She'd never dreaded coming to work before now.

That wasn't true. It couldn't be. She must have had evenings when she wasn't exactly looking forward to spending a whole shift at the bar. Probably when she was fighting a cold or pissed off about a bad date or something. Two summers ago, she'd had to fire someone who'd been stealing from the business. She'd spent all night dreading that.

This was special, though. She hadn't felt this crushing weight since the afternoon she'd had to face her dad with the news that she'd totaled her first car. This was the first time she'd dreaded work because of something she'd done herself, the first time the feeling had gripped her so intensely since her dad had retired and handed her the keys.

Gigi let the car coast down Low Tide Drive, glancing over at the beach on her right. Plenty of sunlight at this hour, and plenty of traffic to go with it. She slowed for a gaggle of oblivious kids strolling across the street, heading for the restaurants and shops.

Mostly for the bars, she knew. Happy hour beckoned the young tourists.

She made her way up to the intersection with Liberty Lane and turned left, heading for the back parking lot. Noah's weather-beaten truck was in its usual spot, next to the Dumpster. Her heart sank.

Well, you knew he'd be here.

She leaned forward and let her head rest on the steering wheel. Maybe she could just hide here all shift long.

She'd managed to get off the patio last night easily enough. Noah had teased her a little as he helped to fasten her bra, and she'd joked about whether he was going to put his shirt back on after he'd used it to wipe himself off. In the end, he'd stood by, shirtless, as she turned out the lights and locked up. She'd grinned at him as he drove off half naked.

Embarrassment only raised its head in the shower with the stinging spray of hot water on her very tender nipples.

All the things she'd done rushed back to her.

With an employee.

With a valued employee.

She dragged herself out of her car and walked around the safety glass on the way to the back door. Loud rock music poured through the screen door, along with the scent of Old Bay mingled with cooking grease. The fragrance and sounds usually cheered her up, but today they had no effect on her mood.

She'd known this would happen. She knew it the instant she saw him, coming through the door with the "help wanted" sign in his hand. She knew she'd be too weak to say no to her own urges, too weak to be professional. She'd put her hormones first like a fucking teenager.

Now it might hurt the business her family had built for her.

Her father's voice echoed in her head.

Don't throw it all away.

She shook it off, heading down the hallway to the bar. Lynyrd Skynyrd followed the Stones, the loud twang of Southern rock filling the room. Her heart galloped as if she were walking into an arena filled with lions and not the place where she'd spent most of her life.

Heather waved at her from her place behind the bar. "You make the run yet?"

Gigi shook her head. "No, not yet. You need anything now?"

She dared to hope that some urgent need would allow her to leave long enough to do some shopping. She'd have to look Noah in the eye at some point, but it didn't have to be right now.

Heather frowned and looked around behind the bar. "We should be all right for another day." She looked back up at her. "You all right? You look tired."

Gigi nodded. "Tired. Summers get harder every year."

"You know it," Heather agreed. She went down to the edge of the bar for an order.

Where was he?

Noah emerged from the kitchen, hauling two big buckets of ice. He hefted one onto his shoulder with ease, frowning intently into the ice bin as he let it cascade down. Those amazing arms of his.

Dammit.

He emptied the bucket and glanced up at her. If he was bothered at all by last night, his face didn't show it. In fact, his neutral expression suggested that nothing at all had happened. She waved at him, and he shouldered back through the kitchen door.

She turned to get her usual glass of ice water and nearly collided with Heather.

"Everything okay here?" Her day manager used her best trouble-avoidance voice.

Gigi felt her face grow warm. "Everything is just fine." No reason to alert the rest of the staff that anything was out of the ordinary. "Can I have my glass of water?"

Heather lifted an eyebrow. "Of course. Why don't I grab it for you?"

Damn. She watched as Heather filled a glass of ice with water from the gun and then took the glass with a little more gratitude than necessary.

"I'll be in my office, working on planning your party."

A knowing smile spread over the other woman's face as Gigi carried her water down the hallway. "I hope you'll let me know if you need anything before I go."

