Page 1 of Feels Like the First Time
Chapter 1
Nothing pissed off Bradley Hawk quite like being played. Except being played while wearing nothing but boxers and an epic case of bedhead.
For a guy whose front door faced Main Street, grabbing his hockey stick, forgoing jeans, and rushing out the door was a bonehead move. But he’d heard the alarm sound, the one rigged to let him know if someone was tampering with his inventory, and he acted without thinking.
A trait he’d worked hard to overcome, with little success.
Over the past few weeks, several empty kegs had disappeared from his bar. Not enough to call the cops, but enough to make him think one of his employees was selling them on Craigslist.
It wasn’t about the money. For Hawk, it came down to the fact that he was getting screwed over by someone he trusted. Because the Penalty Box wasn’t just a sports bar and grill, it was his home. The employees, his family. And he refused to let his home be torn apart from the inside.
Not again.
So pants be damned, Hawk raced down the steps of his apartment, which sat above the bar. The wood planks were cold beneath his bare feet, slick from the fog that had rolled in off the Pacific Ocean.
It was late spring in Destiny Bay, and Mother Nature was acting as if she were menopausal, her mood fluctuating from hot flashes to freeze your nuts off. This morning’s mood was the latter.
The sun was beginning to rise over the lush peaks of the Cascade Range, painting the sky a hazy mosaic of purples and blues. It was barely past dawn.
Meaning, it was too early for this shit.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t too early for the Senior Steppers to be out. Dressed in their matching velour sweat suits, white walking shoes, and knit caps, the group was hitting their stride and passing Steel Magnolia’s, the garden art shop next door, when Hawk hit the sidewalk.
A collection of shocked gasps filled the air. Two of the ladies even clasped their chests in a way that had Hawk skidding to a stop.
“Sorry if I scared you, ladies,” Hawk apologized, dropping his hockey stick to a nonthreatening pose by his side. “Did you see anyone suspicious walking around the parking lot?”
“We were too busy staring at your stick to notice,” Fiona Callahan, his best friend’s grandmother said, her eyes dipping embarrassingly low. “About time, too. We started to feel left out, seeing as all of the other girls in town had their peek.”
“Can I get a picture with me holding it?” Margret Collins, the senior center’s Sunshine Girl, said pulling out her phone. “For Instagram. I’m trying to build my following. And me holding a Stanley Cup winner’s stick would gain a lot of likes.”
It would gain Hawk a never-ending supply of shit from his friends.
“Maybe later, I gotta go,” he said, ignoring the giggles, and a catcall from the pastor’s wife that would make even the most confident man blush. The camera flash that lit up the parking lot as he raced toward the loading dock behind the bar,thatwas hard to ignore.
Hawk reached the dock, saw the stack of empty kegs that he’d left out as bait, and nothing else. No prowler, no group of employees plotting how to take down the bar one keg at a time. He spun around, looking in all directions, his eyes expertly scanning the shadows for movement. Nope, Hawk was completely alone—and missing three kegs.
Crap.
He lowered his stick once again and considered accepting the loss. That way he could go back to bed and pass out until next week. A decent night’s sleep would bring some perspective to the situation.
Ever since he and his best friend’s company, Two Bad Apples Hard Cider, had taken off, Hawk was busting his ass to fulfill cider orders by day, and running his bar at night.
Today marked his first day off in three months, and he’d be damned if he was going to spend it in a dark parking lot, contemplating who was screwing with his stuff.
Determined not to waste another second, Hawk headed for his apartment. He’d made it as far as the middle of the lot when a loud noise came from the back of the garden art shop next door.
Normally this wouldn’t set off red flags, since the owner tended to work at the most infuriating hours—namely, the five hours Hawk actually got to sleep.
But this wasn’t the normal power saw cutting through steel grating he’d come to know and loathe. This was more of a scraping of metal across the concrete.
Like someone dragging a keg through Steel Magnolia’s back room.
Hawk closed his eyes and let out a slow breath, for the first time feeling sorry for the poor SOB who had the misfortune of trying to hide stolen property in Ali Marshal’s work space. Ali didn’t like people invading her space, and she might be small enough to pass for Tinkerbell, but she packed one hell of an attitude.
Not to mention she was lethal with the blowtorch.
“You might want to come out,” Hawk said, crossing the parking lot and walking up to the back door of the repurposed firehouse. “You’re safer facing the music and turning yourself in, trust me.”
