The Good Chase by Hanna Martine Page B

Eager Beavers and Drinkers visit her little nook. Truth be told, she’d been skeptical about taking on this kind of private party, but it turned out that she interacted with Yellin’s guests far more than customers at the Amber, and they’d listened to her stories of certain whiskeys with a rapt ear.
    She was already exhausted, however—and so was nearly her entire stock of exceptional bottles—and there were still two hours to go. She ignored the soreness in her feet, the cramp in her cheeks from smiling so much, and the ever-increasing rasp in her voice from the nonstop talking.
    She had another reason to be grateful for the busyness of the evening. It had been nearly four hours since she’d thought of Byrne.
    Crap. Reset the clock.
    A week and a half had passed since the campground. A week and a half of thinking about their conversation and connection. And that kiss. That spark.
    They hadn’t exchanged phone numbers. She’d lamented that for a good day or so, then thought that was perhaps a good thing. She knew where he worked, and vice versa, but then there were her lines. They were still there, despite how she’d tangled them all up in Rhode Island. It wouldn’t feel right, contacting him at his office to start something she wasn’t entirely sure about, now that time had passed. And she was grateful he hadn’t called or stopped in at the Amber, because that meant he was respecting her rules.
    But was she grateful? Really, truly?
    Damn. Reset that clock
again
.
    â€œIs that all that’s left?” Isaac slid behind the bar and took up the same Talisker he’d held at the start of the evening, now three-fourths gone. When Shea nodded, he thrust the bottle at her and said, “Hide it. In the butler’s pantry. Back of the kitchen.”
    With a laugh, she did as told.
    When she came back into the library, the I’m-not-thinking-about-Byrne clock exploded into a thousand pieces. Because he was standing right there, next to the bar.
    He didn’t wear a tux, but a sleek black suit that must have cost a fortune because of the way it fit his unusual body so impeccably. Atop a brilliant white shirt lay a gorgeous tie the exact color of his hypnotic blue eyes. He looked big. He looked bold enough to steal the party away from Yellin. He looked like Bespoke Byrne.
    A group of five men mingled in front of the whiskey bottles, turning them this way and that, making comments she couldn’t hear over the party’s noise. Byrne’s profile was to her, so he hadn’t seen her yet, but as she stood there, dumbfounded, one of the other guys noticed her. He pointed a questioning finger at her, then turned it to the bottles. “You? This?” he mouthed.
    As she started through the crowd, Byrne finally turned. He had a glass of something clear topped with a squeezed lime already halfway to his mouth, but that dropped back down when he noticed her. His lips parted, and if she said she wasn’t thinking about how they’d tasted, she’d be lying.
    He smiled at her, but it wasn’t one of those electrifying, crooked grins. It was with his eyes, with the warm spark and the perfect crinkle of skin around them. Then he shook his head slowly as if he couldn’t believe yet another one of their random meeting coincidences.
    â€œI’m going to start thinking I’ll be running into you at the grocery store,” he said, as she came up to him. “Wow. I was wondering if this”—he gestured to the line of bottles—“was you. I was hoping, I guess.”
    One of the other men in Byrne’s group—late forties, a little paunchy—cocked an eyebrow in interest at that, and Shea started to feel a little poke of panic. This wasn’t the Amber, but it was still work. Still within the walls of the professional life she’d so carefully crafted.
    Byrne glanced at his companion, then back to Shea, and gave her a nearly