Game Changer (3 page)

***

One of Harper's least favorite times of the day in Lock, Stock & Barrel Tavern was weekdays, in the stillness that pursued as soon as the lunch rush ended, but before the dinner crowd arrived. The emptiness during open hours made her anxious when she meditated on it for too long. She'd tried all kinds of specials to bring people in during those quiet hours, including a killer happy hour with bottom basement prices, but even that didn't draw big crowds on a weekday before five.

To help ignore the empty tables, she reserved that time of day for book work in her office at the back of the kitchen, which was where Bailey, one of her younger and least skilled waitresses—which was why she assigned her the unpopular day shifts—found her.

“Hey, Harper. You have a visitor out front. A hottie.”

“Dylan the brewery rep?” Harper never minded when he came around for his weekly delivery.

Bailey's smile turned goading. “Hotter than Dylan. Brandon.”

Ah. Of course. There were times when Harper wondered how many of her staff he'd slept with. Bailey would top the list of possibilities, but as curious as she was, she really,
really
, didn't want to know.

With a thanks to Bailey, Harper set aside the paperwork she'd been poring over and followed her through the kitchen, refusing to check her appearance in the mirror or fluff her hair or reapply her lipstick.

Brandon was standing at the dartboard, dressed in workout shorts and a loose-fitting white T-shirt, and throwing shot after poorly executed shot that hit nothing but flat tire—the black edge of the circle.

“Hey there. What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be getting ready for the Bomb Squad practice this afternoon? Tomorrow night's game is going to be a tough one,” she said.

Harper was the scorekeeper for Bomb Squad's Thursday night games, and had been for several years. Before she'd moved to western New York a decade earlier, she'd never given much thought to ice hockey. As a navy brat, she'd spent her childhood virtually nomadic, living on naval bases from Hawaii to Guam and from San Diego to Virginia. Not a whole lot of ice hockey in those regions.

However, the sport was huge in Destiny Falls and it hadn't taken long for her to get swept up in the enthusiasm over Bomb Squad, which was the only all-veteran team in the Canal Town's men's league. And not just any veterans. To make the team, the vet had to have been wounded in combat. Brandon was their team captain. Naturally.

“I've got a couple hours yet, and I wanted the chance to talk to you more about the trouble you've been having here. If I'm going to win this bet, I need a clear picture of what I'm up against.”

The bet. Now that she'd had time to sleep on the idea, she couldn't believe she'd agreed to something so juvenile and frivolous, even if she really could us a vacation. Living above the bar meant that she pretty much slept, ate, and breathed her work, but she loved the simplicity of it. The permanency. She never had permanency growing up, which was what drew her to the hundred-and-twenty-year-old building she'd bought with her inheritance from her father and transformed into her home and place of business. It didn't matter that she couldn't remember ever taking more than a half day off since opening Locks; she couldn't simply decide she deserved a break and use that as an excuse to shirk her responsibilities.

“Uh, sure. You want a beer or something?”

“A club soda would be great.”

Modeling might sound glamorous to outsiders, but after watching the dietary discipline that Brandon had to maintain day in and day out, year after year, Harper knew better. He rarely drank and even more rarely indulged in what most people considered comfort food. Of the extensive menu at Locks, he could eat maybe a handful of items, and even those required modifications, such as grilling chicken without salt and serving his salads dressing free.

He followed her to the bar and perched on a stool while she prepped his drink.

“What do you want to know first?” she asked.

“Depends. What do you consider the biggest threat to the bar?”

Good question. “On a long-term basis, the auto theft, but those biker punks are what really have me rattled. I hate their type.”

She showed him the stool that had been ripped apart.

He walked behind the bar to take a closer look. Picking at the splintered wood, he asked, “Did they seem like they were strung out on drugs?”

“One did. The guy who did this. The rest, it was hard to tell.”

“How many of them?”

