It was not unusual for men to die during the season. King crab fishing was, by definition, the most dangerous job in the United States. Every fall, men lost their lives. But they hadn’t lost a Westport man in over two decades.
Randy had dropped onto his stool, dumbfounded. “No. Are you . . . You ain’t Maureen’s girls, are you?”
“Yes,” Piper said, her smile too engaged for Brendan’s peace of mind. “We are.”
“Holy mackerel. I see the resemblance now. She used to bring you girls down to the docks, and you’d leave with pockets full of candy.” Randy’s attention swung to Brendan. “Your father-in-law is going to shit himself. Henry’s girls. Standing right here in his bar.”
“Our bar,” Brendan corrected him quietly.
Two words out of his mouth were all it took to drop a chill into the atmosphere. A couple of the locals shrunk back into their seats, drinks forgotten on the crates that served as tables.
Brendan finished his beer calmly, giving Piper a challenging eyebrow raise over the glass neck. To her credit, she didn’t blanch like most people on the receiving end of one of his looks. A stony stare through the wheelhouse window could make a greenhorn shit himself. This girl only seemed to be evaluating him, that limp wrist once again drawn up against her shoulder, that long mane of golden-rosy-honey hair tossed back.
“Aw. The deed says otherwise,” Piper said sweetly. “But don’t worry. We’ll only be killing your weirdly hostile vibe for three months. Then it’s back to LA.”
If possible, everyone retreated farther into their seats.
Except for Randy. He was finding the whole exchange hilarious, his smile so wide Brendan could count his teeth, three of which were gold.
“Where are you staying?” Brendan asked.
The sisters both pointed up at the ceiling.
Brendan bit off a laugh. “Really?”
Several patrons exchanged anxious glances. Someone even hopped up and tried to rouse Tanner at the bar, but it was nothing doing.
This whole situation was absurd. If they thought the bar was in shambles, they hadn’t seen anything yet. They—especially her—wouldn’t last the night in Westport. At least not without checking in to one of the inns.
Satisfied with that conclusion, Brendan set his beer aside and pushed himself to his feet, kind of enjoying the way Piper’s eyes widened when he reached his full height. For some reason, he was wary of getting too close to her. He sure as hell didn’t want to know what she smelled like. But he called himself an idiot for hesitating and strode forward, picking up a suitcase in each hand. “Well, then. Allow me to show you the accommodations.”
Chapter Five
Who the fuck. Even. Was this douche?
Piper forced her chin up and followed the beast to the back of the bar—the bar which was essentially the size of her closet back in Bel-Air—and up a narrow staircase, Hannah in tow. God, he was freakishly big. Just to make it up the stairs, he had to bend down slightly, so his beanie-covered head wouldn’t hit the ceiling.
For a split second, she’d found the silver-green eyes under the band of that beanie kind of captivating. His black beard was decently groomed. Full and close cropped. Those shoulders would have been seriously valuable in the chicken-fight competition a couple of weeks ago, to say nothing of the rest of him. He was large all around, and not even his beat-up sweatshirt could conceal the beefy musculature of his chest, arms.
He’d been staring at her, so she’d done what she did best when a man seemed interested. She did a little stationary flossing.
It was as natural as breathing, the subtle hip shift. Finding the light with her cheekbones, drawing attention to her mouth and sucking his soul out with her eyes. It was a maneuver she normally performed with a high success rate. Instead, he’d only looked pissed off.
How was she supposed to know he was married? They’d walked into a crowd of two dozen people. Into her father’s bar, which had apparently been commandeered by a group of townies. There’d been a lot to take in at once, or she might have noticed the gold band. He’d seemed to purposefully flash it at her, and as she was definitely not the type to go after someone who was taken, she’d shut down her come-hither glance immediately.
Piper rolled her shoulders back one by one and decided to try being friendly to the beast, at least one more time. It was kind of admirable of him, wasn’t it? To be aggressively faithful to his wife? If she ever got married someday, she hoped her husband would do the same. Once he realized she wasn’t trying to catch his eye, maybe he’d chill. She and Hannah would be living in Westport for ninety days. Making enemies right off the bat would suck.