Page 62 of Mystery in the Mountains

Their eyes met, and she beamed at him.

She could still feel him in a crowded room. It warmed a part of him that had been cold for a very long time.

He pulled out the barstool and sat.

“Hey, handsome. What can I get you? Just so you know, Ol’ Ray did bring some moonshine . . . He said Dusty wanted it. I can get you some of that,” she joked with a wag of her eyebrows.

Ray’s moonshine was the stuff of legends—and not in a good way. His dad used to swear it could be used to peel paint.

“Whoa, Sunshine. I thought we were getting back together. I didn’t think you were going to try and kill me.”

Sunny laughed and tossed her hair over her shoulder, and it was all he could do to not jump over the bar and do dirty things to her.

The way Mitch’s eyes kept following her told him not only was that not an option . . . but he also might have to punch him in the face.

“Has he been like that all night?” he said, nodding over to him.

“He’s harmless.”

Asher didn’t like it, but he trusted Sunny. She’d put many guys in their place over the years.

“Just give me a beer,” he said.

For the next hour, Asher sat on his stool, occasionally chatting with Sunny but, mostly, just watching her.

Of course she had picked up shifts as a bartender. She was a natural. Her face beamed with laughter as she chatted with the regulars.

While Mitch Montgomery could kick rocks, the way Sunny lit up a room wasn’t lost on anyone.

Ever since they met in third grade, Sunny had been just like this. People gravitated toward her to get even an ounce of her warmth.

As the clock ticked on, the bar started to calm down until it was just a handful of regulars about to start their walk home.

“Do you need me to call you a taxi?” Sunny asked a patron.

“No, my old lady’s gonna get me,” he slurred before stumbling out of the bar.

Sunny followed him to the door, and Asher’s eyes never left her until she locked it, switched off the Open sign, and turned and pinned him with a heated gaze.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said as she made her way behind the bar. “I still have some closing duties to finish up before we can get out of here.”

“What do you have to do? I can help.”

“You just sit there and look pretty.” She wiped down the counter.

He shook his head, laughing. “Do the chairs need to be put up?”

“Yeah,” Sunny said from the other end of the bar.

Asher got to work setting up the chairs. “Sweep and mop?”

“Yes, please,” Sunny called from the office, where she was counting her drawer.

They both worked as the jukebox played Patsy Cline.

Asher went into the storeroom to put the mop up as the song changed to “Give Me One Reason” by Tracie Chapman.

A smile stretched across his face at the sound of it, as the song held a lot of memories for them.

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