At Your Service (Silhouette Desire) by Amy Jo Cousins Read Free Book Online

Grace rushed off to put in her food order.
    Fifteen minutes later, when she was back at the bar for yet another round of drinks, Tyler waved her in closer so he could shout in her ear.
    “If you’re not in the weeds, I could use a hand with some glass-washing back here.”
    “Yeah, right,” she said, eyeing the narrow walkway behind the bar with suspicion. There wasn’t room for two people to work back there without them constantly bumping up against each other.
    “I’m serious, Grace. The automatic washer comes in next week, but right now I’m doing them by hand, and with no bar back tonight, I’m not keeping up.”
    She scanned her tables and decided they all looked happy and occupied with their meals. It was late enough in the evening that walk-ins were slowing down, and Addy could probably handle the floor for a few minutes.
    “We’ll be serving martinis in paper cups soon, Grace. Please.”
    “Fine.” She knew she sounded ungracious, but she had her hands full already. Then she ducked through the cutout section of the bar, her tray of empties on the bar preventing her from lifting the flap of counter, and discovered the extent of the disaster.
    Red wineglasses, white wineglasses, steins, pints, rocks glasses, highballs, shots and flutes. Glasses piled on the counter next to the three-compartment sink, stacked on the floor, and cluttering up the tops of coolers. She was surprised there was a single clean drinking vessel left in the house.
    “‘Not keeping up’? Did you learn your task management skills in Pooh Corner?” She skewered Tyler with a look.
    “Don’t even start that,” he snapped, but then had the grace to look sheepish. “Okay. So I might have understated the problem.”
    “I’ll say.” She flipped the switch that started the brushes spinning and said goodbye to her manicure.
    For fifteen minutes she sweated and splashed and scrubbed her way through what felt like, and very well might have been, five hundred dirty glasses. Plunging each glass repeatedly down onto one of the spinning brushes in the sink of hot, soapy water, dunking the glass into the sink of clean, hot water tinged blue with disinfectant, and finally dipping it in the last sink of cold water to rinse. When she came across the glass someone had been using as an ashtray, she cursed Tyler under her breath.
    When she realized she’d washed the wineglasses from a table of neighborhood office assistants and hadn’t managed to remove all of the lipstick from any of them, necessitating a second trip through the cycle, she planned his death.
    In several slow, excruciating scenarios. Most involving sharp objects being inserted beneath his fingernails.
    She pulled the plugs to let the dirty liquid drain from the sinks before she refilled them with fresh water, and felt Tyler move behind her again. He’d done so a number of times already as she’d washed glasses, each time brushing past her with a minimum of contact. A very professional manner that didn’t keep her from being extra aware of his movements behind the bar. She swore she could feel the heat radiating off his body when he paused behind her and rested a hand lightly on her hip for a moment, talking to the customer at the bar directly in front of her.
    She ignored him and thought with pleasure of the end of her shift. For the first time in a month, she wouldn’t be going home to the dubious pleasure of her room at the Sherradin Hotel.
    When she’d come into work this evening, Tyler had again asked her to fill out her as-yet-uncompleted paperwork. Although she’d been surprised he hadn’t reminded her of it before this, she’d still panicked at the question and blurted the first words that came into her head, cursing herself for repeating her original pathetic excuse.
    “I’m so sorry, Tyler. I left my wallet back at the hotel room.”
    “Your hotel room?” he’d asked sharply. She was certain he didn’t buy her lie for a second. “Where are you