Energized (A Tidewater Novel, Band 3) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mary Behre is the award-winning author of the Tidewater novels, Guarded and Spirited. The lone female in a house full of males, she is the undisputed queen of her domain, and even has the glittery tiara to prove it. When not writing, she enjoys reading, gluten-free baking, and spending time at the ocean with her family.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CHAPTER 1

DECEMBER

Fincastle, Ohio

“LOVER, FRIEND, OR family?”

Niall Graham looked from the glass of tepid beer he wasn’t drinking and into the golden-hazel eyes of the pretty, young bartender. Her long hair, the same color as her eyes, hung in ringlets to her breasts, except for one long pink braid that trailed from behind her left ear. In jeans and a black T-shirt, she looked young and fresh and hopeful. Everything he wasn’t.

Pulling a stained white towel off the black apron tied at her tiny waist, she wiped down the bar. Her voluptuous breasts bounced jauntily in front of him, jiggling the white letters on her shirt.

Keep calm and carry . . .

He couldn’t make out the rest of the words on her there-IS-a-God tight shirt. The letters disappeared beneath her curves. He must have stared at her chest too long because she folded her arms on the bar blocking his view. He whipped his gaze to hers.

“That wasn’t an invitation.” She winked and settled her chin on her hand, giving him a sympathetic smile. “I was asking if it was a lover, friend, or family member on your mind. It’s gotta be one of the three. Only they can make someone sit unmoving on a stool for four hours straight in a bar and not drink. You’ve been nursing that same beer since I served it to you at ten. Either you like your barley and hops the temperature and flavor of lukewarm bathwater or something else drove you to sit silently at my bar until past closing.”

Niall glanced around. Cheap tinsel and garish colored lights were strewn over every available space of the dark, wood interior until the bar looked like some warped version of a Tim Burton Christmas special. Dreary with a touch of hopeless wistfulness. It suited Niall’s mood perfectly.

Another bar, the one attached to the hotel where he was lodged for the night, had been noisy and crowded. For hours, he’d sat trying to drown out the noise of the patrons at Molloy’s Pub next door. The locals were throwing an old-fashioned Irish wake. When the noise shifted to depressing songs about fallen heroes, Niall had escaped.

After walking for fifteen minutes on the deserted street, he found himself outside a bar called Heaven’s Gate. The door swung open. A stringy man wearing a baggy Santa suit stumbled out and fell into the bushes on the side of the building. He popped back up as if on a spring, puked noisily, then sauntered up the street in the careful way drunks do when trying desperately to prove they’re sober.

Despite the inebriated Santa, or maybe because of him, Niall stared at the bar in wonder. It gleamed under a single light post at the town’s main intersection. Someone had recently painted a logo on the door. With its tilted golden halo dangling from the tip of a red and black pitchfork, it seemed to beckon him.

Perhaps, this gate will let me in.

Heaven’s Gate had been mostly empty. Plenty of room to move. Not that he’d done anything except sit. And sit. And sit more. Around him patrons drank, laughed, paired off, and stumbled out. He was only twenty-eight, but Niall didn’t have the energy to talk, to move, to drink.

Christ, he was so fucking tired. Tired of traveling. Tired of the Marines. Tired of life.

“Hey there, where’d you go?” The bartender touched his hand. Her cool fingers whispered across his skin. Something warm and gentle tugged deep in his chest. Her touch, though brief, was a balm to his battered soul. He looked into her eyes and they fucking twinkled. And he felt ancient.

But he didn’t want to look away from the first smiling face he’d seen in months that reminded him of home.

“Hiya, I’m Hannah. What’s your name, soldier?”

“I’m a Marine, not a soldier,” he retorted out of habit, but couldn’t stop his grin at her spritely chatter.

“Pardon the insult, Marine.” She saluted him quickly, then leaned against the bar again.

Normally, civilians who gave mock salutes annoyed him. He wasn’t annoyed by this woman. He was . . . charmed. A surprised chuckle escaped him. “None taken. And it’s Niall.”

“Niall.” She rolled the word on her tongue like she was tasting it. Tasting him.

An odd sexual dip hit him low in the belly. He’d been empty for so long, he’d practically forgotten what arousal felt like. He glanced at her smiling face again. She wasn’t classically beautiful. Her eyes were almost too big for her face. Her nose was slightly off center. Her mouth appeared to be smiling, even when she spoke. Certainly not the smoldering, pouty look of a model, yet it all added up to make her remarkably pretty.

“Tell you what, Niall,” she said, patting his hand and straightening. “Since you seem to want quiet, I’ll give it to you. I’m going to clean up because I’d like to close the bar. You go right on sitting there. Not drinking your beer.”

She winked again and went to work. He watched her move around the room, stacking chairs on tables.

The place was completely empty, save the two of them. He should go back to his hotel. But then she’d be here all alone. No doubt she’d closed the bar at night before, but did she often have strange men in there alone with her? Her lack of concern for her own safety had him sliding off the stool and crossing to her.

“Hannah.”

“So you do want to talk.” She met his gaze, a grin widening her mouth. She flipped over the armless wooden chair and slid it onto the cracked table. “The doctor is in. That’ll be five cents, please.”

“Five cents?” He froze midstep. With another chair in her hands, she laughed. “Haven’t you ever seen Charlie Brown?”

It took him a moment. “So does that make you Lucy?”

“I seem to be tonight. Did you know that Santa has a drinking problem and he’s a bit of a horndog too?” She slid the chair onto the tabletop. Her laughter rang through the empty bar like wind chimes. Low and musical.

“Yes. I witnessed his little alcohol issue when I arrived. He stumbled outside and planted face-first into the bushes.”

Her smile vanished. “Is Mr. Landsdowne still out there?”

She started for the door, but Niall caught her elbow. Her breasts brushed against his arm, making the hair on his arm stand on end. He had to clear his throat once to make his voice work. “No, he recovered quickly and headed north on the street. No doubt to find his bag and deliver toys.”

Hannah blew out a relieved breath, her breasts connecting with Niall’s arm again. Christ, it had been a long time since he’d been with a woman if this innocent touch had his balls aching. Releasing her, he stepped back and tucked his hands at the small of his back.

She patted him on the arm. “At ease, Marine.”

He laughed at himself. Technically, he was standing at ease and let his arms fall to his sides.

Hannah had already stacked another set of chairs before he remembered his concern. He followed her to one of the dozen small, square laminate tables, spread out in a semicircle around the twin pool tables. “Isn’t this dangerous?”

She upended the chair in her hands and slid onto the tabletop. “Not the way I do it.”

Niall copied her move with the next chair. Side by side, he towered over her. He was bigger than the average American man, but not by much. He’d bulked up in the Marines. Still, Hannah was a tiny thing...