“Yes,” I replied immediately.

His hands came to my face and there was firmness, not humor, in his tone when he assured me, “It’s all gonna be good.”

“It’ll be better, I have more tips in my pocket,” I returned.

His hands brought my face closer. “Zara. I swear, it’s all gonna be good.”

I held his eyes in the shadows and said, “Okay, darlin’.”

“Now kiss your man and climb off. I got to see to things then we can get some shut-eye.”

“Okay, baby,” I replied, dipped my head, kissed him open-mouthed, and ended up not climbing off because Ham took over the kiss and rolled me so we ended it with me on my back.

Once he broke it, he dipped his head to touch his lips to my chest and slid out of bed.

I curled up facing the bathroom door counting it out.

We’d had forty-two hours of official togetherness and, notwithstanding outside factors, we were doing a little bit of all right.

Xenia had met Ham. She didn’t come to the bar, too much temptation, but we’d met him on the boardwalk one day and I’d introduced her.

She’d liked him. I could tell because she told me he was hot and that was pretty much all my sister needed to like a guy.

She would have liked him more if she got to know him.

Ham’s shadow entered the room and then he entered the bed and curled me into him.

Once I’d settled in, I told him softly, “Xenia told me she liked you when she met you but if she’d gotten to know you, she would have really liked you.”

He lifted a hand to my hair and sifted his fingers through, asking, “You love her?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Then I would have liked her, too.”

I closed my eyes and whispered, “There it is.”

“What?”

“You. Awesome… er.”

The last sound either of us made before drifting off to sleep was Ham’s laughter.

I liked that.

So much I wanted it every night for the rest of my life.

Chapter Twelve

Vaulted

Two days later…

“Let me get this straight,” Maybelline, sitting with Wanda at a table in my section at The Dog, started. “Five days ago, you wandered down the hall and gave your boss-slash-roommate a booty call. A booty call that was so hot that he got pissed off and then for some reason, you went to apologize to him and he yanked you into his bed again. You did the nasty again, freaked, and ran away. The next night he tells you, belatedly, mind, that he came back to town to commit to you. You accepted that and all is hunky-dory for a few hours. You have a scene at The Rooster, of all places, before settling down to sleep with your boss, roommate, hot guy, brand-new but old boyfriend. Then you find out your sister died, and girl, you know I’m sorry about that…”

She waited for my nod, I gave it to her, and she launched back in.

“And you find you got a long-lost nephew so you and your boss, hot guy, new-old boyfriend decide to sue for custody. You throw down with your Dad at a gravesite and now you’re livin’ the dream but with an impending nasty custody battle hangin’ over your head.” She paused before she asked, “Do I have all that right?”

Suffice it to say, I’d just filled them in on all that had gone down with Ham and Dad.

I looked to Wanda. She was smiling down at her drink so I looked back to Maybelle.

“Yes,” I answered.

Her eyes went to the ceiling.

“Okay, just gonna say,” Wanda began and I looked to her to see her looking at Maybelle. “You need to give him a good once-over ’cause it’s clear you’re not seein’ what I’m seein’. If that man right there”—she jerked her head to the bar, in other words, Ham’s way—“told me he came to town ready to commit and then went gung ho with gettin’ my long-lost nephew away from some serious nasties, I’m not sure I would fight him.”

Maybelle pinned Wanda with a stare and declared, “We need to get you a man.”

“No argument here,” Wanda shot back.

Wanda was Maybelle except white, and without the husband and three daughters. Wanda had two ex-husbands and a son who was so wild, he did her head in.

She was currently giving her son tough love by grounding his ass every three days, which meant he was out getting in trouble even if grounded so he earned more groundings. Thus this was not working.

She was also looking for husband number three and Wanda pretty much had only two things she was looking for in her new man. One, that he had no problem taking a firm hand with a wayward teenage boy. And two, he just had firm hands that he knew how to use.

On that thought, a piercing whistle filled the air, and all heads, including mine, turned toward the bar and I saw Ham taking his fingers out of his mouth only to crook one at me.

“Seriously, I don’t care if feminists hunt me down and burn me at the stake, that man crooked his finger and me, I’d follow him into a bank and rob it at his side,” Wanda muttered.

I smiled at my boots before I gave them a glance and said, “I’ll be back.”

Then I walked to the bar.

Ham met me there and leaned into his forearms toward me.

God, I loved that.

“Did you just whistle for me?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he answered.

“It was loud,” I noted.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“You gotta teach me how to do that,” I told him.

His eyes dropped to my mouth and he murmured, “Easy.”

“Ham, no fair. Whenever you say that, my ni**les get hard. I gotta work. I don’t need chafing.”

His gaze shot to my br**sts, then to my eyes, and he smiled.

I smiled back before I asked, “You whistled, mein herr?”

His smiling lips twitched before he informed me, “I prefer Bruiser.”

“Bruiser Ham drags me into his bed and shows me an alternate universe I want to move to forever. Mein herr whistles at me to get my ass to the bar,” I explained, then went on. “So, you whistled?”

“Right, cookie,” he said through his still-present smile. “I’m your man but I’m also your boss and you been standin’ at that table fifteen minutes. Don’t mind that but you got empties on other tables, I get a bonus if I sell a shitload of booze, and the women you’re talkin’ to, one threatened me a few weeks back and is givin’ me looks I don’t much like. The other one is givin’ me looks I don’t much like that say she’s thinkin’ of drugging me, taking off my clothes, and tying me to a bed. She isn’t ugly but she’s not my type and, I think you know, I already got a woman.”