“Pax, any idea where the margarita salt is?”
She jerked away from Sawyer and turned to her mother.
And was caught totally off guard by the look on her face. Her previously smiling eyes were full of caution and mistrust.
What in the world isgoing on here?
“The salt?” Belinda asked again, her dubious gaze still on Sawyer.
“It’s in the storage room,” Paxton said. “I put it on the top shelf.”
She turned back to Sawyer and hooked a thumb toward where her mother had just stood. “You have any idea what that was about?”
He shrugged. “Maybe she wasn’t expecting to see me here, either. You know, like mother, like daughter.”
That could have possibly been it, but Paxton wasn’t so sure. She couldn’t deny that he stuck out like a bruised and battered thumb. Many of the people here worked for Sawyer’s family at the lumber mill. Now that his father was no longer around, that meant they worked for Sawyer.
Interestingly enough, Paxton didn’t detect even a hint of the veiled animosity that often hovered between bosses and employees. Several people approached the bar to thank Sawyer for some incentive program instituted at the mill. Others just wanted to shake his hand. The interactions were a testament to the respect the workers held for the Robertson family, and vice versa.
Paxton got that funny feeling in her stomach again, the one that suggested that maybe she’d judged Sawyer unjustly. She was certain that if she thought long and hard enough, she would be able to recall an incident back during their days at Gauthier High when Sawyer had earned the spoiled, arrogant rich-boy label she’d placed on him. But for the life of her, she could not remember a single one.
Had she been wrong this entire time?
Could that mean she was also wrong about other things, like not believing Shayla when she said Sawyer had always been interested in her?
Her stomach twisted with the plethora of doubt and hopefulness swirling through it.
The Saints game ended in a heartbreaker, with the Falcons returning the favor of that earlier interception and running it back for a touchdown. Their touchdown, however, came in the last two minutes of the game and handed them the victory.
Despite the loss, the crowd remained upbeat, and just about everyone came up to Paxton and Belinda to tell them how much they enjoyed themselves, and how they planned to be back on Saturday for the LSU football game. The regulars all promised to be back tomorrow. Now that Harlon’s—Paxton had just accepted it would never shake that name—served real food, she suspected it would acquire a larger set of regulars.
“It’s pretty late,” Sawyer said when she returned to the bar. “How much longer are you staying?”
“We have to clean up.”
“Do you need any help?”
Paxton couldn’t keep the incredulity off her face if she tried. She didn’t try.
“What?” he asked. “I have washed dishes before, you know.” He pulled the towel from her shoulder and snapped it on the bar top. “I can bust suds with the best of them.”
Her sharp laugh was so loud that she drew the attention of several of the people still lingering around the bar.
“You don’t believe me—do you?” Sawyer asked.
“I’m trying to picture it.” She looked him up and down. “No, I really don’t see you rolling up your sleeves and—how did you put it? Busting suds?”
“You’ve pegged me all wrong,” he said. He leaned in closer and whispered against her ear, “I’m going to have fun changing the way you see me.”
Decadent shivers of need cascaded along her skin as her body screamed,Lethim!
“Now, do you need help or don’t you?” he asked.
“No, she doesn’t.” Donovan appeared from seemingly out of nowhere, sidling up next to her and clamping his arm around her shoulder. His six-foot-two frame towered over her, much like Sawyer’s. He puffed his chest out. “I’m here to help her. It’s my job.”
Paxton rolled her eyes as she disengaged from his hold.
Sawyer hooked a thumb at Donovan. “Is this Harlon’s grandson that you used to babysit back in high school? The one who bit Mr. Washington the year he posed as Santa Claus?”
