Love, Chocolate, and Beer (Cactus Creek) Read Free Page A

Luke’s take on love. It was a mirage.
    Always just out of reach.
    Blinking back the unwelcome demons from his past, Luke shrugged and quietly admitted to himself as much as Isaac, “There’s something about her.”
    “Well if you’re going to go meet her, can you put in a good word for me with her hot friend, too?” prompted Isaac, casually giving him a little nudge and downplaying the significance of his meddling in one houndish swoop. “Look, now’s your chance,” he nodded over at the bar.
    Like a first-time addict going from zero to sixty on a rush, Luke immediately swung his gaze around to find the brunette again.
    God, she was pretty. And intriguing. And so impishly sweet a person couldn’t help but smile upon seeing her. Of course in his case, it was growing painfully obvious that smiling wasn’t the only reaction he’d be having to the woman.
    Hell, anyone with eyes could see the hard time he was having keeping his reaction to himself; and it didn’t help one bit when her lips parted on a soft breath at just that moment.
    Good grief. A brain simply couldn’t be expected to function with all its blood racing to command central south. His brows dipped low in reflection as he adjusted his jeans. Had anyone ever affected him this way before?
    This wholly, this swiftly?
    He shot to his feet. Nope, never. Fixing his gaze on her with an intensity that made it clear this wasn’t just aimless flirting for him anymore, he saw her eyes fire wildly for him once again.
    Now altogether myopic about meeting the woman, he cut a path straight for her.
    …Only to have his ego take a hit when she jerked her attention to the invisible watch on her wrist as reason to retreat away from the bar.
    Undeterred, he picked up the pace.
    Equally stubborn, so did she.
    And this round went to her. She vanished behind a door to the back just as he reached the spot she’d vacated beside Isaac’s exotic bartender.
    “Where’s she going?” he demanded.
    The bartender extinguished a delighted grin and tilted her head with an innocent double-blink. “Who?”
    His normal easy-going patience strangely on hiatus, he replied with just a smidgen of impatience, “The other worker you were clearly pointing me out to earlier.”
    She shrugged, now visibly entertained. “That other worker had work to do.”
    Luke’s lips thinned warily. “What game are you two playing at here?”
    That made her expression sober quickly. “My friend isn’t into games.” She spoke now in full protective-friend mode, staring him down. “Competitive? Ridiculously so. A player? No.”
    Luke felt his frown dissolve into a smile, liking both that compelling character profile and oddly, the bartender as well, in all her strange and candid glory. “Unlike you , you mean.”
    A pleased laugh bubbled out of her. “God, you’re perfect for her. As sharp as you are blunt.” She studied him for a second before coming to some sort of conclusion. “She’s lugging liquor boxes out from storage, back near the brewery pass-through. You should go help her.”
    He squeezed her forearm in thanks and set out to do just that, hurrying through to the back, down an empty hallway. Noiselessly, he opened the storeroom doors and was greeted by the sound of his mystery woman’s voice…softly cursing up a string of very creative expletives.
    Oh yeah . He grinned. This was going to be interesting.
     
    * * * * *
     
    “ HOLY HEFEWEIZEN... ” Incredulous, Dani yanked open a box of their mid-shelf tequila and pulled out two fresh bottles as she attempted to get her pulse rate in check. Though she was now a closed door away from the man who’d just about scorched her with a look mere minutes ago, she was still buzzing from the potent currents that had passed between them.
    And fighting the impulse to go back out there for another hit.
    Heck, it felt like every female cell in her body was ganging up on her, defiantly urging—demanding—she do the reckless for once and give