His Deception, Page 3

  And what a transformation!

  This morning she’d appeared fresh-faced and sweet.

  Tonight she was sophisticated and a touch of a siren in a simple black sheath and pole-dancer heels, making her nearly as tall as he was. Her hair was clipped back in a sleek ponytail, and her blue eyes were smudged with liner and shadow. She was a knockout. Thorne was just glad he’d put on a black button-down shirt rather than something casual. The way her gaze played over him made him believe she had more than a boss’s interest in him.

  She said, “I see you put yourself to work.”

  Thorne set down the boxes of bottles. “The refrigerator needs restocking.” Ripping open the first box, he pulled several bottles free and placed them in the fridge.

  “I have three of my waitstaff working tonight. They’ll all bring you orders. As will I if customers know what they want when I seat them.”

  “Don’t worry. I learned to juggle fast.”

  “Need any refreshers on how to make specific drinks?”

  “I don’t think so, but I’ll be sure to ask if I do.”

  “We have a house drink—the Lakeside, a takeoff on a margarita. Salted glass, tequila, and freshly made lemonade.”

  “Easy peasy.” He grinned.

  She grinned back at him. “You’re just too good to be true, Thorne Hudson.”

  The smile froze on his face. Too good to be true was right. Thorne was hoping that Katelyn wouldn’t have to know why he was here when the waitress named Tansy brought him her first order. He could feel Katelyn’s gaze boring into him as he checked it over.

  He glanced up at her. “Do you want to watch me pour a couple of beers and a Diet Coke?”

  “Um, no.”

  “Then feel free to do whatever it is you usually do at dinner.” He looked over her shoulder. “There are new customers arriving.”

  “Okay. Just whistle if you need me,” she said with a wink that made his gut clench.

  Damn, why did she have to be so perky and positive, not to mention pretty, that he couldn’t help but be attracted to her? That made his job more difficult. She made him feel good, lighter somehow, every time he was near her. He couldn’t resist watching as she greeted the newly arrived customers with that killer-watt smile of hers. And then he got down to business.

  The café was busy even on a weeknight. Thorne split his attention between checking out the crowd and filling orders. Somehow he did both jobs effortlessly. And when a dozen young, attractive women came in to celebrate a twenty-first birthday, they sat at the bar, splitting his attention again.

  A couple of the young women flirted with him, and while he flirted back to make them happy—after all, it was his job to keep the customers happy—the only woman who interested him was Katelyn. He’d only met her hours ago, and she was already more than the job.

  The rush died down sometime after nine. Half of the tables were already empty. Dinner was no longer being served. And though the bar was still open, there were no new customers. It was a weeknight, but Thorne was still a little surprised since it was the height of tourist season.

  Suddenly he realized Katelyn was sliding onto a bar stool across from him. “I’ll have a Shiraz. A nice big glass.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He took a good look at her as he filled the wineglass nearly to the top before setting it on the bar for her. She appeared a little on edge.

  She downed nearly half the glass. “I need to unwind. That should do it in about two minutes.”

  He asked, “Was there some problem in the kitchen?” If anything stressful had gone on in the restaurant or on the patio, he would have seen it. He had a clear view from the bar.

  “No. Out here?” she asked. “Anything not right?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing or I would know.” Hesitating while she took another sip, he then asked, “Were you expecting something ‘not right’ to happen?”

  “Not me. My father. Family stuff. I’m just worrying for nothing, I guess.” She finished the wine and set her glass before him. “Another, please.”

  Understanding the problem, he nodded and poured, though this time he gave her a much smaller serving. “If you need to talk…”

  “It’s a personal thing.”

  “I’m a bartender tonight. Part of my job is listening to other people’s problems.” Undoubtedly Katelyn needed to talk to someone.

  “If you must know, my father’s going through a terrible ordeal and he’s really down on himself.” She swirled the wine in the glass but didn’t drink more. “I’m worried about him, is all.”

  “Is he sick or something?” Thorne prompted, hoping she would get to the real reason.

  “No. But I’m sure he’d rather be.”

  “I’m listening.” Because she appeared hesitant to go on, he said, “And I don’t know anyone to tell. Anything you say stays between us.”

  She took that next sip of wine and said, “One of my father’s several businesses manufactures weapons for law enforcement, which includes assault rifles. One made its way into the hands of that crazy bastard who shot those students on the Bascom College campus last Friday and then just disappeared.”

  “Yeah, I saw it on the news. It’s such a tragedy. Seven people died, right?”

  She nodded. “And more were hurt. The suspect is some troubled employee named Gus Pratt who was fired when some students made a formal complaint about him. Apparently, he was trying to get even by killing students at random. He disappeared and the police haven’t picked up his trail yet. They think he had this well planned ahead of time. Now someone is threatening revenge….”

  “Holding your father personally responsible?”

  “He received an email asking him how he would feel if he lost one of his own kids. He read it to me, and I’ll remember the words forever: Seven kids died at your hands. Seven kids with families left behind to mourn them because you make those damn weapons! See what it feels like when one of your kids is killed….” She clutched the stem of her wineglass like a lifeline and cast her eyes downward.

