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“I need to get dressed. How about we meet downstairs and I’ll show you were I keep the beer for the coolers.”
Damon saluted her and headed for the stairs.
***
The last twenty-four hours had not been anything Damon would ever have seen coming. He ran into beautiful women all the time as many places as he’d been but not once had any of them called him out as a bear, and been a bear as well. What were the odds? His parents had always rambled on about finding his true mate and that he probably never would. Who would want to commit to a worthless, unreliable grizzly bear that had no ambition and no clue what he wanted to do with his life?
His parents really weren’t nice people. If they’d had their way, he’d never have been able to access the trust his grandparents left him and he’d been stuck in a long since dead town with a dead-end job, and still living at home. He only felt a little bad for leaving his little brother Zeke, but he was still in school and not old enough for Damon to legally take care of.
It had only been a day but if this town was a place he might be able to call home and he liked everything he’d seen so far, then one day he could bring his brother to live with him. It may be jumping the gun but he’d really like to be a part of Mack’s life and see where that could take them.
Did most bears believe that they mated for life, not necessarily by listening to some of them back home, but he sure did and he would continue to look until he found the right one for him. Maybe that was Mack, and maybe not but it was sure off to a good start.
“Hey are you ready?”
“You’re good at trying to be sneaky, but I knew you were there.”
He had gone through the bar and taken all the chairs down from the table tops and took a seat while he waited. When she’d appeared, she was wearing a tight pair of jeans with a t-shirt that was short enough to leave her stomach uncovered. As if he needed another thing to distract him besides the mere presence of her.
“Did you hear me?”
“No, it was weird but I just knew you were there somehow.”
“Hey thanks for taking down the chairs. You might be pretty handy to keep around after all.”
“Yeah you just want me to do all your heavy lifting.”
“Speaking of heavy lifting…”
She smiled and walked away, leaving him with a view that would be the death of him. The way she swung those hips would knock any man to his knees. She had a way already of shooting his temperature out of the park. He’d rather handle her assets than the beer for the bar but he followed because she needed the help, and it was now his job.
She led him through an opening between the mahogany bars into a doorway he’d seen her emerge from more than once the night before. He was now impressed with how intricate her little prep kitchen really was and when she kept walking, he moved to keep up with her.
When she got to a big metal door, she opened it and started explaining.
“Okay, this is the walk in cooler where we keep all the cold beer. We never lay it down on its side, always store them upright, that way they keep longer. We also don’t have a direct light in here because it will spoil the beer. We don’t freeze it but this walk-in keeps it at a good cold temp. When new cases come in off the truck, just slide it in behind what’s already in here so we use the older up first.”
“How often do you have deliveries?”
“They drop off every other day which includes Saturdays and it’s usually before we open so we don’t have to be gone from the bar to unload. We go through enough of it that we don’t really need to worry about shelf life either. With both of us on site, we shouldn’t ever have a problem with missing a delivery.”
She grabbed a roll cart and started loading cases of bottles onto it, then Damon wheeled the cart, following her back to the bar.
“These are the coolers we have up here and all we do is load the bottles in so there’s easy access. Most nights if we load them full, we don’t have to refill before the night is over. That next set of cabinets house our kegs with the tappers above.”
As she talked, she placed bottles on the shelves quicker than anything he’d ever seen done. She was good at her job.
“Usually I change out the kegs so the girls can continue to help the customers but I have no problem with you changing them out too.”
Damon agreed that he would be glad to do that.
“I have a standup freezer and frig in the prep kitchen that I house all the food in and the menu changes slightly depending on what we have left in stock from day to day.”
She finished loading the beer bottles and they were walking back toward the cooler when the security alarm started blaring loudly throughout the bar.
Damon and Mack looked at each other but he could tell she was instantly panicked.
“Where is your keypad?”
