Hot Winter Nights (Heartbreaker Bay #6)(30)

She rolled her eyes. “Funny.” She started walking down the first aisle. She got several feet in front of him, enough that he could admire the back view every bit as much as he’d admired the front view.

Realizing he wasn’t following her, she turned in exasperation. “You coming?”

Unfortunately, no. There’d be no coming for him any time soon. “Where are you going?”

“I’m working eight o’clock bingo. Thought you’d want to buy in and sit in the back and check things out.”

“Bingo,” he repeated.

“Yep. You’ve got yourself a real live wire for the evening. You ready for this?”

He looked down into her eyes and had to laugh. He considered himself a man who’d seen and done it all, but he’d never felt so out of his league in his entire life. He was in no way ready for this. Not for bingo. Not for working so closely with her. He wasn’t close to ready for any of it, but especially not ready for her. “Lead the way,” he said.

She flashed him a smile that dazzled him even more than her skimpy elf costume. “Follow me.”

As if he could do anything but.





Chapter 11





#BingoBabe



Molly learned two things about herself that night. One, bingo wasn’t some sweet little old lady thing. It was a no-holds-barred, cutthroat, winner takes all thing.

And two, Lucas was an old lady magnet. He sat quietly by himself, but as the room filled with patrons, he was virtually surrounded and ooh’d and aah’d over.

“You new, honey?” asked one.

“No worries,” cooed another, sitting on his other side. “We’ll show you the ropes.”

He looked up and met Molly’s gaze. She would have said the big, badass Lucas Knight wasn’t afraid of anything, but there was a good amount of fear in his eyes at the moment. She sent him a grin and a thumbs-up.

Two seconds later, her phone buzzed with a text.

I will get even . . .



Oh boy. She risked another peek at him, and even surrounded by trembling gray hair buns, he flashed her a look that had her insides quivering.

Why was it getting more difficult to resist him?

“What do you need me to do?” she asked the two green-capped elves at the front who’d introduced themselves as Shirley and Lorraine.

“Well since you look like the hottest elf anyone’s ever seen,” Shirley said, “you’re on numbers. When it pops up on the screen, you call it. Loudly. Most of the payers are deaf so we also flash it on a big screen. Lorraine will do that. Don’t forget to flirt with the crowd, wink, stuff like that.”

“And shake it,” Lorraine said. “Maybe we’ll get bigger tips and the boss’ll finally be happy and pay it forward and give us a bigger cut of them tonight.”

“I didn’t get to meet him,” Molly said. “Is he . . . unhappy?”

“Shouldn’t be,” Janet said, coming up to the bingo table. “Sorry I’m late.”

Molly looked at her, surprised to see her because the other night at her kitchen table, Janet had mentioned she wouldn’t be working again until she got paid what she felt she had coming.

Janet shrugged. “The green-capped elves get better tips,” she said. “And I need the money.”

“Apparently so does Santa,” Shirley said. “He just built a new home in Napa and bought a brand-new car. And he’s started renovations on this hall.” She pointed to the back half of the building, which was completely draped from view by tarps.

“And he sent his latest wife on a three-month world cruise,” Lorraine said. “Don’t forget that one. Carol went from a green cap to the Mrs. Santa cap without having to pass Go!”

“Didn’t you hear?” Shirley asked. “Carol dumped him last month. Rumor is, he’s working on someone new.”

“Wait, you guys don’t get your cut of the tips either?” Molly asked, trying to keep them on track.

The ladies all looked at each other and suddenly zipped it.

“Look, I don’t mean to pry,” Molly said. “But you’re entitled to your own tips, you know. If you all said something, maybe—”

“Listen,” Shirley said, looking around to make sure no one was looking at them. “You’re new so you don’t know, but it’s not healthy to ask a lot of questions around here.”

“Not healthy?” Molly asked. “What, are we in a mob movie?”

The ladies didn’t crack a smile.

Okaaaaay. “The woman in the office who hired me, Louise, she told me that we all get minimum wages plus a cut of the tips, and then a percentage of the profits.”

The elves snorted.

Shirley looked around and then leaned in. “Near as we can figure out, they’re skimming off the top, as if to make sure no one was paying them any attention, stealing all the profits, which leaves us with only bare minimum wage.”

“And you’re sure there really are profits?” Molly asked.

“Trust me, yes,” Shirley said. “You’ll see at the end of the night.”

They then proceeded to run bingo for three straight hours to a crowd of geriatrics who took the game incredibly seriously.