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  “I want,” Kate said. “I’m really looking forward to this. I love financial planning.”

  “I’d rather shoot myself in the foot,” Nancy said. “But each to his own, I guess.”

  “Well, right now my own is being a barmaid,” Kate said, checking her hat in the mirror. “I’m going to be great.”

  She felt great. Her hair was loose on her shoulders, her body round in the low-cut tank top, her face flushed from the heat and exercise. She would never have planned to look that way, but she found after her first embarrassment that being riotously feminine was intoxicating. She knew she looked good because of the way the men looked at her, a way she wasn’t used to. She was used to cool, approving looks that evaluated her like she was an expensive piece of porcelain. The men at Nancy’s looked at her like she was flesh and blood. It was disconcerting and fun. She felt powerful instead of possessed, appreciated instead of coveted. She tilted her hat back and smiled at everyone, practicing her own version of the friendly, mild flirting that Nancy used on every male she met; and the men were responsive to a flattering degree. The women, she found, were just plain friendly. She felt happy and curiously alive. The only plan she had in mind now was the one for Nancy’s bar.

  However, being a barmaid, Kate discovered, wasn’t all bounce and smile. The bonuses were the friendly people, the cheerful atmosphere, the tips, and working with Nancy. The downside was the constant walking and the hands.

  “Just move around them, honey,” Thelma, one of the barmaids advised her. “If they connect, spill a little beer on them.”

  Sally, the other barmaid, pointed out the worst offenders. “Give them their drinks from across the table. They’ll look down your bra, but they won’t be able to reach you.”

  Nancy showed her how to mix drinks, draw beer, and work the register. Kate concentrated like she hadn’t since college, learning not only the names of the drinks but the names of the customers and what they drank. When Jake’s Uncle Early, a potbellied man in a stained shirt, came to the bar and said, “Another one, please,” she said, “Gin,” and poured.

  Nancy was impressed. She was even more impressed when she realized that Kate could do it with anyone by their third drink.

  “How’d you do that?” she asked.

  “Mnemonics,” Kate said. “It’s the way I got through college. You make up a sentence that links the two words. You know, it’s too Early for Gin.”

  Nancy shook her head. “Amazing.”

  “I think I’ve got the hang of it.” Kate felt absurdly proud.

  “I think so, too.” Nancy handed her two beers. “Jake and Ben. They’re due.”

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  Kate threaded her way back to the pool table.

  “Hey,” she said, and they stood back for her.

  Jake looked at her tank top as he took his beer, and then he looked away. “Nice outfit,” he said. “Injured anybody lately?”

  “Give it a rest,” Kate said. “Not everyone is as big a wimp as you.”

  “Oh, almost forgot,” Jake said and tipped her five bucks.

  “What’s this for?”

  He picked up his cue and chalked it. “Helping me settle a bet with Ben.”

  “What bet?”

  “Whether you were a real blonde or not.”

  The lake that morning. Kate blushed brick red and turned back to the bar. She stopped before she got there and walked back to him.

  “Who won?” she asked.

  Jake made his shot. “I did. Ben’s a cynic.”

  By ten the bar was almost empty, so everybody saw Sally swerve to avoid Brad’s hand, slip in some spilled beer, and sprain her ankle.

  Jake looked at Kate. “I warned you,” he said. “I pleaded with you not to maim any more of the population.”

  “Oh, please,” she said. “This is my fault?”

  “Okay, you’re right.” He put down his cue. “This one isn’t your fault.” He left to help Ben get Sally into Thelma’s car.

  Nancy waved her over. “That job offer is really serious now. Can you fill in for Sally for a couple of nights?”

  “Sure,” Kate said.

  “Six to eleven, Wednesday and Thursday. If Sally’s not back by Friday, six to one.”

  “Sounds good,” Kate said and went to clear a table. My feet hurt, but I like it here, she thought. I owe Jessie big for this one.

  Chapter Eight

  By eleven, Kate’s feet were beyond hurting and into agony.

  She walked back to tell Jake their game was off for the night, that she simply couldn’t stand up another moment, but when she got back to him, he smiled, and she wasn’t tired anymore.

  “This is the cue ball.” He picked up the only white ball on the table. “Do not hit the cue ball into the pockets. That is bad.”

  Ben shook his head and moved away.

  “You might want to stay,” Jake said to him mildly. “Some of this stuff you haven’t mastered yet.”

  “Don’t play for money,” Ben warned her as he left “The guy’s a shark.”

  “Okay, no white ball in the pockets,” Kate said.

  Jake put all the colored balls inside a triangular frame. “This is a rack. You rack the balls to start.”

  He had nice hands. Long fingers. She watched him pull the rack away and put the cue ball a little way from the point of the racked balls.

  “To start the game, you have to break the racked balls.” He crooked his finger at her. “Come here.”

  He put a cue in her hand. “Make a bridge,” he said, showing her how. Then he moved the cue over her fingers. “The cue should slide over the bridge when you shoot.”

  “Got it.” Kate concentrated on her bridge, making it as close to Jake’s example as she could. “Now what?”

  “Line up the cue with the cue ball.”

  “Right.” Kate bent over the table, absentmindedly feeling her short tight skirt ride up on her thighs. She sighted down the cue so that the point was in the middle of the white ball.

  “Now what?” she asked. He didn’t say anything, and she looked around and found him looking at the back of her skirt and shaking his head.

  “Jake?”

  “Don’t wear that skirt to play pool. Now I know how those other guys went. I almost had a heart attack myself.”

  “Very funny.” She yanked her skirt down over her rear end and felt it part company with her tank top.

  “Okay,” he said. “Hit the cue ball and scatter the other balls on the table.”

  She bent over the table again, and took her shot, but the cue bit the table and bounced into the cue ball. “Sorry,” she said.

  “My fault.” Jake racked the balls again. “I wasn’t paying attention. Okay, hold the cue again.”

  She lined up the cue with the ball and he came up behind her. “Your cue’s up too high. Flatten it out so it’s parallel to the table.”

  She overcompensated.

  “No. Bring the tip down a little lower.”

  She dipped it again.

  “No,” he said.

  “Show me,” she said, frustrated. “I don’t see what you mean.”

  He bent over her, putting his hands on top of hers. “Like this.”

  Kate concentrated on getting the angle right, and then noticed that he’d frozen over her. “Jake?” she asked and then realized what he had realized—that he was wrapped around her, the warm length of him touching her back all the way down, his hands curled over hers. She froze, too.

  He stood slowly. “Just hit the ball.”

  Jake taught her the rest of the basics standing far away across the table from her. The problem with this noble plan was that he could see down her tank top every time she bent to take a shot, and it clearly distracted him. Kate enjoyed it, just as she’d enjoyed the admiration of the other men in the bar. There was something intoxicating about seeing Jake flustered. She lifted her chin a little so he could see down her cleavage a little more clearly.

  Jake sighed and moved