Nightfall Read Free

disorderly.”
    There were some half-chuckles, rueful looks and raised hands
of acknowledgement, then the noise level started to rise again. They knew he
meant it. He’d fought damn bulls and roped stock for years. Tossing out a
couple drunks was as easy as pitching hay.
    Forcing himself not to look where his intriguing female had
gone, he turned his attention to getting up the glass that had been broken,
because it hadn’t occurred to Maria to do it. He’d have told her to get her ass
out from behind the bar, but Artie still wasn’t around and she was serving
drinks. Plus, Quinn found himself too disgusted with all of it to even bother.
He was tired and needed a drink himself, one he wasn’t going to be getting
anytime soon.
    Righting the table, he went to find the broom and dustpan.
Despite his irritation, he realized the past few minutes were the longest and
most interesting interaction he’d had with a woman in quite a while. How
pathetic was that? Ever since he sent Annie, his last real relationship,
packing, his life had been unremitting work and more work. He was all too aware
a great deal of that had been his choice, because he’d just plain lost
interest. Every woman seemed the same. Wrong.
    “I don’t understand,” she’d said, tears in her eyes. “We’re
good together, Quinn. Really good. And I love the ranch.”
    Yeah, she loved the ranch as much as she loved rattlesnakes.
What she really loved was all the money she thought he had. She’d always been
nattering about redecorating the house. Making changes. They hadn’t been good
together, no matter what Annie thought.
    At forty-two, he ought to be thinking about settling down. What
good was building up this ranch, doing everything he was doing, without a wife
to share that life with him, and children to pass it along to?
    Quinn filled the dustpan as full as he could and carried it
over behind the bar to dump it. As he wove his way through the tables, he noted
none of them had been bussed in quite a while. Every surface was filled with
empty bottles, glasses and mugs. The overturned one probably hadn’t been an
isolated incident. Didn’t Artie or Maria ever think to clean the damn tables
until the end of the night?
    Probably not. Quinn had cleared tables at closing many
times, believing Artie when he said they were overworked. But in reality, the
people he hired were just lazy. Artie was nowhere to be seen, and he was
supposed to be managing the bar when Maria was handling the tables. Whereas
Maria had brought some drinks to a table but now just stood there, arms crossed
beneath her breasts to show them off and one hip twitched out in a jaunty
manner. All while she carried on with the cowboys. Quinn thought bitterly she
probably figured flirting was her reward for having to do two jobs.
    Sweeping the broken glass into a pile, he got it up and
banged the dustpan against the inside of the trash can to get all the glass
debris from it. When he straightened, he made himself think past his ego about
what his five-foot-tall unlikely bouncer had said about his bar. Though it had
riled him, she hadn’t been shooting off her mouth. She’d sounded like a woman
who knew exactly what she was talking about.
    He glanced up, toward the bar. Just in time to see two of
his so-called customers leaning over the service station, helping themselves
from the beer taps. Shit.
    Putting the dustpan and broom aside, he strode behind the
bar, sending those customers skedaddling with a fierce look before he stomped back
into the kitchen area. “Damn it, Artie. Where the hell are you?”
    He was practically shouting, at the end of his rope. Then he
noticed the cracked back door and smelled tobacco. Taking an hour-long smoke.
Of course.
    Artie slid in, crushing the butt out in the door frame.
“Yeah, boss?”
    Quinn pinned him with every bit of pissed-off he could level
on him. “We’ve got customers out there serving themselves while Maria is
flirting like she’s turning