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Clyde and his friends hooted as she made her way over. If he and his buddies hadn’t been regulars, she could have gotten in trouble with her boss for talking to a customer like that, but the fact was they ate up the attention. It was a weird sort of ritual they had going, and it worked for them. Yeah, they were annoying, but harmless. And they tipped well.
As she handed out the drinks, Clyde attempted, as always, to pull her into his ample lap. Like always, she laughingly avoided his advances while pretending to be the tiniest bit flattered, a fine art all bartenders and servers had to master or else they wouldn’t get far in that job.
“Shorthanded again tonight, honey?” Clyde asked loudly, above the blaring country music.
“Yep. Had another server call in sick. You know how it goes.”
As a bartender—or mixologist, as some of the fancier city types preferred to be called these days—that’s really where she wanted to be. Behind the bar, creating drinks. More and more often, it seemed she got stuck pulling double duty, both mixing and serving. She had nothing against hard work. Hell, she’d been working all her life, never had it easy. But doing the jobs of two people sucked.
“Just tell the boss you’re done for the night and hang out with us.”
She winked. “You know it doesn’t work like that. Jack would have my hide.”
Same old. Every time they came in. But they were a friendly bunch, so she let it ride. After passing out their drinks, she tucked the round tray under her arm and started back toward the bar. Just as she did, a group that never failed to attract a ton of attention came through the entrance of the Cross-eyed Grizzly.
Especially hers.
The men were from that top secret compound in the Shoshone National Forest all the locals believed to be a plain old research facility. Jacee knew better. These men were, in fact, a black ops team of wolf shifters—and one panther—whose job it was to protect civilians from all sorts of paranormal predators. With any luck, humans would never find out about the evil things that went bump in the night.
Jacee knew about the Alpha Pack for a couple of good reasons. One, she wasn’t human. And two, Jax Law was a former lover of hers. She kept her eyes and ears open, and it paid off. Selene, Zander’s mate, was the only one of the Pack who had a clue that Jacee was a coyote shifter—even Jax didn’t know—and that’s the way Jacee wanted to keep it.
A few months ago, when Selene had first arrived in town, she’d somehow made Jacee as a coyote right off the bat and had kept her secret in exchange for information. Whatever the she-wolf’s problem had been, it had obviously worked out. She seemed happy, holding her mate’s hand as they walked with the group to a large table in one corner.
For one fleeting moment, Jacee envied them. They were a pack and they had one another, whereas Jacee had nobody. Loneliness swelled in her breast for her long-dead family, but she ruthlessly squashed it before it could drown her. There was no sense in going down that road again. She was alone. No changing that fact.
She was just glad Jax and his mate, Kira, weren’t here tonight. Not that she’d been in love with the wolf, but it still hurt to see the happiness on their faces.
Just as she started to turn away, one of the team caught her eye. He was here again. The tall, leanly muscled man with the scarred face and shoulder-length dark brown hair. He didn’t show up with them often, but when he did, she found it difficult to take her eyes off him. There was just something arresting about him that stopped her in her tracks every time. Made her pulse race. Her palms sweat.
He’d been beautiful, once. Like he could’ve graced magazine covers if he’d wanted. But to her, he was still gorgeous despite the ruined left side of his face. What drew her the most, though, was the deep well of sadness in his big brown eyes. She wondered what pain ate at his insides.
And she wondered if that was what drove him to reach into his pocket now and then and pop the pills when he thought nobody was looking.
Could a wolf shifter become an addict? Was that possible?
Snapping out of her musings, Jacee approached the table. As she did, it occurred to her that she’d never actually waited on their group when he’d been with them before. Last time he’d come in, she’d been behind the bar. She gladly took the opportunity to study him close up as she went around and took their orders, and found he was even more striking than from a distance. His injury only added to the mystery of the man and wolf. In her world, battle scars were honorable. They added rather than detracted from his powerful aura.
Finally, it was his turn. Jacee stopped next to him, leaned over slightly and smiled down at him as he looked up and met her gaze—and the room tilted under her boots.
The man smelled absolutely amazing. Like fresh pine, rain, and man, all rolled into one tantalizing scent that awakened her coyote with a little growl and shot a bolt of arousal from her brain to her toes. And every sensitive place in between. What the hell?
“Wh-what would you like to drink?” she stammered. His eyes had widened as he stared back, and the unmistakable scent of arousal wafting from him told her that she wasn’t alone in whatever was happening between them.
“Crown and Coke, please.” His voice was low and smoky, sending shivers along her spine. That chocolate gaze raked her from head to toe and back up again. From the heat there, he liked what he saw as well.
“Coming right up.” Turning, she nearly tripped in her haste to put some distance between herself and the alluring wolf.
“Damn, Micah,” one of the guys ribbed, “what’d you say to Jacee?”
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the handsome wolf smile a little, shaking his head. Micah. God, what a great name. Hurrying, she filled their drink orders and loaded up her tray. As quickly as possible without spilling a drop, she returned to their table and handed out the drinks, trying not to act as though she was watching Micah.
Hell, who was she kidding? She was watching, and so was he, and they were both doing a lousy job of pretending otherwise.
“Can I get you guys anything else?” She half expected the stupid comments a lot of the other patrons made, but from this group it was refreshingly absent most of the time. Aside from some harmless flirting, they didn’t bother her much. Maybe that had to do as muc
h with her former fling with Jax as anything, but she was glad.
She also noticed that Micah refrained from making any of the usual tasteless jokes. For some reason, she would’ve felt really let down if he had. To her relief, he simply looked her straight in the eye and said, “I’m good for now. Thanks.”
