Holiday with a Twist Read online

  Leigh’s stomach knotted. “The Dawsons have the only liquor license?”

  “Yup. And guess which brother mans the bar.”

  Shit. Maybe she didn’t need that drink after all.

  * * *

  “Croy! What the hell are you thinking?”

  While it certainly wasn’t the first time in his life he’d ever heard those words, Croy Dawson had to work to keep from yelling back as he set two frosted mugs of beer on the bar. The couple he was serving already looked startled by the initial yelling, so he deliberately relaxed his face and gave them an easy smile.

  “Never work with your older brothers,” he said, and they both laughed.

  After giving the room a visual sweep to ensure nobody was actively trying to get his attention, Croy walked to the end of the bar and took a left down the short hallway leading to the kitchen.

  “What did I tell you?” Jeff demanded as soon as Croy stepped into the room.

  “You’ve told me a lot of things. And I probably listened as well as you did when I told you to stop bellowing to me from the kitchen.”

  “I’m going to do a lot more than bellow, you son of a—”

  “Enough.” Their oldest brother, Lucas, entered the kitchen from the dining room side. That was the problem with turning an old New England colonial into a restaurant. Too many doors. “You guys swore you’d work on your communication skills.”

  “And Croy said he wouldn’t ask Carrie to bus any more tables.”

  “Which I didn’t.” As if he’d ask his extremely pregnant sister-in-law to carry a heavy bus pan.

  “I just saw her walk out of here with a damn bus pan.”

  “Then maybe you should have bellowed at her instead of me.”

  Jeff pointed an accusatory finger at him. “You’re in charge out front and I’m in charge of the kitchen. That’s the deal.”

  Which made Carrie running off with a bus pan something of a gray area. The dirty tables were out front, but the bus pans and dishwashing station were technically part of the kitchen. Not that it mattered. The only person in charge of Carrie was Carrie.

  “And I’m in charge of everything,” Lucas reminded them. “Nobody should be bellowing. And Carrie shouldn’t be bussing tables. Where’s Dylan?”

  Croy shrugged, though if he had to guess, he’d say the teen had yet another raging case of dishpan diarrhea. In other words, the dishes were piling up while Dylan was hiding in the bathroom—again—playing with the cell phone that was supposed to be turned off when he clocked in.

  But none of this was his problem. Carrie knew she wasn’t supposed to be bussing tables and Dylan knew he was.

  “Since you’re in charge of everything,” he said to Lucas, “you can handle this.”

  As he turned to leave, Croy saw Carrie walk in the other door. Empty-handed. Right on her heels was Dylan, carrying a full bus pan.

  “Uh-oh.” Carrie stopped, moving sideways so Dylan could get to the dish room. “This is never a good sign.”

  She meant all three brothers being in the kitchen at the same time and she wasn’t wrong. Croy watched his short, hugely pregnant sister-in-law rest her hands in the vicinity of where her waist used to be. Even with puffy ankles, what looked like a beach ball under her shirt and her dark hair wrapped in a messy knot, Carrie looked as if she was contemplating giving each of them a swift kick in the ass. Or as high up on the backs of their legs as she could reach in her current condition.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded. “And, by the way, I could hear the yelling from the dining room.”

  Croy heard Lucas’s frustrated growl and jumped in before his brother could go off on the communication tangent again. “Jeff thought I had you bussing tables.”

  She laughed. “I can’t even bend over the tables far enough to reach all the damn dishes. I was grabbing the bus pan for Dylan because he forgot it again.”

  They all rolled their eyes at that one. Dylan was not well suited for the restaurant industry—even just washing the dishes—but he was a good kid trying to save money for the automotive program at the tech school. Every time he frustrated them to the point they discussed firing him, it seemed as if the brothers took turns digging up valid reasons to keep him on. Croy had saved him last month by pointing out Carrie did most of the training and she had too much on her plate to deal with new employees.

  “I’m going back to my job,” Croy said. “Jeff, you make sure everybody back here does their jobs, and we won’t have a problem.”

  “And stop yelling.” Lucas shook his head. “I still think we should revisit the idea of an intercom system.”

  “No,” Jeff and Croy said at the same time.

  When Lucas scowled and opened his mouth to argue the point, Croy turned and walked out. He had customers to take care of.

  Whenever they were squabbling, Croy found himself wondering why he’d agreed to be part of their crazy family restaurant scheme. Yes, the house had been too much for their dad after their mom died and they were all grown, but they could have sold it. Hank Dawson could be in a nice condo or even a little cabin by the lake, but no. He didn’t want to give up on the house that had been in his wife’s family for multiple generations, so two of his idiot sons had come up with a plan to turn the ground floor into a family restaurant and pub.

  And the youngest idiot son hadn’t had the heart to keep saying no.

  But when he was behind the bar, keeping an eye on whatever game was on the television while chatting with the customers and pouring drinks, Croy loved his job. He’d bartended to get through his last two years of college, and he thought he had a knack for it. Maybe not so much the fancy cocktails, but this was mostly a beer and wine kind of town, anyway.