  “I can see why he would be upset,” Thorne said.

  “He has the police looking into it. They’ll get whoever is threatening him.”

  Unconvinced that would happen, at least not soon enough, Thorne shrugged. “You would hope so.”

  “At any rate, Daddy is worried about me. Not that he has reason to be. No one even knows we’re related. More like I have reason to be worried about him.”

  No wonder she was so on edge.

  “He’s encouraging me to have a bodyguard. Isn’t that absurd?” she asked.

  “Sounds like your father simply wants to protect you,” he assured her.

  “He’s been trying to keep me on a short leash my entire life.”

  “This is different, isn’t it? It’s a matter of your safety. Maybe you should take him up on the offer.”

  She countered with “We don’t have the same last names or live in the same state. I’d be surprised if more than a handful of people anywhere, and definitely not here, know of our relationship. I refused having a bodyguard, because I don’t want to live my life like that, always under someone’s watchful eye, paranoid that people are out to get me.”

  Not really liking the idea of protecting someone without their knowledge—someone who was dead set against the very idea—Thorne nevertheless had agreed to it. He hadn’t wanted to see some young, innocent woman die because of her father’s business. And now that he had met Katelyn in person, he knew he’d made the right decision.

  But how long would it be before she realized her father had gone against her wishes and hired her a bodyguard without her knowledge?

  —

  Katelyn couldn’t believe how in sync she felt with Thorne Hudson. Or maybe it was the wine making her mellow. No, it was definitely the man. She’d been drawn to him from the moment she’d met him. She was so comfortable with him that she’d told him about her father—something she hadn’t shared with anyone
here in Lake Geneva with the exception of Sam. Now that she thought about it, she probably should have kept that information to herself. Part of her reasoning behind her not having a bodyguard had to do with no one here knowing about her connection to Robert Hamilton.

  Worried now, she said, “Um…you know…about my father…”

  “What about him?”

  “I would rather you…didn’t share.”

  Thorne set his elbows on the bar and leaned in closer to her. “A good bartender always keeps his customers’ confidences.”

  Her pulse jumped. “And you’re a good bartender?”

  “I’m trying to be. Don’t give it another thought. I would have no reason to share with anyone. As I said before, I don’t even know anyone here.”

  “Yet.”

  “No worries,” he insisted.

  She believed him. The little bubble of doubt that had risen so quickly quietly sank back into oblivion. “Good. Thank you.”

  “No thanks necessary. You needed someone to talk to, and I’m glad I was here to listen.”

  “And to give me advice.”

  He grinned at her. “Which you are perfectly free to ignore.”

  She grinned back and changed the subject to work, filling Thorne in on which days and times were busy, which were slow, showing him the book and paperwork to order liquor, beer, wine, and soft drinks. He seemed to take it all in stride, letting nothing intimidate him.

  Before she knew it, the café had emptied of customers, the waitstaff was cleaning up the tables, and the new maintenance man was cleaning the floor, knocking his mop into chair legs.

  “I need to take care of this.” Sighing, Katelyn slid off her stool and approached Donald Radtke. “Put up the chairs first, please.”

  Stopping, he scraped a handful of long, dark hair away from his face and scowled at her. “What?”

  “You’re knocking your mop into the chair legs. First turn the chairs upside down and hang them on the tables, then mop the floor.” It was something she thought a guy with a maintenance background, which he’d professed to have, would know to do.

  His dark eyes nearly pierced her, and he muttered something under his breath that she couldn’t hear. But she didn’t like the sound of it.

  “Excuse me?” she asked.

  Radtke’s expression hardened, then equally fast, went neutral. “Nothing. Just that you never said to do it that way before.”

  “I guess I was too busy to notice. It’ll save the chair legs from being nicked.”

  “If you say so,” he grunted.

  Katelyn opened her mouth to say something acerbic, then changed her mind. He was new. She didn’t need another employee quitting on her.

  “By the way, we heard some odd noises earlier. I think they were coming from the basement.”

  “Repairs can be noisy. And you have enough of them for me to do around here, including the sump pump down there. Anything else?”

  Irritated by his attitude, she nevertheless held herself in check. “Nope. That would be it.” Turning back to Thorne, she realized he was closing down the bar. “I haven’t finished my wine.”

  “Go ahead. But it’s almost midnight,” he said.

  “It feels like it.” She took one last sip, then said, “I think I’ll go before I turn into a pumpkin.”

  “Now that I would like to see.”

  “Maybe tomorrow night,” she joked.

  He snorted. “Have a good one.”

  “Have a good one.” A good what?

  Katelyn assumed he meant sleep. Her eyes were heavy. Even so, before leaving she took a final look around the café to make certain everything was as it should be. The floor had cleared but for Radtke, who was now setting a chair on the table the way she’d asked him to.

  All was well.

  With a sigh of exhaustion, she left to get some shut-eye.

  Chapter 3

  Katelyn awoke to thunder a little after dawn and couldn’t get back to sleep. It had been raining off and on during the night, and the sky outside her bedroom window lit with a bright flash. Well, that was eye-opening. More rumbling. She wasn’t going to get back to sleep anytime soon.

