Double the Heat by Deirdre Martin, Lori Foster, Elizabeth Bevarly, Christie Ridgway

lined her eyes thickly with kohl.
    “Mrs. C. has been raving about you coming for days,” Christie continued. “Psyched about living in the city?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “I just work here a few nights a week to earn some extra money. I’m a firefighter.”
    Lennie was impressed. “Wow.”
    “Where’s Rudy II, Mrs. C.?” Christie asked.
    “Resting at home.” Aunt Mary looked at Lennie. “Usually my boy comes with me. Everyone here loves him.”
    “Speak for yourself,” grumbled a strapping, white-haired old man behind the bar. He wiped his hands on his apron before he, too, extended a friendly hand to Lennie. “Jimmy O’Brien. My brother, Charlie, and his wife, Kathleen, own the Hart. I’m helpin’ out till my nephew, Liam, gets back from Ireland.”
    Lennie liked his Irish accent; it made him sound soft and gentle, not the voice she expected to hear coming out of such a bear of a man.
    “Let me go get them so you can meet them,” said Jimmy, hastily slipping out from behind the bar.
    “No, really, there’s no—”
    Too late. Jimmy was on his way toward the back of the restaurant. Lennie turned to her aunt. “They all seem friendly,” she murmured, pleasantly surprised.
    Aunt Mary frowned. “Not everyone is so friendly.” She discreetly tipped her head toward a somber-l ooking older gentleman sitting alone at the far end of the bar. “That’s the Major. Irish. Barely says a word.” She plucked at Lennie’s arm again, this time pulling her to the left, toward a thin, tall, scruffy man nursing a beer.
    “PJ, this is my niece, Lennie.”
    The man smiled, revealing a row of slightly crooked, slightly yellowed teeth. Definitely a smoker , Lennie thought. Maybe a coffee drinker too . He looked a bit like a professor down on his luck, with his threadbare tweed jacket. Even so, there was an aura of charm about him.
    “PJ Leary. Pleased to make your acquaintance. I must say, we all feel as if we know you; your aunt here has been talking about you for weeks.”
    Much to her surprise, Lennie found herself blushing.
    “PJ is our resident novelist,” Aunt Mary informed Lennie. “Famous.”
    “Well, I wouldn’t say that,” said PJ modestly. His brow furrowed with concern. “No Rudy?” he asked Aunt Mary.
    “He’s not feeling very social today,” Aunt Mary replied with a sigh. “In one of his reflective moods.”
    PJ nodded sympathetically, amazing Lennie. Her aunt had told her how everyone down at the Hart loved her parrot, but she’d taken it with a grain of salt, putting it down to her aunt’s somewhat overactive imagination. But it seemed Aunt Mary wasn’t exaggerating.
    Aunt Mary pointed toward a table in the dining room, where a group of four men sat laughing. “See the handsome one with the salt-and-pepper hair?” Lennie nodded. “That’s Quinn O’Brien. He’s a well-known newspaper reporter. His parents own this place. I won’t drag you over there; he and his newspaper cronies look like they’re trying to relax. But I’m sure you’ll meet him eventually. He’s taken, by the way. Married to a French woman.”
    “I’m not interested in a relationship,” Lennie replied, almost meaning it. Never say never.
    “Good,” her aunt said emphatically. “You keep your head down and study.”
    A loud laugh went up from another table of men sitting directly across from Quinn O’Brien and his friends, drawing Lennie’s attention. There were seven of them, all well built.
    “Who are they?” Lennie asked.
    Her aunt’s eyes cut to the table suspiciously. “Hockey players. Their usual bar closed down, and they’ve taken to spending time here. Charlie and Kathleen say they’re nice, but they look like a pack of brutes to me.”
    Lennie ignored her aunt’s melodramatic statement. They didn’t look like a pack of brutes to her; they just looked like hockey players. She enjoyed hockey, and had met lots of players over the years, since Saranac Lake was close to Lake Placid, whose