Just as Laura realized she was babbling, there was a knock at the door, and the two scrambled to their feet, looking guilty.
“Why is my door locked?” Chef demanded from the other side.
Laura straightened her tank top one last time and nodded to Tex when he went to open the door.
“Sorry, Chef,” he said contritely. “We were just leaving.”
Chef, a large, distinguished older man, stood with his arms crossed, glaring them down. “What have you done in here?” he demanded. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, I don’t want to know. Just get out. And don’t ever bring that apron back.”
Glancing at each other like erring schoolchildren, barely able to keep the giggles from their lips, Laura and Tex fled, hand-in-hand.
“Don’t worry about Chef,” Tex told her, giving her a quick kiss at the back door to the restaurant. “He’s just grouchy because Magnolia isn’t here this week, and we rented her cottage to someone else for the event. He doesn’t even use this office most of the time.”
He escorted her chivalrously to her hotel room, acting nonchalant about his apron-clad bare body, and Laura noticed with amusement that everyone they met took it perfectly in stride.
It was, after all, a clothing-optional shifter’s resort, hosting a male beauty pageant.
Nothing seemed too odd for this place.
Chapter 14
One advantage to being a bartender was that Tex got a front-seat to all the best and worst of the guest-watching at Shifting Sands.
He got to watch the producer, Gregory Stubbins, have a shouting show-down with his cameraman, Bam Stagger (Tex guessed it was an assumed name, but never heard him referred to as anything else). Gregory didn’t go anywhere without his new black-suited bodyguard since the attempt on Jenny’s - Laura’s - life, and Tex felt sorry for the stoically sweating rock of a man who shadowed the obnoxious jerk.
Jessica Linn, the tiny blonde celebrity host, got falling down drunk every afternoon at about 2, to sober up in time for whatever evening event she had to announce. She was at best unkind to the resort staff, and at worst, a raging harpy. She thought Tex was a dreamboat, though, so she was slobberingly pleasant to him.
Tex would have rathered she wasn’t.
The photographer, Juan Lopez, was constantly taking candid photographs that Tex strongly suspected would be sold to tabloids later, or used for blackmail, when he wasn’t hitting on woman after unsuspecting woman.
Tex’s opinion of the Mr. Shifter competitors who frequented the bar ranged from sheer pity, through amusement, into active dislike. Mr. Canada completely failed to uphold his country’s reputation for politeness. Mr. India was a class act. Mr. South Africa made Tex very, very wary and raised his bear’s hackles. Mr. Brazil was a complete jerkface, flanked by a beauty coach who was at least as bad. Tex thought he might like Mr. United States, even if he was almost a caricature of laziness. Mr. Ireland never took off his glittery green pageant banner, and never stopped talking (though his charming wife often stepped in and pointed him in the direction of distractions with a wry smile).
Tex sniffed, literally and figuratively, making even more conversation than he usually did. He got Mr. Ireland talking about his job, fire-fighting, and then despaired of ever getting him to stop. He got Mr. Austria talking nostalgically about growing up in the Alps, and Mr. India, after a few beers, talked about walking through the slums of Delhi. Mr. Japan’s beauty assistant was a shy woman that would only take lemon tea, but Tex got her to tell him about climbing Mt Fuji and laughing over a fear of bees.
“They are very large bees,” she said, with an embarrassed smile.
Tex commiserated with a story about being chased by angry bees on his farm, and convinced her to tell him about Mr. Japan and how she’d gotten involved in the contest.
None of them seemed to have any motive for hurting Jenny. Or Laura, as far as Tex could tell. Most of them only knew who she was because of the incident with the latte.
It was everything Tex could do not to blabber about Laura himself. He wanted to tell everyone about her, to describe her perfect strength and get them to agree that she had the most perfect brown eyes. He caught himself daydreaming about the slow smile she gave him, and the velvet softness of her skin.
But customers, especially the women, didn’t want to hear about his perfect mate. They wanted to think his eyes were only for them, and as long as Tex was trying to get information out of them, he was willing to indulge them in that delusion.
“Masterfully done,” Breck told him, after watching him get Mr. Canada’s assistant to tell him all about Mr. Canada’s failed hockey career. There was a lull in the traffic at the bar for a moment, while Mr. Ireland demonstrated a fireman’s carry at the other end of the deck, to his American wife’s laughing dismay. Breck was helping serve drinks while the restaurant was in between meals; as busy as things were, none of the staff were enjoying much downtime.
“I’m no closer to finding a motive for poisoning Laura than when I started,” Tex said mournfully. “And these people drink like fishes; our stock is never going to last through the closing cere--”
A scream from behind the bar interrupted him.
“This is getting to be a habit,” Tex said, grabbing his baseball bat and rounding the bar at a run. Breck foll
owed, grabbing a bottle off the bar as a makeshift weapon.
As girly as the scream had been, it came from Juan Lopez, the photographer.
Graham, teeth bared, was holding Juan’s throat in one hand, hedge clippers in the other.