I stepped inside and all the voices cut off almost instantly, leaving a deafening silence lingering.
“There’s my girl,” Lynx noted, a strange prideful tone to his voice.
He smiled as he moved toward me.
Of course, I blushed.How could I not?The man was already staking his claim on me in public.For whatever reason, I didn’t want to contradict him, so I returned the smile and hoped he didn’t see how red my cheeks probably were.
Certainly not a good look for me.
When Lynx leaned down and kissed me quickly, another flutter of unrestrained butterflies took hold of my stomach.I found myself staring up at him, slightly in shock.His response: a sexy, crooked smirk.
Of course.
“What’s goin’ on?”I asked, my voice sounding ridiculously like a croak.
“Well, it looks to me like your bar’s gonna be goin’ up in the very near future.”
I cocked an eyebrow and glanced around at all the faces.I was familiar with most of them.What got me was the fact that they were all smiling like this was something that madethemhappy.
“I … umm … really don’t know what to say.”
Last night I'd spent hours thinking about what Lynx had said.About how they wanted to help me because the bar meant something to them, too.I had tried to come up with a reasonable argument, but had failed each and every time I thought I was getting somewhere.
“It’s our pleasure,” Ed spoke up.
“We gotta get that bar up and runnin’, you know.It’s like not havin’ television at the house.It just ain’t right,” Doug Maxwell added with a wide grin.
“And the day the doors open,” Lynx added, his arm still comfortably around my shoulders, “the first round’s on me.”
“No,” I said quickly.“The first round’s onme.”
“All right, then,” Lynx conceded.“Thesecondround’s on me.”
The grins seemed to widen at the mention of free beer.
“Anyone heard from Jimmy Don?How’s the baby doin’?”Ed asked, his eyes swinging to all faces, then over to Lynx.
“They had a little girl,” Lynx said.“She’s healthy as a horse, he said.Momma’s doin’ fine, too.”
“That’s great news.”Ed turned, glancing between Lynx and me.“Let us know when we’re good to go.We’re ready to pour concrete whenever the permits are taken care of and the plumbing’s inspected.”
Lynx nodded.“Will do.”
“I’ll check back in with you in a bit,” Calvin stated, calling Copenhagen to his side.“Mind if I take the boy with me?”
Lynx shook his head.
As the guys filtered out, they waved.I offered a smile although my head was spinning at everything that was going on around me.I still couldn’t believe that these people were coming together to help me rebuild.
Okay, so maybe I could believe it.Embers Ridge was that sort of town.It was the very reason I'd never had any desire to leave.However, I knew I had put a rift between myself and most people due to my relationship with Billy all this time.Most of them, quite frankly, weren’t big fans of Billy.Not that I could blame them.But then again, I had been the one to stick with him for so long, so they probably figured I had a few screws loose as well.
Which I probably did.
Once they all cleared out, I realized Lynx and I were the only two left.
“Where’s Wolfe?”
Lynx grinned.“He headed home for a bit after we had breakfast.Somethin’ about a phone call from Rhys regarding somethin’ Amy was doin’.”He shrugged.“No clue.”
