Blue Bottle Beach
A Barefoot Book

Excerpt

“Getcha another margarita?”

“No, thanks,” Jackie said. “This is already number three.”

“Just getting started,” the bartender muttered. “Though I hate seeing a pretty young girl drink alone.”

“I’m not alone,” Jackie said.

The bartender glanced pointedly toward the empty seats on both sides of Jackie.

“Well, I guess I am now. My friends found somebody to dance with a few doors down.”

The bartender raised her eyebrows. “We got dancin’ here.”

They both looked at the girl in the pink bikini top and cut-offs dancing right on the bar about ten feet down from Jackie.

“I don’t think I can top that,” Jackie said. “I’m a lousy dancer.”

The bartender smiled. “My daughter’s a hell of a dancer, ain’t she?”

Jackie nodded and watched the bartender as she made the circuit of the U-shaped bar and offered drinks. Most of the partiers were in obvious groups of at least two or three, but Jackie sat in a cool shadow of loneliness. Her friends, Leah and Teri, already hooked up with someone and they were probably burning off their drink calories right now.

Jackie risked a glance around the bar. She couldn’t be the only person sitting alone. A man directly across from her had an empty seat on both sides of him. She tried to sneak a glance at him, but the margaritas and the unpredictable light made it hard.

Jackie raised her margarita glass to her lips and tasted the crusty salt. She raised her eyes and saw a pair of eyes looking straight into hers over the rim of another glass.

The man across the bar locked eyes with her.

It was like he reached across the distance and tugged her out of her seat. She held his eyes for a heartbeat then glanced down into her margarita glass. Her pulse raced faster than the Key West soundtrack throbbing from all the bars on Duval Street.

The bartender stepped in front of her and cut off her view of the handsome stranger.

“I keep telling her she oughta put a video of her dancin’ on YouTube,” the proud mom said.

Jackie nodded. “She’s got talent.” For something. Jackie cocked her head and watched the girl dance. She should put her show on the internet. She might get sponsors and then she’d be in the black ink when it comes to partying. Jackie smiled into her large margarita glass. You can take the accountant out of the office, but you can’t drown her head for numbers and spreadsheets—even with potent Key West drinks.

The bartender leaned on the shiny wood. “Here for the weekend?”

“Uh-huh. Supposed to be a bachelorette party, but it totally fell apart.”

“What happened?”

Jackie laughed. “Groom-to-be showed up. Can you believe it? Guess he thought it would be a great surprise.”

“Bet you were surprised.”

“Yep. And now the bachelorette is holed up with him at the Hyatt for the weekend.” Jackie sipped her drink. “And the rest of us are on our own.”

The bartender glanced over Jackie’s shoulder. “Hope you make the best of it,” she said and then moved down the bar.

Jackie gave her glass a reckless little swirl and watched the yellowish drink dance close to the edges of the cup. I’ve been making the best of things since I made my first batch of lemonade years ago. She still had the ledger book from her lemonade stand, scrawled in her 8-year-old handwriting.

It was time to go. Maybe it wasn’t too late to catch up with her friends after all. Digging through her purse for a few bucks to leave on the bar, she felt someone lean over her from behind. Warm breath brushed the back of her neck. It was loud in the bar, but a man’s voice vibrated in her ear and she turned toward the sound.

“Whatever they’re paying her,” he gestured toward the bar dancer, “they ought to double it.”

“I don’t know,” Jackie said. “Looks like it might be gratis work to me.”

The dark haired stranger leaned on the bar beside her. His green eyes slipped from her face to her breasts and down her bare legs to her feet in their strappy sandals. The slow glance made her feel like she’d just stood on the bar and removed all her clothing, right down to her lacey underwear. For an insane moment, she rejoiced that her bra and panties matched for once. Just in case.

“Of course, they could just be paying her in alcohol,” she added. “I’d say about a case of tequila would be a fair trade.” She needed a little humor to break the tension sizzling in the air. Maybe it was the humidity, but the air was suddenly thick and close as it brushed her skin.

“You know a thing or two about entertainment fees?”

“Just enough to get me in trouble.” Jackie wanted to kick herself. Where was this flirty talk coming from? She never did this. She didn’t hang out in bars, didn’t usually talk to strangers, and certainly didn’t know a thing about dancing drunk on shiny bars in a tropical paradise. Maybe that was it. The tropical atmosphere was going to her head. She wouldn’t be doing any of this back in Chicago.

“I like the sound of that,” he said, moving even closer.