Susan Andersen - Some Like It Hot

She located him now over by the gargantuan stove, standing head—and in most cases shoulders, as well—above the boys around him. He looked like a Hell’s Angel with those brown-ink tribal tattoos, his disreputably torn blue jeans and that brilliantly white, batter-splattered T-shirt that clung damply to his big shoulders and muscular chest. The faded blue bandanna tied around his dark hair only added to the image.

But his face was alight with whatever amusement had set him off, his teeth flashing a white bright enough to rival his T-shirt’s, and most of the teens gaped at him as if he were a rock star. Given the absorption with which she was staring at him herself, she could hardly blame them. If their interactions with the guy were anything like her own admittedly limited exchanges, they, too, were likely more accustomed to seeing him sober and serious.

Forcing herself to get back to the business at hand, she turned away to carry her tray over to one of the long tables in her area. “Who’s ready for more pancakes?” she demanded cheerfully.

And only glanced over her shoulder once to make sure that Max was no longer visible from this vantage point.

A largely male-voiced roar of enthusiasm from the patrons greeted her question, and she laughed and chatted up people as she dished out fresh stacks to everyone who indicated an interest.

“How’s the syrup holding up?” she inquired at one point and, being told that it was getting low, waved one of the teen volunteers over to exchange a full dispenser for the almost empty one. She summoned two other helpers as well to refill empty glasses from the pitchers of water and orange juice they manned.

“Megan, Joe, hello!” She forked pancakes onto the plates of two guests from the inn who had been in her guided kayak tour the day before. “I’m so glad you made it.”

Joe grinned. “Seriously good pancakes. We’re glad you told us about it.”

She laughed. The pancakes were decent but nowhere close to seriously good. But they were plentiful, and the atmosphere in the hall was loud, cheerful and fun, all of which she suspected contributed to the food tasting better.

She ran out of pancakes halfway through the next table and almost mowed down Tasha on her way back to the kitchen for another refill. “Oh, hey, sorry.” Reaching out, she steadied the other woman’s tray, which unlike her own was loaded. “I wasn’t looking where I was going—I was too busy marveling at the pancake-eating contest over there.” She indicated a table on the stage at the end of the cavernous hall.

“I know, it’s always kind of like watching jackals taking down a gazelle. You really want to look away, but find you can’t.”

“So this isn’t just an impulsive boys gone wild event? They’ve done this before?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s an annual event.” Tasha tipped her head toward the wiry little guy in the middle packing away an amazing quantity of pancakes. “Greg Larson will likely win. He almost always does. But every now and then, just often enough to keep things interesting, we have an upset.” She shrugged and looked at Harper. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m doing great. Upbeat crowds like this give me oomph.”

“Well, lucky you, Energizer Bunny.” The strawberry blonde gave her a weary smile. “I had a long shift at Bella’s last night that ran late, so I’m starting to wilt. And I’d sure like to know how the hell Jenny managed to weasel out of this detail.”

Harper shrugged. “She said there was too much to do at the inn.”

“Yeah, that’s the story she fed me, too.” Tasha raised her brows at Harper. “You buy that?”

“Not for a minute. Oh, not that the inn isn’t really busy, because it’s definitely jumping. But while I haven’t been around forever like you natives, I get the impression that Jenny thrives on the summer madness.” She looked askance at Tasha, who nodded her agreement.

Harper hitched a shoulder. “That being the case, and going by the fact that Jake’s not here, either, my guess would be that they’re sneaking some time together to make up for him being out of town.”

“Yep. That’d be my take, too.” Tasha really looked at Harper. “You know what? You and I should have a girls’ night one of these days. Jenny can join us if we can pry her away from Lover Boy, but right now she’s deep into that all-Jake-all-the-time stage, so I don’t hold my breath over that happening. What do you say? You in?”

“Absolutely.” One disadvantage to all of the traveling she’d done in her formative years was that she’d spent considerably more time with adults than people her own age. The upside, of course, was that it had resulted in far more sophisticated experiences than she likely would’ve received otherwise. But after the age of twelve she hadn’t had what most women would consider real girlfriends. Watching Tasha and Jenny together made her feel she’d been missing out.

“Good.” Tasha glanced down at her loaded tray. “I’d better pass these out while they’re still lukewarm. I’ll give you a call, okay? And this time I really mean it. I kind of let the yoga thing get away from me.”

Harper executed the particularly French shrug she’d picked up during the eighteen months she and her family had lived in Clermont-Ferrand. “Believe me, I know how that goes.”

They parted ways, Tasha plunging into the crowded room and Harper heading back to the food service counter that divided the hall from the kitchen.

She chatted up one of the boys on the other side while he refilled her tray with more pancakes. He’d just finished loading up when a horrendous crash of glass smashing to smithereens made them both jump as if someone had unexpectedly fired off a shotgun next to them. Her head swiveling in the direction of the sound, she focused in on two teenage boys standing in a quickly dissipating wreath of steam from the open door of a huge dishwasher. As she watched, one shoved the other.

