Mischief after Midnight

Chapter 3

Three

How many times had Toni yelled at Bash about that damn nickname? She could distinctly remember more than a few.

Age eight. Sledding on Wolf Pack Hill. The time when she challenged Bash to a sled race and he hit a stretch of extra-slippery ice. “Ant! Ant! Get out of the way! I can’t stop this thing!”

She’d had to veer into a snowbank, from where she’d spluttered, “Don’t call me Ant!”

Age ten. At the hockey rink, where her quickness and smaller size meant she could occasionally slip past the bigger boys. “Ant! Head’s up!”

She’d fielded the puck from Bash, then turned and slammed it into the net. “Don’t call me that,” she’d yelled at him instead of celebrating the goal.

Age twelve. Her own backyard, where she and Tristan and Bash dared each other to see who could climb the tallest tree.

“Ant! Your mom’s looking for you.”

“I’ll punch you in the face if you call me that again.”

Not that she ever could, because Bash knew from an early age how to dodge a fist.

Age fourteen. The boardwalk, as she was putting on her goggles before a swim.

“Hi Antonia! Where’s Tristan? I got his bait for him.”

“He’s talking to Old Crow. And stop calling me Antonia.”

“Have it your way, Ant.” A grin as he loped past with his new muscles and his bronzed skin and his bucket of bait.

“I hate you so much,” she’d muttered at his strong back, crisscrossed by the straps holding up his Helly Hansens.

Then later, in bed, staring up at the ceiling…I love you so much.

When had her crush started? She couldn’t really pinpoint it. It was more like a growing awareness. Even though he got into fights all the time, he was the nicest of her brother’s friends. He always included her in the fun—the dares, the challenges, the pranks, the general mischief.

He covered for her when she broke her mother’s rule about no swimming in the harbor. He got suspended for thumping a boy who kept dropping snowballs down her shirt. He taught her a few fight moves and let her practice on him.

“What’s wrong with being called Ant?” he’d asked her once while they were all eating ice cream cones on her family’s fishing boat.

“I’m not an insect!”

“Ants aren’t just regular boring insects. I read this thing about ants, that they can lift twenty times their own body weight. Also they fight to the death. That’s pretty rad.” He’d swirled his tongue across the melting chocolate. “It’s better than my name.”

“What’s wrong with the name Bash? It’s so cool.”

“It’s short for Basher. My dad picked it because he wants me to beat people up. It’s a cursed name.”

Bash’s father was horrible to him, everyone knew that. But Bash mostly picked his battles. He was a defender from bullies, the guardian of their little crew, the one who always took the heat.

Everyone always expected Bash’s fists to get him into trouble. No one had predicted his wildly successful career.

Toni shook off the memories buzzing around her like annoying summer flies.

God, what a hopeless f*****g crush she used to have on Bash! No one else had ever had that kind of effect on her. She’d made damn sure of it.

She ran a hand down the front of her neck, feeling the wild pulse in her throat. Bash had been in the back office with Sally for an hour, and she still wasn’t back to normal.

How was she going to handle working with him? She might melt into a puddle of goo right in the middle of the Olde Salt floor.

Don’t be silly, she lectured herself as she carried on with the usual tasks of a random Tuesday night in early May. That stupid crush is long gone.

Correct. That crush was history. Whatever she was feeling now, well, that probably had more to do with the fact that Bash Rivers had grown into a walking poster boy for the benefits of martial arts for physical fitness. She hadn’t followed his career as closely as Tristan had. Generally she tried to tune it out when people talked about Bash. It didn’t happen often. The world of professional mixed martial arts was very far removed from Lost Harbor.

Of course the locals were proud of him, but he didn’t have the global fame of someone like Padric Jeffers, who’d become an international rock star. Padric was the most famous of all Lost Harborites. Bash was maybe…fifth. One of her regulars had placed second in a World Beard Championship; that had sparked a lot more excitement than anything Bash had accomplished. Then there was the woman who’d been on Survivor for a season. Alison Raines had competed in the Iditarod, coming in second one year. And of course there was Olson Yates, who’d invented a form of spray cheese.

