If You Fall (Brimstone 1)

"I'll take over now," I said to Steve, who nodded and stepped aside with some reluctance. I glanced at the next drink order – a couple of pretty easy drinks – rum and coke and a screwdriver – and set to work filling it, hoping my hands didn’t shake.

The man said nothing while I worked, but he watched my every move. When I went to the other end of the bar to get a new bottle of mixer, he watched me. When I came back to his end, he watched me. When I bent over to refill the ice hopper, he watched me.

He held a menu in his hands. Unable to avoid him any longer, I stopped directly in front of him, my arms spread, hands resting on the bar.

"See anything you like?" I said, finally meeting his eyes.

He inhaled audibly. "I think I do." Slowly, a grin that was far too sexy for my own good spread on his face.

"She’s not on the menu," Steve said quietly, butting in. I turned to him, shocked at that he said that.

"How unfortunate," the man said. He had this low sexy voice, deep and melodious. The kind that made you melt into a helpless puddle of ‘yes.’

I couldn't hold back my grin, so I quickly turned my back to him and busied myself by sorting through the bottles on the shelf, searching for the one needed for my order.

I gestured to Steve. "Why don’t you help our guest with his order. I have things to do."

Steve frowned and stood in front of the stranger. "What can I get for you?"

"Bourbon. What do you have in stock?"

Steve ran down the list of bourbon brands we had on hand and the man pursed his lips.

“What would you suggest?” the man asked.

Steve shrugged. “It all tastes like kerosene to me.”

“What?” the man said, his voice sounding seriously affronted in a joking kind of way. "You work at a bar and you don’t like bourbon?”

I stepped beside Steve. “Woodford Reserve," I said, remembering a taste-test Gramps made me take when I started working at his bar.

“Ah, the lady is beautiful and knows her bourbon. Consider me smitten,” the man said. “Woodford Reserve it is.”

I smiled to myself while I attached a new canister of soda to the dispenser.

"What are you smiling about?" he said, his voice playful with just a touch of an accent – Cajun, from the sounds of it.

"You're not from around these parts," I said as I scooped ice into some glasses on the bar and then started pouring. "But you know your bourbon."

"I’m an aficionado. Come from a long line of bourbon drinkers. Actually, a long line of drunks, truth be told."

"Oh, yeah? Where are you from? You sound Cajun." I bent down to take a beer out of the fridge, liking him despite my initial impressions because of his playful sense of humor. Unfortunately, I knew that charm was one of the chief character traits of sociopaths, so that didn’t win him any points with me.

"Cajun, born and raised," he said as I sorted through the beer. "I lived in Louisiana just outside New Orleans for part of my childhood, so you know your accents."

When I stood up, he stood as well and bowed, bending at the waist with a flourish of his arm.

"Beckett," he said, and then he laid the accent on thick. "At your service. "

I laughed and wiped the bar with a clean cloth. "Is that a first or last name?"

"Both. It’s my grandfather’s name and my mother didn’t want our family to lose.”

“No last name?”

“Call me Beckett. I have too many names so just Beckett will do.”

“Okay, just Beckett,” I said with a grin. “People usually introduce themselves using their full name where I come from.”