This was bad enough when she just had her father's voice in her head. There wasn't enough space for Heather, too.

She rested her glass on a worn-out coaster near the corner of the familiar chaos of her desk. Someday, she'd make room in the battered file cabinet for the stacks of reports and lists now piled up on her workspace, just as she'd someday manage to scan all that paper into a database she could get to from her iPad. Someday was going to be a very busy day for her when it finally arrived.

For now, she had to focus on making the last of the plans for Heather's party. Every year, the bartenders contributed some of their tip money to cover the expenses of the pig picking, which marked the unofficial end of summer, as well as Heather's birthday. Over the space of the summer, a few dollars at a time, they usually managed to cover the cost of the pig and the roaster. Gigi would close the bar that night and the following day to allow everyone to recover from the celebration with a day off. She didn't mind rewarding her crew with a chance to let their hair down, even if that week's income took a hit. Surviving the season warranted a party of that magnitude.

Gigi made party-related legwork part of her job during the summer, making arrangements for the roaster and pig, ordering sides, ensuring enough people would bring coolers and tubs for the guest-supplied beer. She kept a checklist of tasks under the phone and used it for her confirmation numbers and other minutiae. On hold with the barbeque place on the other end of Low Tide Drive, with the phone tucked against her shoulder, she tapped the list with a pen and stared at the framed photo balanced precariously on the far corner of her desk.

She and her father stood, arms around each other, at the center of the photo, surrounded by the entire staff. They'd gathered at the bar's front entrance and waited for Heather's husband, Bruce, to take the picture. By the time he'd gotten everyone in place, Gigi had cupped her hand underneath her dad's for what felt like forever. In her palm, five keys shared a ring with a bottle opener and a faded canvas lanyard. The moment she'd spent a lifetime waiting for. The day she became owner of Inn Too Deep. The changing of the guard.

Over the years her dad had left her enough advice to fill a book, but he came back to one directive over and over again.

Don't throw it all away.

She didn't have to ask what it meant.

As soon as she'd been old enough to see her grade-school friends take their first steps into adolescent puppy love, he'd told her. Don't throw it all away. When a classmate had dropped out of school to have a baby, she'd heard it again. Don't throw it all away. When Heather's predecessor, the woman who had been Gigi's first shift manager, followed her husband across the country for a job he didn't quite have yet, her father promoted Heather, vetted Bruce as if he were an employee as well, and then he'd said it again.

Don't throw it all away.

The meaning was clear. Following her heart—or her body—would be bad for business. She must not engage in behavior that was bad for business.

The day shift bartenders made a rowdy exit down the hallway to the parking lot. Happy hour had ended. How long had she been on hold?

Soon, she'd be locking up at the end of another day. The night bartenders would be heading home as well. The place would be empty but for her and Noah, running the last of the dishes through the washer, mopping the floor, and asking the inevitable question.

You need anything else, boss?

Frustration and embarrassment made her groan just as Heather swung through her doorway. Her hair had started to slide free of her French braid, and she grinned as she separated the long, curling register tapes from the deposit bag she held in the same hand.

She gave Gigi the register tapes that tracked each bartender's business for the day. "Everything okay there?"

Gigi couldn't help but glare at her friend, who probably already knew that everything was not fucking okay. Why else would she keep asking? "What are they doing at the Barbeque Hut? Do you think they just don't know how to take people off hold?"

"Probably doing it just to screw with you," Heather said. She let the last three words hang in the air between them.

Heather knew. But damn if Gigi would give her the satisfaction of admitting it. She probably thought this meant Noah would stay all year. No doubt that was where her shit-eating grin was coming from.

"You need me to do anything before I go?" Heather batted her lashes.

Can you run interference between Noah and me?

"Not unless you can make these people pick up," Gigi said.

"All right." Heather smiled a little too broadly. "See you tomorrow." She stuck the deposit bag into her purse and swept out of the room and down the hall.

From the bar, patrons marked the end of happy hour by wailing along with Stevie Nicks, and Gigi finally hung up on the pit masters up the road from her. She'd promised one of her waitresses that she'd ask the customers if they were interested in karaoke, and she meant to follow through, even if the off-key accompaniment had already answered the question.

