrant thing, Casey had been after her to let him upgrade her system.

And you've only resisted because you wanted to do it yourself. He wanted to take over
,
and you balked.

During that first consultation, instead of fixing the computer, somehow or other, they'd ended up having sex in the storeroom after Colbys was closed down for the night.

She set the water bottle aside and thumped her hand on the side of the computer, pushing away the memory. The computer gave out a little hiccupping sound and a fan somewhere inside it whirred to life. A few moments later, the screen finally lit up, and she set about updating her books. It didn't take her long, because she kept up with the task almost daily even though she detested it. It might be overkill—her accountant, her ex-husband
and
Casey had all independently accused her of it—but she liked knowing to the penny where she was at any given time.

She used to think it came from watching her mother scrimp and save and worry about every dime right up until she died before Jane moved to Weaver. But Julia had come out of their childhood without sharing this particular obsession of Jane's.

“Pregnant yet?”

Startled, she swiveled in her chair, knocking the water bottle into the computer keyboard with her elbow. She gave Casey an annoyed look as she hastily yanked the keyboard off the desk, trying to protect it from the spilled water. “Ever hear of knocking?”

“Door wasn't closed.” He was leaning casually against the doorjamb. “Wouldn't worry too much about that keyboard. It's already a decade past its life expectancy.”

She used the hem of her sweater to swipe up the spreading puddle with one hand and held the keyboard aloft with the other. It was awkward because of the cords tethering it in place; though she'd never admit it, she wished she had the nifty wireless things that Casey had tried to equip her with. “What are you doing here?”

“Grabbing a bite.”

The grill usually closed at ten on weeknights and it was still well before that. “Then get to it,” she said waspishly. “Jerry's cooking alone tonight.” During their busier times, her main cook was joined by his son, Jerry Junior.

Casey sighed noisily and grabbed the keyboard out of her hand, holding it high when she tried to take it back. “There's no crime in asking for help.”

“I don't need help. I need a towel.” More annoyed with the way her stomach was jumping around at the sight of him than she was the minor spill, she scooted past him and grabbed a neatly folded towel from a stack of them in the storeroom. It was only a matter of seconds, but when she reentered the office, he was already sitting down in her chair, boots propped on the corner of her desk while he tapped away at the keyboard resting on his lap.

“Stop that!” She tried shoving at his legs, but he was immovable. There was no room to get around him, so she reached across him to wipe the towel over the desktop, drying what was left of the water. She didn't have the computer hooked up to an internet connection—another source of contention between them—nor did she have any little computer games to amuse him. She needed the computer for one thing and one thing only: keeping her business records. “You're snooping.”

“Nope.” His fingers flew over the keyboard with enviable ease. “Just doing a little maintenance. When's the last time you backed up your data?”

She glared at the back of his head, controlling the urge to swat him with the towel even though it was mighty tempting. “Last week,” she lied.

He snorted. “Last month, you mean.” He tapped some more. “You need to be on an automatic backup. You're maxing out your memory. You won't let me add more. You keep everything that's important about Colbys on this thing.” He looked over his shoulder up at her. “If you're not careful, you could lose it all.”

He was the only person she'd ever met who had honest-to-goodness gray eyes. If she hadn't spent as many hours in his arms as she had, she would have suspected the distinctive color came from contact lenses rather than nature. But she was the one whose imperfect vision required the aid of contact lenses, not Casey.

His eyebrow rose and she realized she was standing there like an idiot, staring into his eyes. “Fine,” she agreed abruptly. “I'll get a new computer. Update it all.” She barely waited a beat. “
I
will get it,” she emphasized. “I don't need you doing it for me.”

“I swear, if you needed your own appendix taken out, you'd insist on holding the scalpel.” He turned his attention back to the computer. “Still amazes me that you're willing to let someone else contribute their gene pool to this kid you want.”

“You're just annoyed because I'm not letting you take over and do whatever
you
want.”

He glanced at her again and sudden heat slid through her veins at the look in his eyes. “A month might have passed since you announced your little ‘plan—'” he air-quoted the word “—but I'm pretty sure there're a few things I do that you still want, Janie.”

