Sweet Little Lies: Heartbreaker Bay Book 1 Read online

  She stilled and then craned her neck, looking behind her.

  No one there. Just herself, dripping all over his floor.

  She turned back and found Finn looking quietly amused. Their gazes locked and held for a long beat, like maybe he was taking her pulse from across the room, absorbing the fact that she was drenched and breathless. The corners of his mouth twitched. She’d amused him again.

  People shifted between them. The place was crowded as always, but when the way was clear again, Finn was still looking at her, steady and unblinking, those dark green eyes flickering with something other than amusement now, something that began to warm her from the inside out.

  Three weeks and it was the same every single time . . .

  Pru considered herself fairly brave and maybe a little more than fairly adventurous—but not necessarily forward. It wasn’t easy for her to connect with people.

  Which was the only excuse she had for jerking her gaze away, pretending to eye the room.

  The pub itself was small and cozy. One half bar, the other half pub designated for dining, the décor was dark woods reminiscent of an old thatched inn. The tables were made from whiskey barrels and the bar itself had been crafted out of repurposed longhouse-style doors. The hanging brass lantern lights and stained-glass fixtures along with the horse-chewed, old-fence baseboards finished the look that said antique charm and friendly warmth.

  Music drifted out of invisible speakers, casting a jovial mood, but not too loud so as to make conversation difficult. There was a wall of windows and also a rack of accordion wood and glass doors that opened the pub on both sides, one to the courtyard, the other to the street, giving a view down the hill to the beautiful Fort Mason Park and Marina Green, and the Golden Gate Bridge behind that.

  All of which was fascinating, but not nearly as fascinating as Finn himself, which meant that her eyes, the traitors, swiveled right back to him.

  He pointed at her.

  “Me?” she asked, even though he couldn’t possibly hear her from across the place.

  With a barely there smile, he gave her a finger crook.

  Yep. Her.

  Chapter 2

  #TakeMeToYourLeader

  Pru’s brain wondered what her mom would’ve said about going to a man who crooked his finger at her. But Pru’s feet didn’t care, they simply took her right to him.

  He handed her a clean towel to dry off. Their fingers brushed, sending a tingle straight through her. While she enjoyed that—hey, it was the most action she’d gotten in a very long time—he cleared her a seat.

  “What can I get you?” His voice was low and gravelly, bringing to mind all sorts of inappropriate responses to his question.

  “Your usual?” he asked. “Or the house special?”

  “What would that be?” she asked.

  “Tonight it’s a watermelon mojito. I could make it virgin-style for you.”

  He saw God knew how many people day in and day out, and on top of that the two of them hadn’t spoken much more than a few words to each other, but he remembered what she liked after a long day at work out on the water.

  And what she didn’t. He’d noticed that she didn’t drink alcohol. Hard to believe that when he had a pub menu, a regular alcoholic beverage menu, and also a special menu dedicated solely to beer, he could keep it all straight. “You kept track of my usual?” she asked, warmed at the idea. Warmed and a little scared because she shouldn’t be doing this, flirting with him.

  “It’s my job,” he said.

  “Oh.” She laughed at herself. “Right. Of course.”

  His eyes never left her face. “And also because your usual is a hot chocolate, which matches your eyes.”

  Her stomach got warmer. So did some of her other parts. “The virgin special would be great, thanks.”

  The guy on the barstool next to her swiveled to look at her. He was in a suit, tie loosened. “Hi,” he said with the cheerfulness of someone who was already two drinks into his night. “I’m Ted. How ’bout I buy you an Orgasm? Or maybe even”—wink, wink—“multiples?”

  Finn’s easy, relaxed stance didn’t change but his eyes did as they cut to Ted, serious now and a little scary hard. “Behave,” he warned, “or I’ll cut you off.”

  “Aw, now that’s no fun,” Ted said with a toothy smile. “I’m trying to buy the pretty lady a drink, is all.”

  Finn just looked at him.

  Ted lifted his hands in a sign of surrender and Finn went back to making drinks. Soon as he did, Ted leaned in close to Pru again. “Okay now that daddy’s gone, how about Sex On The Beach?”

  Finn reached in and took Ted’s drink away. “Annnnd you’re out.”

  Ted huffed out a sigh and stood up. “Fine, I gotta get home anyway.” He flashed a remorseful smile at Pru. “Maybe next time we’ll start with a Seduction.”

  “Maybe next time,” she said, picking one of the sweet, noncommittal smiles from her wide repertoire of smiles that she used on the job captaining a day cruise ship in the bay. It took a lot of different smiles to handle all the people she dealt with daily and she had it down.

  When Ted was gone, Finn met her gaze. “Maybe next time?” he repeated.

  “Or, you know, never.”

  Finn smiled at that. “You let him down easy.”

  “Had to,” she said. “Since you played bad cop.”

  “Just part of the service I offer,” he said, not at all bothered by the bad cop comment. “Did you have to cancel your last tour today?”

  So apparently he knew what she did for a living. “Nope. Just got back.”

  “You were out in this?” he asked in disbelief. “With the high winds and surf alerts?”

  His hands were in constant motion, making drinks, chopping ingredients, keeping things moving. She was mesmerized by the way he moved, how he used those strong hands, the stubble on his jaw . . .

  “Pru.”

  She jerked her gaze off his square jaw and found his locked on hers. “Hmm?”

  A flash of humor and something else came and went in his eyes. “Did you have any problems with the high winds and surf out there today?”

  “Not really. I mean, a little kid got sick on his grandma, but that’s because she gave him an entire bag of cotton candy and then two hot dogs, and he wolfed it all down in like two seconds, so I’m not taking the blame there.”

  He turned his head and looked out the open doors facing the courtyard. Dusk had fallen. The lights strung in pretty ribbons over and around the wrought iron fencing and fountain revealed sheets of rain falling from the sky.

  She shrugged. “It didn’t start raining until I was off the water. And anyway, bad weather’s a part of the job.”

  “I’d think staying alive would be a bigger part of the job.”

  “Well yes,” she said on a laugh. “Staying alive is definitely the goal.” Truth was, she rarely had problems out on the water. Nope, it was mostly real life that gave her problems. “It’s San Francisco. If we didn’t go out in questionable weather, we’d never go out at all.”

  He took that in a moment as he simultaneously cleaned up a mess at the bar and served a group a few seats down a pitcher of margaritas, while still managing to make her feel like he was concentrating solely on her.

  It’s his job, her brain reminded her body. But it felt like more.

  From the other side of the pub came a sound of a plate hitting the floor. Finn’s eyes tracked over there.

  One of his waitresses had dropped a dish, and the table she’d been serving—a rowdy group of young guys—were cheering, embarrassing her further.

  Finn easily hopped over the bar and strode over there. Pru couldn’t hear what he said but the guys at the table immediately straightened up, losing their frat boy antics mentality.

  Finn then turned, crouched low next to his waitress, helped her clean up, and was back to the bar in less than sixty seconds.

  “You’ve got an interesting job,” he said, coming back to the