Sweet Little Lies Read online

  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 their conversation like nothing had happened.

  “Yes,” she said, watching as the waitress moved to the kitchen with a grateful glance in Finn’s direction. “Interesting. And fun too.” Which was incredibly important to her because . . . well, there’d been a very long stretch of time when her life hadn’t been anything close to resembling a good time.

  “Fun.” Finn repeated the word like it didn’t compute. “Now there’s something I haven’t had in a while.”

  Something else she already knew about him, and the thought caused a slash of regret to cut through her.

  Sean came up alongside Finn. The brothers looked alike; same dark hair, same dark green eyes and smiles. Finn was taller, which didn’t stop Sean from slinging an arm around his older brother’s neck as he winked at Pru. “You’ll have to excuse grandpa here. He doesn’t do fun. You’d do better to go out with me.”

  Sean O’Riley, master flirt.

  But Pru was a master too, by necessity. She’d had to become well versed in dealing with charming flirts at work. It didn’t matter if it was vacationers, tourists, or college kids . . . they all got a kick out of having a female boat captain, and since she was passable in the looks department and a smartass to boot, she got hit on a lot. She always declined, even the marriage proposals. Especially the marriage proposals. “I’m flattered,” she said with an easy smile. “But I couldn’t possibly break the hearts of all the women waiting for their cocktail fantasies to come true.”

  “Damn.” Sean mimed a dagger to the heart but laughed good-naturedly. “Do me a favor then, would ya? If you’re going to take this one for a spin”—he elbowed Finn—“Show him how to live a little and maybe take him for a walk on the wild side while you’re at it.”

  Pru slid her gaze to Finn, which was how she caught the quick flash of irritation as Sean sauntered off. “You need help living a little?” she asked him lightly. Not easy to do since her heart had started pounding, her pulse racing, because what was she doing? Was she really playing with him? It was a bad idea, the worst of all her bad ideas put together, and she’d had some real doozies over the years.

  Don’t be stupid. Back away from the cute hottie. You can’t have him and you know why.

  But the troubling train of thought stopped on a dime when Finn laughed all rumbly and sexy, like maybe he saved it for special occasions.

  “Actually,” he said, “I’ve lived plenty. And as for taking a walk on the wild side, I wrote the book on it.” He leaned on the bar, which brought him up close and personal. Eyes locked on hers, he stroked a strand of wet hair from her temple.

  She went still, like a puppy waiting for a belly rub, staring up at him, her heart still pounding, but for another reason entirely now. “What changed?” she asked, whispered really, because she was pretty sure she knew what the catalyst had been and it was going to kill her to hear him say it.

  He shrugged. “Life.”

  Oh how she hated that for him. Hated it, and felt guilty for it. And not for the first time when she felt overwhelmed and out of her league, she opened her mouth and put her foot in it. “You know, in some circles I’m known as the Fun Whisperer.”

  He arched a brow. “Is that right?”

  “Yep,” she said, apparently no longer in control of her mouth. “The fun starts right here with me. I specialize in people not living their lives, the ones letting their life live them. It’s about letting stuff go, you see.” Seriously. Why wasn’t her mouth attached to a shut-the-hell-up filter?

  Finn smiled and blew half her brain cells. “You going to teach me how to have fun, Pru?” he asked in that low, husky voice.

  Good God, the way her name rolled off his tongue had her knees wobbling. S