“Look what you made me do, you dumb shit!” The shover gave the other, larger, teen another shot to the chest.

“Who the hell you callin’ a dumb shit, ass cap?” The bigger boy pushed back, making the first kid stumble back several paces. Following up his advantage, Big Boy dogged the retreating boy’s footsteps, thrusting his face into the other youth’s. “You’re the one who backed into me, you stupid fuc—”

“That’s enough.” Max’s deep voice cut through the obscenity, and suddenly he was just there, reaching between the boys to separate them. “Sometimes accidents are just accidents. Jeremy, grab the broom.”

“Why the hell do I have to sweep up his mess?” Big Boy demanded.

“Because we work as a team and I asked you to,” Max replied evenly, giving the teen a level look that had Jeremy slouching away. The remaining boy snickered.

Max turned to him. “I wouldn’t be too smug if I were you, because you’re not off the hook. Go get a dustpan and the mop. After you pick up the glass Jeremy sweeps, you can mop the area.”

“Hey!” The slighter boy adopted a belligerent stance. “He only hadda do one thing. How come I gotta do two?”

“Rules of the road, Owen.” Max’s voice was matter-of-fact yet somehow as calming as cool water poured over scorched earth. “Jeremy wasn’t wrong, you know—you picked up a huge tray of glasses, then backed up without once looking behind you. And the guy going in reverse is always at fault.”

“That sucks!”

Max reached out and squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “Maybe so. But rules are rules, kid. Go grab the dustpan and mop.”

The boy grumbled but did as he was told. Harper picked her tray up off the counter and turned away.

Great. Like it wasn’t bad enough that she already harbored a fascination for this guy. Why did he have to go and be good with kids, as well?

She didn’t understand this damn attraction; it was so not her general M.O. She’d never gone for the big, physical guys—she was usually drawn to older, more sophisticated men. But Max Bradshaw... Lord, whenever he was near she felt like a vampire trying to do the stay-on-the-straight-and-narrow-blood-bank thing.

All the while scenting a juicy vein.

And if that didn’t make everything more complicated, she didn’t know what did. Like things weren’t convoluted enough already...considering the job with The Brothers Inn wasn’t her sole reason for being in Razor Bay.

“You prob’ly better move, lady,” the boy who had refilled her tray suddenly said, shaking her out of her reverie.

“What’s that?” She blinked, then, following his gaze, glanced over her shoulder. Other volunteers, awaiting their turn, had begun stacking up behind her. “Oops.” She flashed them her friendliest smile. “Sorry.”

Picking up her tray, she threw herself back into dishing out pancakes.

When the last patron left, Harper nearly did, as well. She had wiped down her tables and straightened the chairs. And since she’d tucked her driver’s license into her back pocket so she wouldn’t have to deal with a purse, she was good to go.

But looking into the kitchen, she saw Max and his crew still hard at work cleaning up. She could see the boys had about reached their limit of volunteerism, and, with a quiet sigh, she rounded the end of the counter and crossed the kitchen to the teen who was about to carry a stack of plates on which he’d precariously balanced more glasses than was safe. He was the larger of the two boys Max had separated earlier, the one she’d privately labeled Big Boy.

“Let me give you a hand with that,” she said, reaching to pluck the glasses off the plates and efficiently stacking them into two towers.

“Thanks, lady.” The teen pulled an overhead cupboard open and shoved the plates in. He jerked his head to the cupboard next to his. “Glasses go in there.”

“I’m Harper.”

“Jeremy,” he said in a voice that didn’t encourage her to get chatty.

“Nice to meet you.” Stepping alongside him, she reached up to set the glasses in her right hand on the shelf. Apparently she’d stacked them just a little too high, however, for the bottom of the uppermost cup bumped the edge of the cupboard and began to tilt back toward her.

Warmth radiated against her back, even though nothing actually touched it. At the same time a suntanned, white-cotton banded biceps came into her peripheral vision, and Max Bradshaw’s deep voice said, “Hang on, let me take a couple cups off the top.”

It only took him a second, but that moment stretched languorously as a cat after a long nap, her senses bombarded with his heat, with the salty, slightly musky scent of him mixed with that of pancake batter and laundry soap. She eyed the up-close view of the tail end of his tattoos undulating from beneath his sleeve hem with the movement of his arm, then transferred her attention to the muscles and tendons that flexed in his forearm, his rawboned wrist and long hand as he swiftly slid a couple of cups from the stack she still held aloft, dropped them onto the one in her left hand, then removed four or five of those and put them in the cupboard.

“There you go.” He stepped back and Harper put the rest of the cups alongside the minitower he’d placed on the shelf.

Exhaling softly, she glanced at him over her shoulder. “Thank you. You seem to have a knack for rescuing me from glassware accidents-about-to-happen.”

He stilled for a moment, and something hot and fierce flashed in his eyes. Or perhaps she only imagined it, because in the next instant he gave her a faint smile, polite nod and a murmured, “My pleasure.”