  Things were starting to die down after the dinner crowd and Croy had started checking the easy things off the laminated list of closing tasks when a woman he hadn’t seen in years walked past him, all the way to the far end of the bar. While she hoisted herself up onto the stool and settled herself, he took another look because he still couldn’t believe this particular woman would just stroll into his family’s restaurant and belly up to his bar.

  Maybe it was some other woman with long, dark hair and skin like a fine china plate. Then she looked up and he saw those pale blue eyes. Yeah, Leigh Holloway was back in town. At his restaurant. And, judging by the stubborn look on her face, she’d known ahead of time he’d be the one standing on the other side of the bar.

  His night just got a lot more interesting. “Leigh Holloway. What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?”

  Chapter Two

  Leigh knew exactly what Croy meant by that remark. What was a woman who knew a man didn’t like her doing in that man’s bar? She’d known he wouldn’t be happy to see her, but she was hoping he’d either moved on and would consider it water under the bridge or would just give her a drink in the name of professionalism and leave it alone.

  They were thirty years old now. The fact he’d once dated her best friend and it was Leigh’s fault that ended badly—breaking Croy’s heart—was old news, really.

  She tried a small smile. “Honestly? I was one more snarky comment from my sister away from drinking cough syrup that expired in 2006, and you’ve got the only liquor license in town.”

  “I think Mrs. Baxter still has a few bottles of the dandelion wine Mr. Baxter made down in her cellar if you’d rather have her company.”

  “Uh, didn’t Mr. Baxter die back in the ‘90s?”

  “It’ll be aged well.” For a few seconds, Leigh thought he really was going to refuse to serve her. But then his expression lightened and he shrugged. “Welcome home, Leigh. What can I get for you?”

  “I really need some Christmas spirit, so how about a candy cane martini?”

  He chuckled and then gave her an ex
pectant look that quickly turned into a frown. “Oh, you were serious?”

  “I never joke about cocktails.”

  “A candy cane martini, huh? You sure that’s a real drink?” He folded his arms across his chest and gave her a skeptical look. “Sounds like something a princess would drink in a Christmas fairy tale.”

  Leigh snorted. “Trust me, I’m no princess and this Christmas is anything but a fairy tale.”

  “Uh-oh. Tell you what. I can almost guarantee I don’t have the stuff to make a candy cane martini but—”

  “Vanilla vodka, white crème de cacao, and peppermint schnapps.”

  “Okay, I know I don’t have the stuff to make a candy cane martini. Wine?”

  She made a face, not really in the mood for wine. She wasn’t a big fan and tended to associate it with formal dinners and business affairs. “Did it come in a box?”

  “No.” He looked affronted, not that she could blame him. “The wine’s from a bottle.”

  “Cork or screw top?” She managed to hold a straight face for a few seconds, but then she smiled and he rolled his eyes when he figured out she was pushing his buttons.

  “You’re pretty picky for a woman who was considering chugging expired cough syrup.” He chuckled. “How about I make you a vodka and cranberry, which is at least a Christmas color, and you can tell me all about it.”

  “I’ll take the drink, but tell you all about what?”

  “Why this Christmas is anything but a fairy tale.”

  The last thing she wanted to do was talk about her family, her job or Jason, but she wouldn’t tell him that until after he made her drink.

  After setting the tall glass in front of her on a Center Street Pub coaster, Croy took a step back, but he didn’t walk away. She tried to ignore him as she took the first sip of the liquid reward she’d been anticipating for hours, but he wasn’t an easy man to ignore.

  Croy had been hot in high school and college, back when he’d been her best friend’s boyfriend. He’d never really gotten into changing fashion fads, but instead had gone through life in jeans and T-shirts, with a hoodie or flannel shirt thrown on in the cold months. He’d always gotten his dark hair trimmed just before it got long enough to be shaggy and he never grew a beard or mustache, but he often sported just a little too much scruff to be considered clean-shaven.

  Even though he was dressed in a black Center Street Pub button-down shirt and khaki pants, Leigh had a feeling on his day off, he’d dress no differently than sixth grade Croy or sophomore in college Croy.

  That didn’t mean he hadn’t changed, though. The years had honed his facial features and the rough edges transformed the pretty boy into a man, and when she looked into his dark eyes over the rim of her glass, it was hard to remember they hadn’t exactly parted as friends the last time they’d seen each other.

  The vodka burned her throat, and she arched an eyebrow at him. “Guess nobody accuses you of watering down the drinks here.”

  “Never. But you also look like you could use a little extra oomph.” Somebody said his name and he give her a quick smile before going off to take care of another customer, which gave her the opportunity to watch him walking away.

  Croy Dawson sure did fill out a pair of khaki pants, she mused. Then she drank some more of the vodka and cranberry before pulling out her phone. After running through the email that had collected in her inbox over the last few hours, she was sure of two things. She shouldn’t have too much trouble finding a new job, since word was already getting around and some of her professional contacts were tentatively reaching out. And she did too much shopping online. After deleting what felt like dozens of emails promising her bargains, she did a quick scroll through Facebook. She didn’t have many “friends,” since she only had the account to give her access to the family photos her sisters and mom shared on an almost daily basis. Much of her work involved being online and social media, so she actually used her middle name for her personal account, and Leigh Catherine was a bit of a social hermit.

