Kara Lennox - Her Perfect Hero

Even from a distance, Tony could see she was gorgeous—tall and sleek, with golden hair that blew in the breeze. She wore snug faded jeans that molded themselves to a body made for love and a clingy cropped shirt that showed off her trim waist and breasts that bounced slightly as she strode down the sidewalk.

She stopped in front of the For Sale sign attached to the front window, then reached behind the iron burglar bars and yanked on the paper until it came loose. She pulled it free and rolled it up, tucked it under her arm, then went back inside.

“Hold it,” Tony said. “Changed my mind. I’ll talk to her.”

“Uh-oh,” Priscilla said. “Watch out, Tony’s on the prowl.”

He gave Pris a disdainful look. “Daralee and I just broke up. You don’t honestly think I’m ready to get involved with someone else, do you?”

Tony’s fellow firefighters laughed so hard at this that Otis nearly fell onto the concrete floor and Ethan had to support himself against the truck.

“What? I can’t believe you’re laughing about my messed-up love life.”

“Messed up,” Ethan agreed, “until the next girl comes along. You’ve been mooning about Daralee for, what, a week?”

“We had a good thing going,” Tony said more to himself than Ethan. “I really thought…” He stopped. No time for regrets. That woman with the gold hair was undoubtedly the new owner of Brady’s, and someone needed to talk to her before she changed anything. “Cover for me if Captain Campeon notices I’m gone.” Without any further hesitation, Tony loped out of the station, darting between cars on busy Jefferson Street, toward the gorgeous goddess of a woman who—unknowingly—waited inside Brady’s to meet him.

Brady’s Tavern occupied a two-story building that must have been close to a hundred years old, and the brick looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned since coal stoves went out of vogue. A flock of pigeons had taken up residence under the eaves and the evidence of their frequent presence covered the cracked sidewalk.

The bar’s door wasn’t locked, so Tony pushed it open. A wall of hot, stuffy air, heavy with the scent of stale beer, slapped him in the face. “Hello? Anyone home?”

A teenage girl bounded up to him like an eager puppy. “Hi. Who’re you?”

“Tony. I work at the fire station across the street. Are you the new owner of Brady’s?”

She nodded. “Well, my mom is. This place is so cool. Do you play shuffleboard?”

“Not only do I play, I was the Brady’s Tavern shuffleboard champion two years running. Where’s your mom?” Surely the woman he’d seen removing the For Sale sign wasn’t this girl’s mother.

“My mom is Brady’s sister. Was. Whatever.”

“Then Brady was your uncle. It must have been tough losing him so unexpectedly. He was a great guy.”

“Not according to Mom. She said he was a drunkard black sheep who couldn’t be trusted with a dime.” The girl rocked back on her heels, apparently not realizing she’d insulted someone Tony had considered a friend. And her mother’s information was outdated. Brady had quit drinking twenty years ago.

“Could I speak to your mom?” He looked around the bar, which seemed strangely empty without the usual smattering of cops, firefighters and “siren sisters”—the female groupies who were turned on by any man who wore a badge or wielded a hose. But he didn’t see the blond woman.

“My mom is at work. But if it’s anything to do with Brady’s, you’ll want to talk to Julie.”

“Julie?”

“My sister.”

Ah. That made a whole lot more sense.

“She’s counting the glasses or something. Trying to decide what to keep and what to get rid of.”

Then he’d better talk to her right away before she did something stupid—like throw away the Daryl Jones memorial ashtray.

Tony heard some clinking going on behind the long carved-wood bar and figured that had to be where Julie had disappeared to. He made his way to the bar, his feet schlup-schlupping with every step on the sticky floor.

Ah, it was good to be back here. Brady’s was lit up like a Christmas tree, with its vintage signs. They covered almost every available bit of wall surface and illuminated the interior, which was crammed full of tables and chairs, pool tables, dartboards—guy heaven. Every corner had a TV, and when the place had been open all of them were always tuned in to a smorgasbord of sporting events.

A lonely silk ficus tree lurked forlornly in a corner, covered with dust. Supposedly one of Brady’s girlfriends had put it there one time, trying in vain to class the place up.

“Excuse me, Julie?”

She popped up from behind the bar, a pair of yellow rubber gloves on her hands. Looking startled, she stared at Tony for several seconds of charged silence. She had the most amazing amber eyes. He’d never seen eyes that color before. She reminded him of a golden fawn or an unspoiled woodland nymph.

“Yes?” she finally said. Her low, sexy voice sent shivers down his spine and a rush of blood through his veins.

Tony shook himself out of his daze. How could he be attracted to this woman when his pain over losing Daralee was still so fresh? It was just hormones playing a nasty trick on him. “Hi, I’m Tony Veracruz. I work at the fire station across the street, and we were just wondering…are you going to keep Brady’s? We saw that you removed the For Sale sign.”

She cocked her head to one side. “Do you want to buy it?”

“Believe me, we’ve talked about it. But the price tag is a bit high for us working stiffs. We just really miss the place—and Brady. He was a great guy. It was terrible losing him so suddenly. You’re his niece?”