“Four this time, but the number varies. They wear patches and leather cuts, which means they're part of a motorcycle club, right? Who know how many will come back to retaliate, if they get it in their minds to. I hate having that element in the bar, but I'm not sure what to do about it besides get the police involved. And I'm not sure that would help. I've heard motorcycle clubs are really dangerous.”

“Was this the first time they've had to be escorted out by your bouncer?”

“Yes. The other times, they were loud and obnoxious, and once even overly friendly with some of my female customers to the point of harassing them.”

He rubbed his chin, considering. “And you don't want to call the cops?”

“Not if I can help it. But I will if it means my female patrons feel safer.”

“These guys sound like real scumbags.”

“Big time.”

He made a fist and rubbed it with his other hand, a move that flexed his pectorals and popped his triceps out. “Then I look forward to kicking their asses.”

The illogical, primordial part of her mind swooned at the idea of Brandon letting it rip with his fists to defend her bar. Despite his classically handsome face and flawless skin, she bet that lean-muscled body of his was commanding in a brawl. She bet he could make her knees go weak the moment he rolled up his sleeves and issued that first punch. But fantasy and reality were two wildly different beasts, and the business owner part of her brain knew better.

She wrenched her attention from his body and met his unyielding gaze. “Fighting only brings the cops and draws attention to the problem, so you have to promise me not to get into it with those jerks.”

A lock of his black hair fell onto his forehead. He shook it back. “I'm not promising that. The bet was for me to solve your problems—not how I was going to do so.”

“Just don't bring the cops here. You do that, then the bet is void.”

He pushed away from the bar, his body shifting restlessly like a prizefighter waiting for the bell to start the round. On his lips, he wore her favorite smirk, full of swagger and ego that sent a shot of lust straight to her inner thighs. “Yes, ma'am.”

In that moment, locked nose-to-nose in a face-off with him, she honestly couldn't decide if she wanted him to win or lose the bet.

“What about your bouncers?” he asked. “Where were they when these guys were causing trouble?”

She took a step back, giving herself enough room to think. “I've got two bouncers on the payroll, and they do the best they can, but bouncers aren't an impenetrable force field. I'm planning to hire more bouncers for the weekend evenings, but first I have to find qualified candidates.”

“What about Will?”

“Will Corgan?” Will was a Bomb Squad player who certainly looked the part of a bouncer, big and burly. He was missing a hand, which he'd lost in combat and, from all accounts, was still carrying a lot of anger about it. “I thought he worked for Duke's general contracting business.”

“He does, but I'll talk to him.”

“No offense, but it's not your job to talk to him.”

“A bet's a bet, baby.”

She ground her teeth together lest she let her irritation show. “Fine.”

“What other crime problems are you having? You mentioned cars are getting stolen out of the lot?”

“It doesn't seem to happen until after closing, but three cars have been stolen in the last year, one of them last week.”

“These same bikers, you think?”

“I don't think so, because they're not that clever, but really I have no idea. I'm usually in my apartment by then and, even if I was awake, my apartment windows face the other direction. When I saw you and your coeds, that was the first time in recent memory that I'd actually witnessed activity in the lot afterhours. And that was only because I couldn't sleep.”

“Got it. Okay.” She could see the wheels turning in his mind and bit her lip against interrupting him. “You've owned this bar for, what, eight years?”

“Almost ten.”

His gaze turned distant. “The thing that strikes me is that none of the problems you told me about is very bad. A few punks, a few cars stolen over the last year. I don't understand why you've gotten so worked up about it. I'm sure you've seen a lot worse, right?”

The condescending undertone in his words zapped the lusty thoughts from her mind. “Yes, I've definitely experienced worse problems over the years and I dealt with it all fine. And I didn't even have a man to help me. Can you imagine that? Shocking, right?”

“Harper, I didn't mean—”

“No, you did. Just remember that I didn't ask for your help. You offered it, with strings attached.”

He frowned at her. “Strings that you agreed to.”