  “You want another?”

  She looked up, startled by the sound of Croy’s voice since she hadn’t even noticed him walking back to her end of the bar. She was even more surprised to realize she’d almost drained her glass while catching up online.

  “Sure, I guess. You’re not closing, are you?”

  “Not yet. So where are you staying while you’re in town?”

  “At my parents’.” She didn’t have to be more specific, since he’d spent a lot of time in the Holloway house as a teenager.

  “Sounds fun.”

  “No.” She laughed. “It’s really not.”

  While he made her another drink, Leigh tapped the search bar in the Facebook app. If she typed in Aubrey Rogers, how many results would there be? She wasn’t sure if she could narrow the results down to hometown or high school, which would help.

  She and Aubrey had grown apart their last two years of college and pretty much lost touch shortly after graduation. It was ironic, of course, that she’d talked Aubrey into joining her at her Florida university—leaving Croy behind—so she could have her best friend all to herself. Aubrey had met a new guy the first week, and when Leigh went home for Christmas break and Aubrey went home with her new boyfriend, she’d ended up in an ugly scene with Croy.

  It was the last time she’d seen him until now.

  There was no sense in looking for Aubrey, she thought. They were practically strangers now and she knew from her mom that the Rogers family had moved to North Carolina to be closer to Aubrey and her husband.

  For a few seconds, she thought about punching in Croy’s name. There probably weren’t too many Croyden Henry Dawsons on Facebook and it was an easy way to find out a guy’s relationship status. But the only thing worse than searching for a hot guy on Facebook was being caught searching by the hot guy. There was also the fact they didn’t like each other very much, which rendered the relationship status question moot.

  Sipping her second drink, she alternated between reading her phone and watching the sports news show on the television. It had no sound, so technically she was reading the scroll along the bottom of the screen, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t know a damn thing about sports. It was simply something to do while she put off going home.

  She wasn’t sure how much time passed before Croy stepped in front of her, blocking her view of the television. “You doing okay down here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you want to tell me why you’re running low on Christmas spirit?”

  She shrugged, trying to remember if she’d eaten earlier because her head felt kind of swimmy. Her phone’s screen lit up and the preview showed she had a text message from an acquaintance who’d heard the through grapevine she’d quit her job. She didn’t want to deal with it right now, so she simply covered her phone with a napkin.

  “Does it have anything to do with your parents selling the house?” he prompted. Then he grinned. “Come on. I’m the bartender. You’re supposed to tell me your troubles, remember?”

  “And do you make them better?”

  “Nope. I just listen and nod or shake my head and make vague noises.”

  She laughed. “Okay, then. My parents are selling the house I grew up in, so I have to spend three weeks here mucking out old boxes and trying not to let my family drive me crazy, and I haven’t told them I broke off my engagement two months ago or quit my job last week because I worked with my ex-fiancé.”

  Croy’s eyebrows shot up, but then he nodded and made a noncommittal sound deep in his throat, and she had to fight back a giggle. “I can see how that would put a damper on the Christmas spirit. You lost your job and your fiancé and haven’t told even your mom?”

  “I didn’t lose them. I quit them.”

  “Point taken.”

  “It was
a really great job.” She sighed, and then sucked more vodka and cranberry juice through her straw. “I’m going to miss it.”

  “But not the guy?”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “A little bit, I guess. I mean, we were good friends and we’d been together for two years. We’re still friends, actually.”

  “So tell me something. If you and the guy are still friends, why did you quit your job? It seems to me if you’re friends, you could still work together.”

  “I thought you were just going to nod and make vague noises.”

  He shrugged. “I only do that if I’m not interested enough to ask questions.”

  “Fair enough.” She liked that he was interested. “Seeing each other every day made it harder to move on. Well, maybe not hard. Awkward might be a better word.”

  “So being good friends kept you too connected at work, but not connected enough for a personal relationship?”

  “The kissing was a problem.” She frowned at her glass, surprised by how empty it was. She must have been more dehydrated than she’d thought. “The lack of it, to be exact.”

  “Ah. I guess it doesn’t bode well for a marriage when the sex stops happening before the ring’s even on your finger.”

  She waved a hand. “Oh, no. The sex was good enough. But he didn’t like kissing.”

  “And you like kissing.”

  Even though he hadn’t framed it as a question, she nodded. “I really, really like kissing. I mean orgasms can be a do-it-yourself project if it comes down to that, but there’s no substitute for being kissed until you can’t breathe and you can’t think straight, but you still stretch up on your tiptoes because you’ll never stop wanting more.”

  When he didn’t say anything, Leigh looked up from her almost-empty glass to find Croy staring at her mouth with so much intensity she would have wondered if she had food on her lips if she’d actually eaten anything.

  “Do you know what I mean?” she prompted, and then she felt a sizzle of attraction when he met her gaze with that same intensity. His eyes were so dark they were almost black. “Do you like to kiss, Croy?”