He’d match his bank account to her gumption any day.
Soon, he’d right the wrongs. Avery would never again play him for a fool.
CHAPTER TWO
AVERY LOCKED HER teeth together and tried to ignore them. Impossible. The women hanging on Rowdy were pretty, sexy and on the make. If Rowdy started for his office with them, she’d...what? Quit? Not likely.
She could just throw cold water on them. She eyed the seltzer water under the bar. It had possibilities.
But as she waited on customers, Rowdy disengaged from the women and then had to dodge others who tried to cling to him. He was polite to them all, but only polite.
Not that it mattered, she reminded herself. Not to her.
He glanced up and caught her scowl. With a wink and a small smile, he went about greeting customers.
Since they’d opened a few weeks ago, Rowdy made a point of doing every job, overseeing every aspect of the operation and mingling with the crowd. The men enjoyed the casual setup of the bar, but Avery suspected the women came as much for Rowdy as for anything else the bar offered.
It had taken a while to get the interior refurbished. A lot of the equipment had to be repaired, and what couldn’t be fixed Rowdy had replaced with used. To save money, he’d done much of the work himself, putting fresh paint on the walls, scrubbing the floors and windows, making sure everything was as shiny and clean as he could make it.
Whenever possible, Avery had pitched in, working side by side with him...and falling harder every second.
She couldn’t pinpoint what it was about Rowdy, but from the day she’d met him, she’d been sinking under his rough-edged charm. Add his gorgeous face to that strong, honed body, and he made spectacular eye candy.
But it was so much more than his physical appeal. Rowdy smiled as if he knew all her secrets, looked at her as if they’d already been intimate. He had confidence down to a fine art, and faced each day with a fearless type of daring.
She knew he did his best to hide it, but there was something supersensitive and attentive in the way he treated life—his own and others.
When Rowdy’s sister had married Detective Logan Riske, Rowdy had inherited a cop as a brother-in-law. She smiled, thinking of how he’d reacted to that. Overall, he didn’t trust the police. But from what she’d seen, he got along well with Logan, and with Detective Reese Bareden, Logan’s partner.
The majority of Rowdy’s background remained a mystery to her, but it didn’t take a psychic to know he’d had a rough life, that he was street-smart and survival savvy. Odds were he’d spent some time on the wrong side of the law, and that accounted for his feelings toward police officers.
Busy washing glasses, Avery didn’t see Rowdy when he came around the back of the bar with her. She turned and ran into him.
Blast the man. “Why do you keep sneaking up on me?”
“Wasn’t sneaking.” Gaze dark with suggestion, he shifted past her. “I’m refilling drinks.”
“Oh. Thanks.” Using chitchat as a cover, Avery tried not to think about seeing him in such a compromising situation earlier. “It’s busy tonight.”
“We’re getting there.” He gave her a quick once-over. “How are you holding up?”
Avery froze. “What do you mean?”
“Like you said, it’s busy. You need any help?”
Oh. Get it together, Avery. Rowdy didn’t care that she had seen him in such a private situation, and that said a lot. “I can handle it. No problem.”
“Let me know if it gets to be too much.” He picked up the tray and started back out to the floor. “I’ll be over in a little while to give you a break.”
“Okay.” Seeing the shift of muscles as he walked away curled her toes in her shoes. Not an uncommon reaction to the sight of him.
A rush of customers kept her too busy to daydream. She liked when things got hopping because it put her in a zone. She found a rhythm and lost herself in the work. She felt...Zen.
When things eased up again, she spotted Rowdy at the back of the bar, inserting himself into an escalating argument between two men and a woman. A chair tipped over. Voices rose.
Before things got out of hand, Rowdy had it back under control. The men subsided. Rowdy had that type of “don’t mess with me” influence. The woman flounced off angrily, and neither of the men attempted to stop her.
Half smiling, Avery watched Rowdy right the chair, which had her recalling how he’d looked during off-hours while working on the bar. The way his biceps bulged when toting heavy equipment. How his thighs flexed when he bent. Those ripped abs when he’d lifted his T-shirt to wipe sweat from his brow.
The sheer pleasure on his face each time he completed a task.
Though Rowdy hadn’t been entirely comfortable with it, he’d gotten help from his new family and friends, too. Seeing them together had taken a little getting used to.
Standing six feet four inches tall, she considered Rowdy supersized. His brother-in-law, Logan, was a few inches shorter, their friend Reese a few inches taller and Logan’s brother, Dash, was a similar height to Rowdy. But physical differences aside, the men couldn’t be more different.
As cops, Logan and Reese were watchful, serious. But Rowdy had a vigilant, even expectant edge to his nature that made him more so. The detectives would relax; Rowdy never seemed to let down his guard.
Logan’s brother, Dash, owned a construction company. From what Avery could tell, he took pride in his work, but once the workday ended, he was all about pleasure. He charmed women with ease.