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Could he trust Mark to keep the news about Leah quiet? The truth was, he didn’t know. But there’d be hell to pay if anyone in his family interfered with him and Leah now.

Joey was at the stove, ladling chowder into a huge bowl.

“Leah said to help yourself,” Joey said. “If you’re thinking about buying the bar, you might as well find out if you like my cooking.”

“Does Leah cook?” She’d been the worst cook in the world, which he’d always found oddly charming since she was so creative in other ways. To find her running a bar and grill was ironic.

“Nope. She has a black thumb in the kitchen, she says.” Joey watched him. “Are you really interested in the bar, or are you just trying to hook up with Leah?”

“Well, why don’t you tell me what’s really on your mind,” Roman said dryly.

Joey didn’t smile. “We’re shorthanded today. One of the waitresses called in sick. Want to help out?”

Roman figured that was as much leeway as he was going to get from the wary cook. “All right.” In New York he sat behind a desk and ran the show. In the Keys he was just another guy, even if he was possibly Joey’s new boss. He’d have to prove himself. It surprised him that he didn’t mind. In fact, he took it as a challenge. “Where’s this going?” He took the bowl of chowder. Joey ladled out a second one.

The cook pointed to a numbered table layout, faded and splattered, nailed on the wall. “Table six.” He turned back to the stove.

Roman carried the bowls out through the swinging doors that separated the kitchen from the bar. The phone was ringing behind the bar. Leah finished filling a glass at the beer tap, then picked it up.

“Shark and Fin.”

Roman moved through the bar, set the bowls of chowder in front of the men at table six. When he turned back to the bar, Leah had an irritated frown on her face. She hung up the phone.

“You’re waiting tables now?” she asked.

“Sure. Might as well get to know the business from the ground up. I’m thorough. That’s how I operate.”

She went back to the beer tap, filled another glass. “Great,” she said, pushing a tray at him. She put a couple more beers on it. “That goes to the table by the door.”

And for the next hour and a half, Roman wore his feet out going back and forth between the kitchen and the bar and the various tables. He noticed that Leah kept up a relaxed interchange with the customers, whose garb varied between scruffy fishermen’s duds and T-shirts and shorts. She smiled that crooked, killer smile of hers—but never at Roman. Whenever he caught her eye, her expression would immediately darken, something frightened lurking there.

He tried to think of ways to approach her without scaring her, but couldn’t think of a damn one except for the one he couldn’t possibly do, which involved kissing the hell out of her. It just about turned his torn-up heart inside out every time he looked at her. Not being able to touch her—yet seeing her, being so close to her—was worse than any medieval torture.

The lunch crowd thinned, and Joey had the temerity to put him to work doing dishes. Roman was pretty sure the cook was testing him. He took it as another challenge and loaded and unloaded every plate as if he was making a fortune on Wall Street doing it.

By the time he was nearly done, his hands were red from the hot water. He hadn’t seen Leah in way too long. He was like an addict, but he had no intention of getting Leah out of his system.

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