“That’s right. Julie Polk.” She extended her hand across the bar’s polished surface, realized she still had gloves on, removed the right one hurriedly and tried again.

Tony took her hand, and rather than shake it as he would a man’s, he squeezed it. It was a lovely little hand, with perfectly manicured nails polished a pearly pink. Tony’s stomach gave a peculiar swoop.

Julie’s mask of detached politeness slipped and a flicker of awareness passed over her face. So she felt it, too?

The teenage girl, who’d come to lean against the bar resting her chin on her folded arms, cleared her throat.

Julie extracted her hand from Tony’s. “This is my sister, Belinda. I heard her talking to someone, so I assume you’ve already met.”

“I did have the pleasure, though she didn’t volunteer her name. It’s a beautiful name, too.” He’d almost named his daughter Belinda, so he wasn’t deliberately laying it on thick.

Belinda blushed furiously. Though her hair and eyes were darker, she looked much like her sister—which meant she was probably already breaking hearts in all directions.

“So your mother is the new owner of Brady’s?” Tony asked Julie.

“Yes. She and Brady owned it together, but she’s been more of a silent partner. They weren’t very close.”

“That’s too bad. It’s sad when families drift apart.” He was thinking about his own family. Due to his parents’ multiple marriages, Tony had lots of stepsiblings and half siblings, some of whom he’d lost touch with. “So your mother has decided not to sell?”

“Frankly Mom really doesn’t care. She’s asked me to deal with it for her.” Julie put the second rubber glove back on and resumed her task, which appeared to be counting beer mugs and entering the tally on a clipboard. She gave him a nice view of her denim-clad bottom in the process, which Tony fully enjoyed—until he realized Belinda was smirking at him. He diverted his gaze to the picture of the naked lady above the bar.

“But you are going to reopen?” Tony persisted.

“It would be a shame for the business to leave the family after we’ve owned it for three generations.”

That sounded promising. “Yeah, there’s a lot of history here. Who are you gonna get to run the place? Brady had a guy working for him, Alonzo. He’d be a great manager.”

“You don’t think I could run Brady’s?” she asked, challenging. She put the clipboard down and devoted her full attention to their conversation.

“Well, you’re…” Tony stopped himself before he misstepped. Some women had accused him before of being a male chauvinist pig. But it wasn’t because he didn’t think women deserved equal rights or that they weren’t as smart and capable as men. The opposite was more like it. He thought women should be treated better than men. And he didn’t think any woman as beautiful and refined as Julie Polk should have to sling beer and deal with groping, drunk customers.

“I’m what?”

“Too pretty to work at a joint like this.”

Her gaze fell, her long lashes casting shadows on her smooth cheeks. “Thanks, but I don’t have the resources to hire someone else to run the place. And since I’m currently between assignments, as they say, I’m the logical one to take on the job.”

“More power to you, then.” Tony grinned. Brady’s was coming back! The guys at the station would be over the moon. “And don’t worry,” he added, “you’ve got lots of friends in the neighborhood who’ll help you out. So when are you planning to reopen?”

“Oh, I’d say it’ll take a few weeks to refurbish the place, work out the menus….”

“Menus?” Brady had served microwave nachos, popcorn and beer nuts. You didn’t need a menu for the basics. “You’re going to change Brady’s?”

“Brady’s is not going to be Brady’s.” And a big smile spread across her face, dispelling the polite, almost icy mask she’d been wearing and transforming her into an angel. Tony was so entranced with how she looked he almost missed what she said next. “It’s going to be Belinda’s.”

“Belinda’s…Bar?” he asked warily.

“Belinda’s is going to be the coolest tearoom in all of Dallas.”

Julie gathered that sexy Tony Veracruz was not happy with her announcement. He stared, his jaw hanging open, for several seconds as he processed her news.

Lord, he was gorgeous. Those well-defined cheekbones, that smooth olive skin and brown eyes a girl could drown in. Funny, she’d always thought her ex-fiancé, with his aristocratic clean-cut blond handsomeness, was the best-looking guy around. But Tony’s earthier looks struck a chord deep inside her.

When he’d said she was pretty, the compliment had given her heart palpitations. But how silly was that? He probably told a half-dozen women a day they were pretty.

“Did you say…?” Tony’s voice trailed off.

“Yes, isn’t it great? I’m turning Brady’s into a tearoom.”

“On Jefferson Street?”

“The perfect place, don’t you think? Oak Cliff is in the middle of a renaissance. I see revitalization all around us. The historic district is right across the street. Those mansions in Kessler Park are only a mile away. Then there’s the Bishop Arts district—lots of sophisticated restaurants and bars going in there.” She was using all the same arguments she had used to convince her parents to okay this venture, though truthfully they hadn’t cared much what she did with Brady’s so long as it brought in some cash.

The moment she’d seen the place, despite its coat of grime, the thought had flashed into her mind: Julie Polk, owner and manager of the classiest tearoom in town. Wouldn’t Trey be surprised? When she’d given him back his ring, he’d told her she would never make anything of herself without his help. But she was going to show him and his whole family how wrong they were.