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Crossing the small, empty dance floor, she headed back to the bar and ordered another beer as she laid several dollars on the scarred wood slab.
Kyle, the bartender, slid the cold bottle across the bar to her. Gripping it, she lifted it to her lips as she gave the area another quick glance.
There were few people in the bar at this time of night. All were regulars, all had been coming in far longer than she had, and all had passed the background check she had done on them. Well, except Casey. He’d shown up the night before, but her initial check on him hadn’t blipped her radar.
So why the hell was her neck itching?
“Tey, you need to get a life.” Journey Taite, one of the few young women there that night, grinned back at her from where she sat at one of the high tables against the wall. “It’s one o’clock on a Saturday morning, shouldn’t you be, like, sharing time with a lover or something at your advanced age?” There was a teasing snicker on the younger girl’s face, amusement gleaming in her green eyes.
It broke her heart every time she looked at the other girl, just as it had the day Teyha had hired her. Journey Taite, her second cousin. Tehya had come to Hagerstown to watch over her, never imagining she would have the chance to get to know her.
“At my advanced age?” Tehya’s brow arched as she fought back the regret that seared her because she could never reveal her identity to the other girl. “It’s called experience, young’un, and learning the value of sleeping alone.”
Journey lifted her beer with a light laugh, her gaze more open now than it had been the day she first came to work for the company just after Tehya had bought it.
“Hell, a man would take his life in his own hands sleeping with either one of you,” Casey grunted, his expression drunkenly amused. “I’d be scared.”
“Naw, Casey, you’d just be drunk. You’d never remember,” Journey teased as she pushed back the shoulder-length, ribbon-straight strands of sunlit red and gold hair. Both the red as well as the streaks of gold were natural, blending and mingling to a color that was unique to the Taite women. Tehya had darkened her own hair when she left the ops, simply because of that unusual trait.
The red of her hair was darker, the highlights less natural and applied in her bathroom.
It was attractive, close enough to a natural blend of sunlit and red-gold hues, but closer to a strawberry blond than that of Journey.
Tehya tipped her beer to the younger girl as she held back her laughter due to the little pout on Casey’s face.
He was her age, perhaps a few years older. He was cute, built like a damned tank but acting more like a gentle giant.
He was one of the newer customers at the bar and a recent employee at the lumberyard next door to the landscaping company Tehya had bought six months before.
He’d been coming in for the past few nights, since moving to the area from Florida. A former army Ranger, he’d been discharged for medical reasons, though it was hard to imagine the heavily muscled left arm had the pins and rods in it she knew it had. Her investigation of him had been perhaps more in-depth than others simply because of his military background.
“Wicked women,” Casey grunted as he rubbed at his cheek before sliding onto a barstool next to Journey. “Ya just wanna make a grown man cry is all.” Chocolate-brown eyes blinked back at her as he gave her a drunkenly charming rogue’s smile.
Tehya rolled her eyes and Journey nearly snorted the sip of beer she had taken as laughter choked her.
“And on that note, it’s time for me to say good night.” Tehya rose from the barstool, the sensation at her neck becoming a constant irritant.
Casey sighed lustily. “She’s desertin’ me, Journ. My heart’s abreakin’.”
“Your heart’s drowning in booze, Casey,” Journey accused him with a laugh. “Come on, I’ll cheat you at a game of pool before I head on home myself.”
Casey’s eyes widened in pleasure as he staggered to his feet.
“You’re on.” His grin was slightly lopsided as Tehya turned to leave, her gaze moving around the bar again, touching on faces, searching for anything, anyone, out of the ordinary, and finding nothing.
“Later, Teylor,” the bartender called out as she moved to the door, causing her to almost pause, to betray herself with her unfamiliarity with her own name, even after nine months.
Teylor. She still wasn’t used to the name. It wasn’t familiar, and it didn’t feel like her. But it was the name Jordan had picked out, the identity he had wanted her to have, so she had gone with it.
“Later.” Lifting her hand, she called out a farewell as she left by the back entrance, entering a small Laundromat before stepping out into the parking lot.
The parking area was small, barely large enough for a dozen vehicles. She didn’t dare park the Viper there, she was terrified a customer would leave a little too inebriated and swipe the expensive little car.
It was her pride and joy. The only thing she had that Jordan had seemed to care about. And all she had left to remember her time with him.
A damned car. How sad was that? Even sadder was the fact that having it gave her some small measure of comfort.
Loping across the street, she moved quickly to the shadowed area where she had parked the car as she held the large key she carried for safety between her fingers.
