Playing with Danger (Desire Bay 2)

Chapter One

Hannah closed her eyes and tried to drown out the low sounds of the bar she was currently tending. These tension headaches were getting worse and were now starting in her neck. As if she needed another pain in the neck.

Placing her hands on the glossy wood bar top, she slowly bent her neck to the left, bringing her ear to the top of her shoulder. Her black hair swayed across her back, and she made a mental note—she needed a trim before the jokes about looking like the local Morticia Addams started in from the regulars.

Pop!

She exhaled and rubbed her nape. Damn, she was stressed. And it wasn’t just her neck popping—it was her brain.

The smells of beer and sea air drifting in off the surf just outside made for another typical Friday afternoon. She opened her eyes and got back to work. Though it was slow for midday, it’d pick up when everyone started to get off work for happy hour. She was working alone, as usual, and was the main bartender slinging drinks for this place. Sixty-hour workweeks, and she loved it. It was Goonies. A staple in town. The bar in town. Her bar in town.

Well . . . not exactly hers . . . yet.

“Hey, Hannah, my mug is dry,” said Larry, a regular customer, pointing to his beer.

“Yeah, like your liver,” Hannah said back. “You know, cirrhosis isn’t sexy, Larry.”

Larry rolled his eyes and just tapped his empty glass. The guy was a local, and Hannah knew him all too well. But she really couldn’t talk, since she was as local as they came—and the only female bartender in the small town of Yachats, Oregon.

“The older you get, the meaner you get,” Larry said.

Hannah scoffed while filling his glass. “That coming from Father Time?”

The man laughed and stroked his long, white beard. She’d known Larry since she was a kid. He’d worked with her father on a fishing boat out of Newport Bay, another town over. She’d learned quickly that all fishermen knew one another and were all blunt and dirty, in one way or another.

But being raised by an alcoholic fisherman who spent more time in jail than being her parent left for a tricky upbringing. Hannah relied on no one. That was one lesson dear ol’ Daddy had taught her. Indirectly as it might have been. And Hannah wasn’t about to argue her “mean” reputation. That was better than some of the other adjectives used to describe her around the town she’d called home since birth. Over the years, she’d heard everything from “trash” to “bitch” to “crazy.” All of which she’d take over “pitiful.” No, she’d never be pitiful. No matter how many times she’d had to bail her father out or beg Nancy down at the power company not to turn off the lights to their trailer.

That pain in her neck was starting to hum again.

She slid the glass toward Larry, and he just grumbled and took it, fusing his eyes back to the TV fastened above the massive shark teeth on the wall. The wood floors were original to the nearly hundred-year-old building and creaked with every hard wind gust the tides threw around. And when it was slow, Hannah could pick up the faint smell of saltwater taffy being made just one block down. Great thing about being located on Main Street in Yachats—it smelled like the ocean and candy 24-7.

She wiped down the counter, and when she saw Phil, the geriatric crabber, taking an extra-long look at her chest, Hannah made another mental note to remember not to bend over as much while wearing that tank top.

But if she wanted this place, she’d take it, and all the customers that came with it. Her boss, the owner, was looking to sell, and Hannah was ready to buy. The place made good money, and she could finally have something for herself. Outright and owned. She just had to get Mr. Bangs on board. He’d said he’d give her first opportunity to buy the place, and with her entire life savings, she thought she could convince the bank that she was a worth a small business loan for the rest. She just needed details from Mr. Bangs. Problem was, he never bothered to show up, really, or do much of anything when it came to the bar. Which was why Hannah pretty much ran the place already.

“You ever wear lipstick?” Phil said between the eight teeth he had left in his mouth.

“Excuse me?” Hannah said.

“Just asking if you wear lipstick. Would make you look real pretty.”

She rolled her eyes. If Phil wasn’t as old as the damn ocean, she’d smack him. Instead, she smiled her lipstick-free smile and said, “Nope.”

The word pretty hung in the air, though. Very rarely had she ever felt pretty. Much less looked it. She was always working and always in some kind of ripped denim and tank top. Her hair was black and her eyes were blue—two qualities she’d inherited from her father—and she chose not to draw attention to either with makeup or products. She didn’t need a reminder of whom she came from. She tried to outrun that fact every day, and to do so she looked in the mirror as little as possible.

“One of them tough girls. What do they call those?” Phil mumbled to himself.

But Larry chimed in from two seats away. “Tomboy. She’s a tomboy.”

“Well, glad one of us in this joint is some kind of boy, because between the two of you, you’re pushing three hundred years old.”

Larry just shook his head, and Phil laughed.

Hannah smiled and lined up the liquor bottles along the mirrored wall behind the bar. She might have tough skin, and people in town might think her rough around the edges, but there was a lot more to her.

She’d risen above enough to get respect from the majority of the townspeople. If not a little fear. Which was something she could deal with.

The bar phone rang.

“Goonies Bar.” Hannah waited, and the voice was instantly recognizable.

“Hey, Hannah, it’s Gabe.”

Hannah took a long breath. Gabe Cleary, aka Deputy Gabe Cleary. Aka the same Gabe Cleary she’d gone to grade school with, who now was the law of the town. She instantly knew what the call was about before he said the words she’d heard a hundred times over the past several years.

“I’ve got your father here,” he said.