She pushed herself up from the chair and headed out to the bar. She couldn't hide back here forever.

* * *

The rocker's rhythmic creaking stopped when Miss Ruby Jean fell asleep in it. The sudden silence nudged Noah back into awareness; he'd been nodding off on the porch glider, shielded from the merciless sun. He watched his landlady with a smile. She invited him onto her back porch for sweet tea and cookies on an almost regular basis. He reached for his glass, trying to move quietly, and wondered how many tenants had accepted her offer to relax in the shade with snacks and conversation.

Insects buzzed and chirped, and a thin breeze slid through the porch's screens. This part of the afternoon, after the morning's errands had been run but long before his shift was due to start, had become his favorite part of the day. Miss Ruby Jean told him about how the city surrounding her neighborhood had changed, while the street where she lived had been frozen in time. Before long, they'd lapse into companionable silence, and she usually fell asleep.

While she dozed, Noah looked out over the back yard. The grass needed mowing. Beyond it, an ancient wooden fence likely needed attention as well. He sat back in the glider, hoping the creak wouldn't wake his landlady, and looked over at the garage on the other side of the gravel driveway. A box fan ran unattended in the window of his apartment. He wasn't sure he could convince her to install a window unit; she seemed convinced that the absence of air conditioning attracted tenants of strong moral fiber. But he hoped to paint at least part of the interior before he had to leave.

He didn't mean to get attached. Not to these afternoons of tea and cookies. Not to the tempting regimen of maintenance Miss Ruby Jean's property cried out for. Certainly not to his entry-level job with all the shoveling of ice and hauling of dishes.

Sooner or later, he'd run out of tasks to complete. He wouldn't be a step ahead anymore. When he'd moved here in May, he imagined three months filled with work. His place and the bar were in decent enough shape. They just needed someone who could keep up with the snowdrift of annoyances that would eventually make them look run down. Miss Ruby Jean's past tenants hadn't been inclined to take on extra work in gratitude for the rock-bottom rent, and Gigi… well, she ran a tight ship, but her team stayed busy all day during the summer months. The winter skeleton crew didn't enjoy the luxury of time, either.

He'd been a lifesaver here, and everyone loved a lifesaver.

But now, in the oasis of the back porch, with nothing to do but sip tea, eat cookies and wait for his landlady to awaken, Noah was torn. He wanted to finish everything he had hoped to accomplish before summer ended. But this quiet stillness had become addictive. It made him think he could stay here forever, commuting from a job he was starting to love, to a home that embraced him, with Gigi in between.

Days had stretched out since the Fourth of July, since his boss had twisted and sighed on his lap while he tasted her wild-honey skin and pleasured her with his fingers. At night, the hum of the box fan over his narrow bed pushed his mind back to the hungry way she had stared at him as he pumped himself into his own hand. Sometimes his fantasies would be faithful to reality, and he'd come for her, let her see how much he wanted her. But now, just as often, he dreamed of his mouth plundering the fragrant warmth between her strong thighs. Of tight, wet heat sheathing his aching cock.

The next day, he'd bought a box of condoms. He carried one—just one—in his pocket. Gigi had been more distant since then, a natural response for a woman who ran her business the way she did, or for a woman not given to summer indulgences. He didn't mind the change. He hadn't gone into any of this expecting any relationship beyond the professional, and so he'd already gotten more than he anticipated. Enough to fuel his fantasies for years. He could certainly be content with that if he had to.

On the patio, as firecrackers popped and squealed around them, she'd said the world was different. She'd been right. Change was a constant, a sign of life. So he didn't try to silence the rebellious part of him that dared to hope for another night with her.

He swirled the ice in his tea, hoping to dilute its relentless sweetness. The rocker creaked suddenly as he drained his glass.

"Noah, I believe I fell asleep on you again." Miss Ruby Jean rubbed her eyes and chuckled, and the good-natured sound sparked a cheerful warmth in him.

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "I think this heat is getting the better of us."