So sure, Bash Rivers was cause for some local pride, but nothing too extreme. She’d been able to slowly let her crush go, even though her heart had been in smithereens after he left town. And he’d never even guessed.

Then he’d walked into the Olde Salt looking like…that. Like a freaking model for black leather jackets and broken noses and shaved heads. With those deep dark eyes. Damn. No wonder Trixie had flirted with him two minutes after he sat down.

She would have too, if he was anyone other than Bash. Since that time in her life, she’d never let anyone touch her heart again. She was an independent woman who liked men plenty—in their place.

The reminder of Sally’s words made her laugh to herself.

But seriously. Her determination to stay independent had never been seriously tested by any of the men she’d dated. Now Bash was back, in all his broken-nose glory, and every cell of her body was drawn to him just like in the old days. Even worse, he was her boss. He could potentially be in her face every single day at work.

This could be a total disaster.

Sally had asked her to stick around for the transition, but she hadn’t specified how long. She could handle the high-octane hotness of Bash for a few days, couldn’t she? Toni Del Rey had come a long way from that girl with a crush on her brother’s best friend.

But just in case, she had a plan B. Technically, it wasn’t even a plan B, more of a plan A. Opening a new brewery with her friend Chrissie was the whole reason she’d turned down the chance to buy the Olde Salt. Maybe she could kick things up a gear.

The next morning, Toni hopped in her pickup and headed for “Yatesville,” a hundred acres of forested waterfront property whose most spectacular feature was a decommissioned lighthouse perched on a bluff. Chrissie had inherited it from her eccentric inventor grandfather and had begged Toni to join her in transforming the place.

On her way out of town, Toni swung by the drive-through window of a tiny coffee shack where one of her karate students worked. The thing was barely bigger than a tollbooth, painted purple, and Shane had to prop his textbook on his knees to study between customers.

She handed him the old-school steel thermos she always carried around. “Fill me up with the high-octane stuff.”

“You got it, Queen.”

She sighed, since her students had been calling her that ever since she’d explained the meaning of her last name— “royal.”

“Hey, have you seen Katerina Volkov around? She missed the last class.”

“I saw her at Eller’s buying thread or something, but she was with her mother. She didn’t talk to me.”

Around her family, Katerina grew a lot more reserved. The Old Believers stayed close to their own community, generally. Not that they were hostile in any way; they were just protective, in Toni’s experience. They spoke Russian and wore traditional clothing. Tunics and beards for the men, long dresses and head coverings for the women. Toni thought of them as the Amish of Lost Harbor. They tended to be very religious, with many holidays that seemed to require entire weekends in church. A few of the men made their way into the Olde Salt now and then, although they didn’t drink alcohol. Instead, they just swapped fishing stories with the other fishermen.

Katerina was the first member of the Old Believers who had ever come to Toni’s self-defense classes. She was an adventurous young woman struggling to find the balance between her curiosity and her family. Toni had been shocked when she’d asked her for a job at the Olde Salt.

“Will your family be okay with that?”

“They’re getting used to my rebel ways,” Katerina had assured her.

But then she hadn’t shown up for class in two weeks, so naturally Toni was concerned.

“Okay, thanks, Shane. If you see her, tell her to call me, would you?”

“You could ask her boyfriend.” Shane jerked his head at the truck behind her in the drive-through line. “He comes here all the time and acts like a dick.”

Toni glanced in the rearview mirror at the two-ton truck with the custom headlights. The man at the wheel wore mirrored shades and an impatient expression. He didn’t look Russian, so maybe he was another of Katerina’s rebellions.

“I think I’ll pass on that one. See you in class, Shane.”

Sipping from her thermos as she drove, she wondered if she should talk to Bash about Katerina. If Toni left, would the girl be okay working for a stranger? Would the rest of the staff?

The Olde Salt had one full-time bartender—Toni—and three part-timers, two table bussers and a dishwasher. They all shared sandwich-making duty. None of the part-time bartenders had any interest in more shifts. That meant Bash would have to find a replacement or do the job himself.

Not her problem.

She’d stay for a few days, then move on. Bash could flirt with Trixie and do that smoldering thing, and none of it would bother her. She’d be busy with her happily independent life and her brand new brewery.