Free More Than Rum (The Maple Leaf Series Book 3) by Christine DePetrillo

nature for him to be mixing
drinks. He was two ingredients into a margarita and facing away from the main
room when something changed. He couldn’t put words to it, but he knew another
patron had come in, and he knew it was her.
    Turning around slowly, he saw
her weaving her way through the other customers, making her way toward him. Her
big brown gaze darted around the room, and he slapped a hand to his forehead.
    I am such a dummy.
    How could he have been so
insensitive to invite her to the place she’d been attacked only yesterday? What
kind of a jerk was he? The stupid kind apparently.
    When she reached the bar
though, a smile graced those amazing lips and a healthy pink tinged her cheeks.
She didn’t look afraid now. She looked… magnificent.
    “Hey,” she said, climbing onto
a free stool.
    “Hey.” He looked past her for a
minute. “Did you come here alone?”
    She shook her head. “I couldn’t
do it… which ticks me off, by the way.” She shrugged. “Rick and Lily came with
me, but they claimed a pool table back there, making bets as to who was going
to win and what the loser would have to do.” She rolled her eyes.
    Adam opened his mouth to say he
was glad she didn’t come alone, but a redhead leading a giggling group of women
approached the bar.
    “Excuse me,” she said in a low
voice, attempting seduction. “My friends and I have a friendly wager going on.
We wondered if you might be able to help us.”
    Hope swiveled on her stool, and
Adam rather liked the expression on her face. It appeared to be one that said, I
don’t like your intrusion, Carrot Top.
    “What’s your wager?” Adam
asked, careful not to agree to anything yet.
    “They don’t think I can get you
to give me a birthday kiss.” Carrot Top leaned on the bar now so her ample
boobs squished together and taxed the limits of her already too-tight sweater.
“You wouldn’t deny a gal on her birthday, now would you, handsome?”
    Hope’s gaze slid to him, one
blonde eyebrow raised. She’d removed her jacket and the sheer black blouse she
had on over a sparkly black tank top made Adam’s throat go completely dry. He
wanted to slide his hands underneath that wispy fabric and explore her curves.
    And he most definitely didn’t
want to kiss Carrot Top even if it was her birthday.
    “I wouldn’t deny a gal a kiss
on her birthday,” Adam said.
    Hope frowned, and Jesus, he
wanted to leap across the bar and plant a kiss on her.
    Instead, he turned away from
Carrot Top and her entourage. He mixed a shot using vodka, crème de cacao, and
orange juice. When he presented the small glass to the birthday girl, he placed
a handful of Hershey Kisses at the base of it.
    “Your kisses, and a Happy
Birthday shot.”
    Carrot Top narrowed her eyes at
him, but smirked. “Clever, New Guy. Very clever.” She tossed back the shot,
licking her lips and grabbed the kisses. She passed them out to her friends and
said, “Mmm. Good. Can we have more of those shots? That was great.”
    “Coming right up.”
    She winked at him and made her
way to a table, arguing with her friends that technically she had gotten
him to give her a kiss, and they should pay up.
    “Quick thinking,” Hope said.
    “I’m not as dumb as I look.” He
mixed up more shots and gave them to a waitress on a tray to take to the
birthday table.
    “Who said you look dumb?” Hope
gestured back to Carrot Top. “If they want kisses, you must have been
physically acceptable.”
    “Or they’ve already had too
much to drink and would have asked Jake for kisses if he were behind the bar.”
    “Hey, Jake is sexy in his own
old guy, mountain man way.”
    “Is that right?”
    “Yep. He’s not my type of
course.” She tapped her fingers on a red napkin with the Black Wolf Tavern logo
on it in front of her.
    “No. Jake has too much hair.
You like buzz cuts.”
    Her cheeks got pinker as she
chewed on her bottom lip—a lip Adam desperately wanted to taste.
    “I do,” she said