Sandcastle Beach (Matchmaker Bay #3) - Jenny Holiday Page 0,4

expression, which was blank. She wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t scowling like she sometimes was on that throne. She was bored. Unmoved.

Well, damn. Maybe it was time to retire this stunt. He’d had people in the bar this past spring asking him for ballots before he’d even bothered to put any out, though, so he wasn’t sure he could retire it.

She kept up the blasé waving as she rotated to face his side of the street, her arm moving mechanically in between brushing hair off her face—clouds were moving in, and the wind off the lake was picking up.

Something happened as their gazes met and she registered his presence. She rolled her eyes. Not a lot. Just a little. Enough to communicate, though, when you were capable of communicating in subtle gestures like they were, resigned disgust.

Ha! There it was. He choked back a grin and raised his eyebrows at her. Not a lot. Just a little. Enough to communicate, when you were capable of communicating in subtle gestures like they were, triumph.

As the Gorgons finished their song, a huge gust of wind tore across the beach from the lake. It was so strong and sudden that some people gasped. Maya had been about to climb down from the float, so she was standing. She grabbed a corner of her throne with one hand and flung the other out to balance herself. The wind caught her hair and blew it up and out behind her, so she looked like a Gorgon, too. Like the queen of the Gorgons, commanding the vengeful musical army at her feet.

But she also looked like the queen of the mermaids. The hand she’d flung out to balance herself was holding the trident, and with the drama of the gesture, you could almost believe she was creating the wind, like she was about to call forth the lake itself, to summon a tidal wave that would subsume them all.

She was stunning.

Chapter Two

Back at the bar, Law had words with Carter, who’d shown up while he was out. “You can’t just show up two hours late on one of the busiest days of the year.” He hated to sound like a nag, but honestly, this was a place of business, not a frat house. “It’s not like I have backup. It’s me and you here, bud.”

Though maybe that needed to change. Even if Carter were more reliable, running this place with only two bartenders was a stretch. Law used to have a third person, but Amber Grant quit when she graduated from nursing school, and now she worked for Nora Walsh, the new town doctor. Law had always known that his time with Amber, who’d been a stellar employee, was limited. He’d held off on replacing her, though, because of his plans. He didn’t mind working a ton of hours himself right now if it meant saving money.

“Sorry, man. I’ll do better,” Carter said, and Law moved on to serve Nora, poacher of Amber, who was just pulling out a stool.

“Hey, Doc. I heard you were running a vaccine drive. How did it go?” There’d been a measles outbreak in the region, and Nora was determined to beat it back.

“Okay, I think. It was just an information table—I wasn’t actually giving shots.” She shook her head. “I’m still a bit gobsmacked by that parade.”

“It’s something, isn’t it? You get so used to the craziness around here, you sometimes forget—”

She was here.

The door opening, which was what had drawn Law’s attention, was not unusual. He was in the habit of quickly looking over when he heard the bells on the door. You tended bar enough years, you learned to keep an eye on the crowd.

When Maya came into the bar, which she did more days than not, it always felt like he’d been teleported into a cheesy Western where an outlaw cowboy type slammed open the saloon doors and the whole place fell silent, waiting for him to say something like, This town ain’t big enough for the both of us as he challenged his nemesis to a shoot-out.

Maya never said that—though the sentiment was probably pretty representative of her opinion about him. And the whole place didn’t pause when she came in. It just felt like it. Because the normal functioning of Law’s brain did pause whenever she walked through his door. Not long enough that anyone ever noticed, thankfully, and usually muscle memory kept him from spilling anything if he was in the middle of pouring a