Free Enemies on Tap by Avery Flynn Page A

know what they charge for ads in that newspaper?”
    “I could offer to half it with you.” Her gaze lowered to his mouth, and she licked her bottom lip.
    “Nah, that would go against the spirit of the bet.” He forced his gaze away from her pink tongue even as his body responded like a well-trained dog. “We couldn’t have that.”
    A car engine purred to life in the parking lot. Miranda started, and a flush pinkened her cheeks. She jumped up from the table, brushing away the dirt from her high, firm ass. “It’s getting late. I should be heading out.”
    “Can I walk you to your car?”
    “I think I can manage on my own, if you can be trusted not to damage the place when I leave you alone.”
    Her smile hit Logan hard, and he realized how long it had been since anyone but Hud had joked with him.
    He held up a hand. “Martin’s honor.” Uttering the phrase caused a pang of guilt.
    Miranda didn’t seem to notice. “Goodnight then.” She turned and took a step away.
    He snagged her hand before she could go any farther. Electricity zipped up his arm. “Thanks.”
    Imaginings of what could have been if she was just a woman and he was just a man left a bittersweet taste in his mouth. But as it was, she was a Sweet and he was a Martin. They’d been down that path before, and he’d been left shell shocked when she’d ran not just from Salvation but from him. There was no possibility of anything more now.
    She squeezed his hand before releasing it, turning and sauntering toward the parking lot, her tantalizing hips swaying with each step. A few feet from the parking lot she stopped and pivoted to look back at him.
    “I guess this means our truce is over.” The parking lot’s lights spotlighted her, showing off every curve and the slight quiver of her bottom lip, but before it could grow into a full-blown tremble, she straightened her shoulders and looked him dead in the eye. “Swords or dueling pistols in the morning?”
    She knew it and he knew it. Their roles in the ongoing Salvation drama were set, and they had no choice but to play the parts assigned.
    “Swords, of course.” He could fight her, but not reality.
    They were enemies.

Chapter Seven
    Miranda slammed the phone down on the receiver. Two days. Ten contractors. Six slightly nervous he’s-or-she’s-not-heres and four straight up nos . At least the last guy had the decency to sound embarrassed, but that didn’t change the fact that not a single contractor in Salvation would rebuild the loading dock.
    So much for her and Logan’s little moment of Zen last week. He hadn’t been kidding about dueling at dawn. None of the contractors had come right out and said it, but she knew a Martin family bitch slap when the invisible palm smacked her across the cheekbone.
    Their families had history. A long one.
    The way her MeMaw had told it, Matthew Sweet and Benjamin Martin founded Salvation together. Then they both fell in love with Elizabeth Hamilton, who, according to MeMaw, had enough intelligence to marry Matthew Sweet. But Benjamin Martin had taken it as the first strike in a war his family had to win. It only got worse after that. Bootlegging. Crooked land deals. Cattle rustling. Drought. The Civil War. Lies. Inconvenient truths. With the end result being two families on opposite sides of the track who grew up hearing tales of the other’s treachery and general worthlessness.
    She’d been stupid enough to forget that history when she was young, dumb, and barely seventeen.
    Logan had been as hot as any completely-off-limits-and-out-of-her-league boy could be, and she’d known there was something more to him than being the crown prince of Salvation. In her demented teenage mind, he was the Prince to her Cinderella. It was like the beginning of a cheesy song by some overly earnest tween pop star. God, she’d been as dumb as a box of rocks to even think he’d ever seen her as more than an easy conquest.
    The phone rang, and she grabbed it before