Page 74 of The Moment He Couldn’t Walk Away

“Blue Jay McAllister, you’re swaying. Sit the fuck down,” Finch said. He then came out from behind the bar and nudged her gently back onto her stool.

“Tequila!” the women all shouted.

“No reasoning with them on girls’ night, bud,” Red said getting down shot glasses and lining them up on the bar. “None of them drive, so there’s that, at least.”

Finch turned to grab the tequila.

“It’s limbo time!” Betsy Regal shrieked from the dance floor.

“Great,” Nina said with zero enthusiasm. She was always hopeless at it, and was competitive enough to hate that she’d never mastered it like some.

“You doing okay, Nina?”

“Good, thanks, Amber. I’m glad you could make it to girls’ night.” Nina moved slightly to let the woman get closer to the bar.

“Me too. I love Lyntacky,” she said. “I’ve been transient for years, but I’m thinking I may have found my home base.” Amber’s smile told Nina how happy that made her feel.

“That’s awesome. It’s a wonderful place with great people.”

“I’m thinking of bringing some of my stuff over. Is there anywhere close by you’ve used or could recommend for storage? Just until I find a place of my own.”

Nina thought about that. “I know the Murrays do it, because I’ve had a few things of my mom’s stored there. They have a converted barn, and the rates were good.”

“Let’s get limboing!” Red roared from behind them.

“Ooh, I’m in!” Amber said foregoing the drink for the limbo contest. “Thanks, Nina.”

“You’re vertically challenged. Shouldn’t this be your thing?”

The deep voice had her looking behind the bar. “I am not vertically challenged, and I think the saying goes, ‘Good things come in small packages,’” Nina said to Finch, who was now leaning on the wood, which put him closer to her.

“They certainly do,” he said in a slow sexy drawl.

“Don’t tell me you’re actually enjoying being behind that bar?”

“I’ve been in the army since I was eighteen and done nothing else. What I’m enjoying is doing something different, even if the population of Lyntacky are the ones forcing me to do them. But I’d say you’re a liar if you told anyone I just said that.”

His eyes looked bigger behind the lenses and more intense as they locked on hers.

“Forcing you? Please, who could force a man of your size to do anything,” Nina scoffed.

“I’m glad you like my size,” he said, waggling his eyebrows at her suggestively.

“Are you flirting with me, Finch McAllister?”

“I think I am, Nina Winters.” The smile fell from his lips as he noticed her frown. “What’s wrong?”

She waved his words away with her hand. “I’m having an identity crisis seeing as I don’t really know much about where I came from.”

“Which is completely understandable. How about I take you home after my shift and make you forget it for a while?”

She studied him for long, heated seconds and then nodded. “But you have to keep the glasses on.”

He was still laughing as she walked away to limbo.

Nina failed on the first attempt to get under the bar because she was laughing too hard.

“How can you be so useless when you’re the shortest!” SJ yelled at her.