“I didn’t mention that I managed a tiki bar on the beach in Florida.” He eyed her even more closely.
“Granny just now told me. She thinks this predicament they’ve put us in is funny. I don’t,” Jorja told him.
“Neither do I, but I’m damn sure not selling my half of this place to you.” Cameron’s stomach grumbled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since noon, and it was now nearing midnight. Mingus didn’t have a café, and the one in Thurber, just a mile or two down the road, had been closed when he came past it. “I’m hungry, so before I unload my things, I’m going into the bar to grill a burger or make an omelet.” He stood up and headed toward the door he figured went out into the bar, but the one he opened was a walk-in closet, and her things were all lined up on the left-hand side. Shoeboxes five deep were stacked on the shelf above her clothing, and there were at least twenty more pair on the floor. “You figure you’ve got enough shoes?”
“That’s my business, not yours,” she smarted off at him. “And you can keep your dirty old boots on your side. If I find them mixed in with my things, I’ll toss them in the trash.”
He shut that door and tried another that opened on the bar. He reached around the wall and flipped on the light switch. A single bulb above the grill lit up, and he headed in that direction.
“How did you even know that they’d installed a grill?” Jorja asked. “And we have a kitchenette in our apartment.” She followed him and switched on another light that showed tables with chairs turned upside down on them, two pool tables, and a jukebox over in the corner.
“I was here last Christmas, and the bartender made me a burger and some fries. Is there food in the apartment refrigerator?” he asked as he turned the knob to heat up the grill.
“It’s empty,” she admitted, “but I checked things out when I arrived and there’s food in the refrigerator in the bar. Evidently, the last managers were here until closing last night from the look of things.”
“No use in taking the food from here to there, and besides, the grill is bigger than that tiny stove I saw in there.” He went to the refrigerator and brought out bacon, eggs, cheese, and a bag of onions and peppers chopped up together.
Jorja hiked a hip onto one of the barstools and watched him like a hawk. Did she not know how to make an omelet or use a grill? Cameron wondered. Dammit! What kind of partner had Merle stuck him with?
When the green light said the grill was ready to use, he cracked four eggs into a bowl and whipped them with a fork. Before he could pour them out on the grill, Jorja hopped down, rounded the end of the bar, and headed for the refrigerator.
“What do you think you’re doin’?” he asked.
“I’m going to make myself an omelet, but I want bacon in mine, and maybe a hash brown and some grilled toast to go with it. If I’m going to eat this late, I’ll just call it breakfast, so move over and let me have my half of the grill,” she said.
Granny had damn sure been right when she said the redhead could hold her own. She’d be a force to deal with for sure, but after ten years of bartending, Cameron figured he’d seen about everything. One curvy, feisty little lady didn’t scare him, not unless she was pointing a pistol at his chest, anyway.
Chapter 2
Jorja whipped the eggs in her bowl as if she were trying to beat them to death, but then she was still fuming inside at her grandparents and Merle for putting her in this situation. Not only was she going to have to share the Honky Tonk with the sexiest cowboy she’d ever seen, but their beds were going to be only ten feet apart.
She glanced over at him in time to see one little jet-black curl escape his otherwise perfectly cut hair and come to rest on his forehead. When she finished with the bacon, he reached across to her side of the grill and started to pick the package up, but she slapped his wrist.
“What’s that for?” he asked.
“I’m not finished with that,” she informed him.
“You’ve got half a pound on the grill,” he said. “How much are you planning to eat?”
“Two more slices, and the package only weighs ten ounces so half of that is five ounces, which is a far cry from eight. Don’t judge me. I like bacon.” Did he think she was fat and shouldn’t be eating so much? she wondered. The aroma of frying bacon filling the air made her stomach grumble, so she added another egg to her bowl.
“Besides, if you’d have been here earlier and helped me clean up that room, you would have worked up an appetite too.” She peeled off two more slices of bacon, laid them out on the grill, and then handed what was left of the package over to Cameron. He damn sure didn’t look like any Cameron she’d ever known with those brooding brown eyes and that jet-black hair. His name should have been River or Creed, something totally masculine, certainly not a name like Cameron that could belong to either a man or a woman.
“I take it from your attitude and the smudge of something gray on your forehead that it did not smell all clean and nice when you arrived.” He grinned.
He had one of those thousand-watt smiles that reminded her of a used-car salesman. He could probably sell a forty-dollar shot of whiskey to a poor old cowboy who had to count out his last pennies to buy the drink. Eli Smith had fooled her with a smile just like that five years ago, and she had promised herself that she would never be duped again. Her heart had been broken into too many pieces to ever be put back together.
She wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. “There were dust bunnies as big as baby elephants in there, and a dead mouse under your bed. I should have left your side of the place for you to clean.”
“But you didn’t because you thought I was a female, and you were trying to start off on the right foot.”
If his smile got any bigger, she would have to drag out her sunglasses. “I figured if I left your side, then you’d stir up all the dust that I left, and it would float back over to my part of the apartment.”
“I suppose I owe you a thank-you.” He flipped his bacon over so it would get crisp on both sides.
“No, you owe me more than that,” she told him, “and I will collect someday.”
A dozen ways to make him pay came to mind. The first and foremost was to make him drag the mattress off his bed and sleep out in the bar rather than in the apartment with her. That would make him think she was afraid of him and give him power over her. After Eli, there was no way in heaven, hell, or on earth that a man would ever again have that kind of control in her life.
“Just tell me when, darlin’,” he drawled.
“I’m not your darling, and never will be. We are partners and roommates, and that’s where it ends.” She shook a fork at him.