She exhaled noisily and tossed the towel over his head. “Cool your jets, Clay.” Because it was her own jets she was worried about, she backed out of the small office and headed out front to the bar. He wouldn’t say or do anything in front of other people that would give any hint they were lovers.
Had been lovers, she mentally corrected herself.
Past tense.
Merilee was mixing up a round of frozen margaritas when Jane moved behind the bar. The noise of the blender was familiar and welcome. There were a few orders waiting, and she tied a black apron around her hips, then washed her hands before starting to fill them.
Casey appeared soon after but rather than going over to the grill as she expected, he slid onto one of the bar stools near where she was working. “Think I’ll eat in here,” he said.
She wanted to gnash her teeth. Instead, without missing a beat on the Long Island iced tea she was concocting, she slid a menu in front of him.
He flipped the laminated card between his fingers. “I’ve got this thing memorized,” he pointed out.
“Which only proves the fact that you spend too much time in a bar. Beer?”
He nodded. “You’re the proprietress of said bar. I wouldn’t complain about having regular customers if I were you. Bad for business.”
She topped off the cocktail with a dash of cola, then moved down to the taps and drew his beer. She set the mug in front of him. “What’s it going to be? No, wait. Let me guess. Meat loaf and mashed or the bacon cheeseburger with onion rings?”
“Janie.” He gave her a lazy grin. “I’m touched. You know me so well.”
“I know you never order a steak when you’re here,” she said drily.
“Considering my family’s Double-C beefsteaks are the best around, why would I pay someone else for one?” He suddenly stretched across the bar toward her, but only to stick the menu back on the little pile beneath the bar.
She was glad she’d managed to control the urge to take a step back. “So which is it? Meat loaf or burger?”
“Spaghetti and meatballs.”
She shrugged. “You’re just saying that to be contrary, but it makes no difference to me. You’re the one who’ll regret it.” She turned to the register and punched in the order, then started loading glasses into a dishwasher tray.
“Where’s the fishbowl?”
Something in his tone made her neck prickle. She glanced at him. He wasn’t smiling, but there was a definite smirk of amusement lurking in his gray eyes.
“I put it away.”
“No takers in the win-a-date-with-Janie contest?”
“Actually, I had more entries than I knew what to do with. But I didn’t need them after I met Keith. You must know him from Cee-Vid. Keith Lambert?” She folded her arms on the bar top and leaned toward him conspiratorially. “He’s the perfect candidate. Intelligent. And that bow tie.” She smiled slowly. “Once that comes off, he’s very...energetic.”
Casey’s eyes narrowed. “I know you better than that, sport. Max isn’t going to find Keith’s body cut into pieces and left on the side of the road somewhere, is he? I’d hate to have to bail you out of jail.”
Max was Max Scalise, the sheriff and Casey’s cousin by marriage. There were times when Jane speculated that one out of every three people in Weaver was somehow related to the wealthy Clay family. “Why would I want to get rid of Keith?” Just because he was duller than dishwater? “He could turn out to be the—”
“Next Mr. Janie?”
“—man of my dreams.”
Casey’s lips twitched as he twisted his beer mug against the wooden surface of the bar. “In his dreams, maybe. A little young for you, isn’t he?”
Jane looked up from his hand. Why was it that his hands were callused, suntanned and very masculine, when Keith’s had been white as snow and softer than hers? The two men did the same sort of work, for Pete’s sake.
Olive, one of the servers from the grill, arrived with his order of spaghetti and meatballs. She was nineteen and made quite a production over setting the plate in front of him, along with a napkin-wrapped set of flatware and a heaping helping of nubile come-hither smiles on the side.
“Thank ya, darlin’,” Casey drawled.
Olive looked ready to swoon as she went through the archway back to the restaurant.
Jane pulled off her apron and set Casey’s bill beside his plate. “A little young for you, isn’t she?”
He laughed soundlessly. “Say the word, sport, and we can go right back to the way things were.”
Fortunately, where he was concerned, she’d had lots of practice overlooking the way he made her stomach lurch, so she was reasonably confident she didn’t display the same besotted expression as Olive.
“Oh, yeah?” She angled her head and batted her lashes comically. “You gonna put a ring on it and donate some genetic material?” She patted his cheek dismissively and walked away before she had to witness his response.
“Merilee,” she called as she headed toward the exit, “make sure Casey Clay doesn’t skip out on his bill. Don’t want anyone around here thinking they can get things for free.”
Casey watched Jane sail through the door, then glanced at Merilee, who was giving him a wry look.
“Think she had another bad date,” Merilee shared, moving down to his end of the bar.
Casey would bet on it. But he could play ignorant when he wanted. He twirled his fork in the spaghetti noodles. “What makes you say that?”
Merilee grinned. She was a little younger than Jane and lived over in Braden. Casey’d heard somewhere that she was engaged to a fireman. “If you had a good dinner date, would you be hanging around your workplace an hour after appetizers?” She poured herself a cup of coffee and shook her head. “Not me, my friend. How’s that pasta?”
“Not as good as the meat loaf would have been.”
Merilee grinned. “Not one of Jerry’s best dishes, that’s for sure. Jane’s been trying to get him to use her recipe, but he says the kitchen’s his domain and unless she wants him to quit, to leave him to it.”
Casey figured the only reason Jane allowed Jerry any leeway at all was because she couldn’t easily replace him. When it came to her business, like her personal life, she wanted to control every damn little detail.
He didn’t begrudge her that particular right—he called plenty of his own shots, too—but it definitely made dealing with her a challenge. “You said another bad date.” He gave up on the watery spaghetti and bullet-hard meatballs and picked up the beer. It was just the way he liked. A little dark. A little toasty. And not too heavy on the hops. “She having a lot of ’em?”
Merilee obviously saw nothing odd in the question. There was a reason why gossip was Weaver’s number-one sport. Everyone talked about everyone. “I know she’s had a date every Thursday night for the past month with a different guy each time. Far as I can tell, none of them led to a second date. The rest of the time, she’s here working.”
He did have to give Jane props for being a hard worker. She might bust his chops about getting called into Cee-Vid at all hours, but she wasn’t much better.
It was a good thing they’d never