She huffed and worked to calm her ruffled feathers, fully aware that Bailey was listening in as she slowly bussed a table nearby.

Brandon followed Harper's line of sight to Bailey, and she almost—
almost
—asked if the girl had made it onto his list of conquests when Susan, the daytime bartender, called Harper's name and waved the phone near the cash register at her. “Your doctor's on the phone again.”

Crap. “Tell him I'm busy. Take a message.”

“Hold on a sec with that, Susan,” Brandon said. He shifted his head and looked sideways at Harper. “Your actual doctor calls the bar? Not his nurse or his secretary or an office manager, but your actual doctor.”

“Yep,” Harper said lamely.

“I've had a lot of doctors and not one of them has personally called me. Doctors don't have time to do that.”

“Mine does, I guess.”

Susan tucked her elbow against her waist, holding the phone out and looking bored while the hold button continued to blink. “I tell her that every time he calls.”

Bailey materialized across the bar from where they stood and said, “Yep. And it's not just her doctor. The doctor's office manager and his nurse call, too, lately.”

Brandon's eyes widened, his focus shifting between Bailey and Susan. “This isn't the first time?”

Harper slammed her hand on the counter to regain his attention. “You two need to stop talking about me like I'm not here. What I do with my health and my doctor is my business. Not yours.”

Brandon's attention swung back to Harper and he shifted his back to Bailey and Susan. “Is that your oncologist calling or a different doctor?” he asked in a hushed voice, presumably to keep Bailey and Susan from hearing, though Harper had no doubt that both women did.

Harper could practically feel the fumes coming off her head as if she were a cartoon character. She didn't owe anyone an explanation about why her doctor was calling, even someone who knew her secret. That the someone was Brandon was tantamount to salt in a wound. But there was nothing she could do to change the fact that five years earlier, a few days after their first and only date, Brandon had found her crying in the lobby of the medical building that housed both his prosthetist and her oncologist, after she'd received the test results that she'd been dreading. Vulnerable and scared, she'd let herself lean. To this day, he still wasn't letting her live it down.

“Like I told you, it's none of your business.”

Scowling, he strode past her and grabbed the phone from Susan before Harper could react. He punched the hold button. “Hello, Doctor. Harper asked me to confirm, is this Dr. Nguyen, her oncologist?”

Harper grabbed for the phone, but his free hand closed around her wrist. He torqued it at a funny angle that made her stumble back until she was trapped between the wall and his body, right there in front of her employees and the bar patrons, everyone. Her face flushed hot.

“Uh-huh,” he said into the phone. “Hello, Dr. Nguyen. Please tell me you're calling to convince her to get the surgery, like I've been telling her to for years.”

She smacked him on the shoulder and made another play for the phone, but he responded by pinning her body even tighter against the wall. His scowl deepened. “Yeah, I understand you can't discuss it with me. I'm just sayin', enough is enough with this Russian roulette. It's not like her risks decrease the longer she waits.”

“It's none of your goddamn business,” Harper hissed. Opting against surgery wasn't precisely Russian roulette because she underwent extensive testing several times a year that would alert them to the first signs of trouble. But he'd been right about the risks inherent in the mutated BRCA1 gene she carried. She was living with a cancer bomb inside her that arguably carried a more than fifty percent chance of detonating at any moment, according to some of her doctors. More like eighty percent when they factored in her family history.

Furious at him, she wiggled her wrist, but she was unwilling to get in a wrestling match with him in front of her employees and customers. How dare he do this to her in her place of business. How dare he have a conversation with her doctor as though he had any right to an opinion about her life and her health.

He was silent another moment, listening, then, “Yes. I'm sorry you've had trouble reaching her by phone this week. Oh, she missed her appointment last week, too? And this week? Hmmm.” He narrowed his eyes at her, shaking his head. “Yes, I happen to have her right here, actually.” And he shoved the phone up against her ear. “Say hello to Dr. Nguyen, Harper.”