  Reluctantly, she slid out of bed and into the shower. She would need a short nap later in the day, or staying awake through the dinner rush would be a challenge. Thankfully, by the time she was done showering and drying her hair, the storm over the lake had abated. The sky was clearing, and the cool morning, with its fresh after-rain scents, called to her.

  Dressing in shorts and a tank top, she decided to take a walk along the lake’s shore path, her favorite early-morning activity. Just being near the water both energized and comforted her. She could sit at the lake’s edge and stare at the ripples moving over the water for hours on end—if she’d had those hours, which she hadn’t since buying this place. She’d just reached her café’s boat dock when she heard footfalls that made her pulse charge.

  Whipping around, she was startled to see Donald Radtke directly behind her. Where had he come from? The maintenance man didn’t work mornings. He came in at the end of the lunch service for cleanup, spent the afternoon doing repairs, then did whatever was necessary during and after the dinner shift.

  “What are you doing here so early?” she demanded, her gaze dropping to the legs of his jeans. “And how did you get so wet?” Not from the rain or he would have been drenched.

  Following her gaze, he glanced down. “Uh, yesterday I told you we had a problem with the sump pump.”

  Even as she said “I thought you fixed it,” she realized they weren’t alone.

  Thorne Hudson was on the path behind them. His attention was focused on his surroundings with his usual intensity, as if he was looking for something or someone.

  “I did fix it!” Radtke turned toward the man on the path behind them, then turned back to her with a scowl. “Well, I hoped I did. But since I was up this morning, I came in to check on it because of the rain. It was still leaking, so there’s water in the basement. I worked on it again, but I don’t know if it’ll hold. I just figured you better know that you may have to replace it.”

  Sighing, she asked, “How old is the pump?”

  “I have no idea. I’m new here, remember?”

  Radtke’s scowl deepened, and Katelyn figured she needed to let it go for now. Considering the rain they’d had overnight, she couldn’t fault him for coming to check on the sump pump. “Okay, just keep me informed.”

  As she set off, Radtke seemed to be staring after her. Passing Thorne, he quickly turned away and headed for the parking lot.

  “Wait up,” Thorne called.

  Katelyn’s pulse raced a bit faster. “Following me?”

  “I would rather walk with you.”

  Not exactly an answer, but it would do. She slowed a bit as she passed the dock so he could more easily catch up with her. He paused for a second, his expression intent, head tilted, gaze narrowed, as if he was listening for something. Then he shook off whatever it was and caught up to her. Dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt that accentuated his impressive musculature, he was the epitome of a hot male.

  Feeling heat creep up her neck at the thought, she tried to remain casual. “Early riser?”

  “Usually.”

  “But you were up late last night.” She wondered how long he’d hung out at the bar after she’d headed to bed. “How do you get enough sleep?”

  “Probably the same way you do—power naps.”

  Katelyn nodded and breathed in the fresh air, focused on her surroundings rather than on him. “What a great morning.”

  They walked side by side, mere inches apart. The lapping of water on the shore and the calls of some birds wheeling overhead looking for breakfast were the only sounds breaking the comfortable silence. No motorboats on the lake this early. No one nearby on the shore path. Just her and Thorne, alone.

  A little thrill shot through her as she imagined he had intentionally sought her out.

  Or maybe it
was just wishful thinking.

  Thorne probably stirred up any woman he met. It had been an instantaneous thing for her, and this morning the vibe between them seemed amplified somehow. What was wrong with her? He was an employee, for heaven’s sake. A very friendly employee, but still…Plus, he wasn’t going to stick around for long. Seemed like everyone she took a liking to these days had one foot out the door.

  She glanced his way and realized he was again studying the area intently, glancing in every direction.

  “Looking for someone?” she asked.

  Thorne started. “Uh, no. I was just thinking these homes lining the shore are really something. Showstoppers. So who lives in them? This isn’t exactly a big city with industry of any kind.”

  “They’re second homes. At least most of them are. We call them beach cottages—”

  “More like mansions.”

  She nodded in agreement. “After the Civil War, railroad access from Chicago helped turn the town into a summer resort for wealthy industry barons. Many of these homes were constructed then, and Lake Geneva earned a reputation as the Newport of the West. And when the Great Chicago Fire destroyed much of the city, families moved here to their summer homes while the city was rebuilt, which meant staying through the winter. The original old beach cottages didn’t even have heating systems, so they had to be added.”

  “A pretty impressive history. The customers I talked to last night were almost all Chicagoans.”

  “Three-fourths of the summer residents have a connection to the city, present or past.”

  “Does that include you?”

  “Well, I’m here full-time now. I lived in Kenosha and Milwaukee before moving to Lake Geneva. But I guess you could say I have a connection to Chicago through my father.”

  “Interesting that a city in a different state has such influence on the town even now. Milwaukee is a good-sized city. And closer than Chicago. Surprising there’s not more of a connection there.”

  The path narrowed a bit, and Thorne’s shoulder brushed hers. The inadvertent connection seared her, leaving her a bit on edge—and feeling a little out of her depth from being so close to a man who could so easily throw her off like that. A new experience. Thorne was staring at her intently, as if he felt the connection as well.