All the Right Moves - By Jo Leigh Page 0,2

one of the richest men in America, got impatient and rescinded his offer to make John his private pilot.

He looked toward McCarran Airport and saw a commercial jet taking off. Leave at home was always disconcerting. Not going to the base made him feel vaguely anxious. No doubt he’d end up stopping by at some point. He’d see the guys over the next ten days. A few of his buddies were meeting for dinner and then club-hopping tomorrow night and then there was the party at Shane’s house coming up.

What to do now was the problem. He didn’t feel like TV or drinking alone or doing much of anything. Except driving. He hadn’t given the Corvette a good run yet. Slipping his phone into his pocket, he turned off the TV, then grabbed his keys from the kitchen counter. He’d head out to the desert and find a nice long stretch of road. And hope he avoided a speeding ticket.

* * *

“I NEED ANOTHER PITCHER. Oh, and two frosted mugs.”

Cassie O’Brien looked up from the textbook she had stashed by the plate of cut-up limes, and squinted at Lisa, then toward the pool tables at the back of the bar. “Who’s asking for fresh mugs?”

“Pete and Lou.” The waitress made a face. “Sorry. You need me to wash glasses?”

Cassie sighed. “No, but I wouldn’t mind you turning down the volume,” she said, glancing up at the speaker hanging from the wall between the Grateful Dead and Sugarland Express posters.

Good thing she didn’t have a gun hidden under the bar or she’d be tempted to shoot the damn jukebox. She didn’t exactly hate country music, and she didn’t even mind when the tunes got loud. But it was hell trying to study with all that racket.

“Your brother needs to hire another person for times like this.” Lisa eyed the psychology textbook as she dragged a chair under the speaker, then climbed up on it. “You should find someone willing to work odd shifts. He doesn’t know what’s going on around here half the time anyway.”

It wasn’t so much Lisa’s snippy tone but how she’d referred to Tom that tipped off Cassie that the lovebirds had had another fight. There was no doubt it was Tommy’s fault. She loved her brother. She did. But ever since he’d come back from Iraq he’d been tough to deal with, and unfortunately, Lisa suffered the brunt of his slippery moods. Cassie understood his bitterness, everyone did. But Lisa had stuck by him through months of rehab, filling in when Cassie couldn’t. Lisa loved Tommy, but the big dope was so caught up in his past he couldn’t see what was staring him in the face now.

Cassie was going to have a long-overdue talk with him. But first she had to seriously crack the books and take her three final exams. Not just take them, ace the suckers. The job market was too tight for an average grad student to expect to land anything decent. And dear God, she didn’t want to be a bartender her whole life. Or even by the time she hit thirty in two very short years.

In a week exams would be over and she would be able to breathe again.

At least until her final two classes started in September. Once she finished, then just maybe she’d find a real job before she was eligible to collect social security.

“Is that good?” Lisa asked, one hand hovering near the speaker’s volume control, the other flattened to the wall to steady the wobbly chair.

“Perfect.” Cassie wiped her hands on the towel hanging over her shoulder and held the chair until Lisa climbed down. “Thank you. Here’s your pitcher and fresh mugs.” She pushed the tray toward Lisa, blew at the annoying loose curl that had escaped her ponytail and leaned over the bar so she could be heard in the back. “Everyone hang on to your mugs. The dishwasher is broken.”

“I’ll come wash your glasses, you sweet thing.” It was Spider. “Wouldn’t want your pretty little hands to get shriveled up.”

Cassie and Lisa both shook their heads at the raucous laughter coming from his fellow pool players, most of them veteran bikers like Spider. She let him get away with more than most because he was old enough to be her father. In fact he’d ridden with her parents and the Diablo Outlaws for a few years when she was a toddler.

“I imagine you have your own shrinkage to worry about,” she shot back,