She exhaled noisily and tossed the towel over his head. “Cool your jets, Clay.” Because it was her own jets she was worried about, she backed out of the small office and headed out front to the bar. He wouldn't say or do anything in front of other people that would give any hint they were lovers.

Had been
lovers, she mentally corrected herself.

Past tense.

Merilee was mixing up a round of frozen margaritas when Jane moved behind the bar. The noise of the blender was familiar and welcome. There were a few orders waiting, and she tied a black apron around her hips, then washed her hands before starting to fill them.

Casey appeared soon after but rather than going over to the grill as she expected, he slid onto one of the bar stools near where she was working. “Think I'll eat in here,” he said.

She wanted to gnash her teeth. Instead, without missing a beat on the Long Island iced tea she was concocting, she slid a menu in front of him.

He flipped the laminated card between his fingers. “I've got this thing memorized,” he pointed out.

“Which only proves the fact that you spend too much time in a bar. Beer?”

He nodded. “You're the proprietress of said bar. I wouldn't complain about having regular customers if I were you. Bad for business.”

She topped off the cocktail with a dash of cola, then moved down to the taps and drew his beer. She set the mug in front of him. “What's it going to be? No, wait. Let me guess. Meat loaf and mashed or the bacon cheeseburger with onion rings?”

“Janie.” He gave her a lazy grin. “I'm touched. You know me so well.”

“I know you never order a steak when you're here,” she said drily.

“Considering my family's Double-C beefsteaks are the best around, why would I pay someone else for one?” He suddenly stretched across the bar toward her, but only to stick the menu back on the little pile beneath the bar.

She was glad she'd managed to control the urge to take a step back. “So which is it? Meat loaf or burger?”

“Spaghetti and meatballs.”

She shrugged. “You're just saying that to be contrary, but it makes no difference to me. You're the one who'll regret it.” She turned to the register and punched in the order, then started loading glasses into a dishwasher tray.

“Where's the fishbowl?”

Something in his tone made her neck prickle. She glanced at him. He wasn't smiling, but there was a definite smirk of amusement lurking in his gray eyes.

“I put it away.”

“No takers in the win-a-date-with-Janie contest?”

“Actually, I had more entries than I knew what to do with. But I didn't need them after I met Keith. You must know him from Cee-Vid. Keith Lambert?” She folded her arms on the bar top and leaned toward him conspiratorially. “He's the perfect candidate. Intelligent. And that bow tie.” She smiled slowly. “Once that comes off, he's very...energetic.”

Casey's eyes narrowed. “I know you better than that, sport. Max isn't going to find Keith's body cut into pieces and left on the side of the road somewhere, is he? I'd hate to have to bail you out of jail.”

Max was Max Scalise, the sheriff and Casey's cousin by marriage. There were times when Jane speculated that one out of every three people in Weaver was somehow related to the wealthy Clay family. “Why would I want to get rid of Keith?” Just because he was duller than dishwater? “He could turn out to be the—”

“Next Mr. Janie?”

“—man of my dreams.”

Casey's lips twitched as he twisted his beer mug against the wooden surface of the bar. “In
his
dreams, maybe. A little young for you, isn't he?”

Jane looked up from his hand. Why was it that his hands were callused, suntanned and very masculine, when Keith's had been white as snow and softer than hers? The two men did the same sort of work, for Pete's sake.

Olive, one of the servers from the grill, arrived with his order of spaghetti and meatballs. She was nineteen and made quite a production over setting the plate in front of him, along with a napkin-wrapped set of flatware and a heaping helping of nubile come-hither smiles on the side.

“Thank ya, darlin',” Casey drawled.

Olive looked ready to swoon as she went through the archway back to the restaurant.

Jane pulled off her apron and set Casey's bill beside his plate. “A little young for you, isn't
she
?”

He laughed soundlessly. “Say the word, sport, and we can go right back to the way things were.”

Fortunately, where he was concerned, she'd had lots of practice overlooking the way he made her stomach lurch, so she was reasonably confident she didn't display the same besotted expression as Olive.