Worth It All (The McKinney Brothers #3) by Claudia Connor Read Free Book Online Page A

out a time for Casey to come back.
    “Thank you so much.”
    “You’re welcome. I’ll see you later.” He winked at Casey and went back the way he’d come.
    “I like Simon,” Casey said, as they walked back to visitor parking.
    “Me too.”
    “I like Jake better.”
    Me too.

Chapter 4
    Paige rounded the wide oak bar, almost running smack into Kali, carrying a tray full of drafts. “Sorry.”
    Kali pressed her lips together. “Table five is asking for another pitcher of Bud Light.”
    “Okay, thanks.” She stepped out of her coworker’s way and worked to get drink orders out. Kali was nice enough, but Paige was definitely the new girl at the Grille.
    Not quite eight on a Thursday night and things were picking up. The Grille was more of a food place on weeknights, but they still got some after-work drinkers. Mostly men who didn’t have anyone at home, or did and came here to drink instead. Those were the ones you had to watch out for.
    Scarred wooden tables dotted the floor area under dim lighting. The bar was nearly full with a few others standing, watching the Dodgers beat the White Sox.
    Paige finished ringing up the current tab, then went for the pitcher. She’d already worked the afternoon at the diner and was midway through her four-hour shift here. The work was basically the same, only the trays were different. Black-rimmed with a cork bottom, serving two-for-one drafts instead of soda and milkshakes.
    Over a week had passed since she’d seen Jake at Evolution. He hadn’t come back to the diner since the night he’d offered his help. At least not on her shift. She hated how often she’d looked for him every time the door dinged. It didn’t help that Casey talked incessantly about him and his magical legs and computer people.
    She delivered the pitcher, then unloaded another round at the next table over. Careful not to make eye contact with the four men she was serving, she placed each of the eight beers down. On her last one, she glanced across the room and her gaze collided with the last person she expected to see.
    Jake.
    Her heart couldn’t have stopped, not literally, but it felt that way, and she bobbled the last glass, sloshing beer onto the table.
    “Watch it now, darling. If you want me to take my clothes off, all you got to do is ask.”
    “Sorry.” The man’s shirt was already open two buttons past desperate. She spun away, feeling icky just being near them.
    Jake sat alone at a table in the center of the room, his dark eyes just as intense as she remembered and aimed right at her. She laid her tray on the bar and walked toward him.
    There was something in his expression that pulled at her. Something soft and deep and maybe a little broken. Which was crazy, because nothing about him looked at all broken.
    “Hey,” she said, reaching his table. “Don’t tell me you eat here too.”
    He smiled. “No. I went by the diner earlier. I saw Jenny and she told me you were here.”
    “Oh.” So he did still go to the diner, but she wasn’t there. Because she was here. And now he was here too. “Do you need a drink?”
    “No, I’m set.” He raised the nearly full bottle in his hand.
    Right. She just managed not to thunk her palm against her forehead.
    “I saw Casey at the diner,” he went on. “She wasn’t wearing her prosthesis. Is it still bothering her?”
    “I don’t know. Some days it seems fine and other days she says it is. I’ve asked her a hundred times, but she never gives me a real reason, which makes me think it’s not really hurting her at all. But obviously I don’t know for sure. I can’t tell her it’s not hurting if she says it is.” She sighed and shook her head at all the things she didn’t know and all the ways she could screw up.
    “Hmm. The mystery of a five-year-old.”
    That made her smile and when she met his eyes she felt a warm vibration from her head all the way to her toes.
    “Can you sit?”
    “Um…sure. For a second.” Because she could