Not even ten minutes later, she returned. A plate containing a burger and fries in one hand, a squeeze bottle of ketchup in the other. She placed it in front of him and then slipped the photo and silverware wrapped in a napkin out of her pocket, putting them next to his plate.
“Danny hasn’t seen him. Neither has anyone who works in the back.”
“Thanks for checkin’.” Deke unwrapped the napkin. “You know what? Give me another napkin. And a pen.”
One of her dark eyebrows lifted, but she snagged another napkin from under the bar and pulled a pen from her apron.
When she put the napkin down on the bar top, she kept a tight grip on the pen. Did she want him to wrestle it from her?
He grinned. “If I give you my number, can you call me if you see him?”
Those fingers loosened up quickly. “Sure.”
He accepted the pen from her. “But promise not to say anythin’ to him. Wanna surprise him.” He scribbled down the number to a burner phone he bought earlier in the day and handed her the napkin.
Her eyes flipped from the number to him. “Can I call you for anything else?”
“Depends on what you got in mind.” He popped a fry into his mouth.
Her voice got low and husky. “I have a lot of things in mind.”
His dick might have twitched the tiniest bit on that. Maybe he should get her number, too. “What time do you get off?”
“Depends.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “On?”
“Well, my shift ends at midnight. But how soon I get off will depend on you.”
Heh.
Too bad she didn’t have any good info... Getting an invite to her bed would only take care of one need, not the need for information.
And it was only the first night in town, too. He had no idea how long he’d need to stay. He didn’t want to hook up with some chick who might get bent if he didn’t want to spend a second or third night with her. That could get messy.
He needed to weigh the pros and cons on boning Bambi.
As she waited for his answer, her attention was pulled toward the front of the bar when the door opened.
He glanced in that direction, too, just in case it was Warren.
It was not.
Fuck no, it wasn’t.
It was someone much better looking than Warren. The blonde walking in was teetering on a ten, unlike Bambi.
Suddenly the bartender was off his radar and the newcomer landed right in the center of it.
The woman wore a gray pantsuit with pinstripes and a light pink V-neck blouse under the jacket. The pants fit so they accentuated her long legs. The spiked heels made her appear taller than what she was, but, from what he could tell when she took long strides around the bar, she wasn’t short. Those long legs could wrap around his waist and hold him hostage.
Her blonde hair was up in a bun, so that meant it was long. How long, he wasn’t sure, but long enough to fist. It wasn’t a severe bun, but a loose one, so if you just pulled a couple pins from it, it would fall around her shoulders.
Bet she didn’t have a name like Bambi.
“Hey, Reese! Busy day?”
The blonde’s gaze sliced right through him, not even hesitating on him for a second as it landed on Bambi. “Crazy.”
“Your regular?”
The blonde nodded and blew right past him to a table in an empty back corner. She put an oversized, expensive looking black leather bag on the seat next to her and pulled out a laptop, setting it up on the table.
It looked like she just stepped out of some big city, not someone who walked into a local bar and grill in a small town in northern PA.
He did his best to concentrate on his soon-to-be-cold burger and fries. Unfortunately, his burger was not warm and pink in the center. It was brown. Overdone. Not juicy. Fuck.
Suddenly, his meal wasn’t as interesting as the blonde who sat by herself.
Confident. Independent. Most likely with a spine of steel. A take-no-shit type of woman.
While it shouldn’t be, his dick was way more interested in the blonde than the bartender. But he doubted he’d be able to sweet talk her into taking him home for the night.
No, a woman like her would need to be handled with more finesse than Deacon had. Or... he could play the bad boy angle. Some women like to get nasty in the sheets for one night with a man who normally wouldn’t be her type.
The one good thing about those women were they usually weren’t clingers. They got their thrill, then couldn’t wait to scrape off the man. Were afraid of being seen with him. They had one type who was good enough to stand by their side, another to scratch the itches the first type couldn’t.