Good Girls Don't (Donovan Brothers Brewery 1)

But Luke was ruining everything. Luke and his awful absence, and the hole he’d left in her heart, and the way her body wanted him. Tessa stared down into the glass of ale she’d just pulled, trying to decide if the deep brown liquid was darker than Luke’s eyes.

“Tessa?” Jamie said. “You okay?”

“Sure,” she answered with a smile, then quickly left to serve the table before he could ask more questions. But five minutes later when she made it back to the bar with a tray full of empties, Jamie’s eyes stayed on her.

In defense, she stopped to pull out her phone and tweet that there were empty seats at the bar and Jamie would welcome a few more visitors. Unfortunately, a mob didn’t rush through the door to save her before he could pounce.

“So what’s going on with Luke?” he asked with suspicious lightness.

“Nothing.” She gave him a wink. “Just the way you like it.”

“Hey. I don’t want you to stop seeing him if it makes you mope around all the time.”

“I’m not moping around. I’m happy!”

“Yeah, right. So what’d he do to piss you off so much?”

“Oh. Well…” She stacked dirty glasses and hoped he’d get called away.

“Tessa?”

“He called me out on my supposed issues.”

“Oh, no. What an asshole.”

She grabbed the crate and slid it off the counter. “Date him yourself if you think he’s so great.”

When she rushed through the doors to the back, Tessa found that she’d jumped from the frying pan into the fire. The fire of acute and startling embarrassment.

“Oh,” she yelped, cringing at the sight of Wallace on his knees before Faron, his hands clasped together as if in prayer. “I’m sorry!”

Wallace looked over at her, but Faron didn’t even blink. “You don’t get along with my husband. I can’t possibly keep seeing you.”

“Your husband!” Wallace spat on the floor in disgust, making Tessa jump. “He’s not worthy of being called a man. Faron, please. I love you.”

Faron jerked her hand from his grasp and spun away to stalk out.

Arms aching from the weight of the glasses, Tessa just stood there, frozen, as Faron slid past her.

Finally, she cleared her throat. “Wallace?”

He grumbled as he pushed to his feet, and she was relieved that he was morphing back into his normal, grumpy self. “Husband,” he muttered.

Tessa cleared her throat. “Um. You two have met?”

“Met? I used to date him myself, years ago. A blow-hard and a liar, and he’s not even close to being worthy of Faron. That woman is a goddess!”

Goddess or not, Wallace didn’t exactly seem heartbroken.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked. It didn’t seem as if a man could recover so quickly from going on his knees to beg for a woman’s heart.

“I am,” he grumbled as he retreated toward his cave and the tanks within.

“Wallace, are you sure?”

He paused and turned halfway back toward her. She watched his face—what she could see of it—for signs of sorrow. But amazingly, he winked and his beard quirked up as if he were smiling. “She’ll be back. No way she can resist me.”

“Oh. I…see.” Tessa watched him disappear into the tank room, then stood there until her arms began to shake. By the time she moved to put the tray down, Wallace was back to his silent monologue to the tanks, perfectly happy in his cave. She hurried out of there as fast as she could…and right back into Jamie’s lair.