"Charles L. Grant - Raven" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Charles L)

supposeтАФyou asked her to marry you ... in here?"
Havvick nodded, still grinning.
Neil sighed loudly toward the ceiling, leaned over, and kissed the young woman's cheek, smelled the peach scent of
her hairspray, and wondered if the gossip was true. "Congratulations, Trish," he said warmly. "I'll bring some
champagne over in a minute, but don't you dare give this creep any. He doesn't deserve it."
She kissed him back, giggling, covering her mouth with both hands.
Oh brother, he thought, shook his head and left them, reached the bar steps and glanced back.
They were holding hands again, beaming at each other, trying to climb into each other's eyes, and they cast no
reflection in the drapery-framed window. There was noth-ing there but the night, and the faint glow of the blacktop
road beyond the fence at the top of the gentle slope.
Startled, somewhat unnerved, he leaned sideways a little, a spider plant's tendril caressing his cheek before he
brushed it away.
There it was.
It had been the angle.
Lustful ghosts set in ebony, a ghost room behind them.
The angle.
A silent suggestion that he'd been working too hard, and he hurried over to the bar. Behind it, the bartender, in
ruffled white shirt and snug black trousers, leaned back against the bottle shelf, reading a book. She glanced up as he
approached, staring at him as if he were a stranger, and an unwelcome one at that.
"Champagne," he said, dropping onto a leather stool, its curved back just high enough to keep him from toppling to
the floor. "Havvick finally popped the question."
"You're kidding."
"Kissed the bride-to-be myself."
"Hell," she muttered, "you wouldn't be the first." The book dropped to the bar. "Jackass. All he wants to do is get
laid for free."
"Hey, give the kid a break, Julia."
Her expression was doubtful, but she shrugged, it's his stupid funeral, blew a stray hair out of her eyes.
He acknowledged the unspoken apology with a wink, and allowed himself to watch her shirt, her trousers, stretch
and tighten as she reached under the bar for a chilled bottle and glasses. Maybe the cabins hadn't been such a great
idea since they were seldom ever occupied, and maybe he really ought to add the deck and the hell with the damn
animals cute or not if it brought in some extra profit, but hiring Julia Sanders to tend the drunks and the wine crowd
and the bourbon or scotch-forget-the-damn-water guys had been, even if he did say so himself, a touch of
unaccustomed brilliance. Dark flame for hair and dark em-eralds for eyes, she was attractive enough to keep the men
around for one drink more than they'd planned on, but not threatening enough to drive the ladies away.
And one night, during her second weekend, Nester Brandt had tried to pinch her, and Julia had decked him without
even looking away from the cocktail she'd been making. The subsequent applause from the assembled pa-trons had
startled, and obviously pleased, her; what pleased Neil more had been the way she had leapt effortlessly onto the bar,
taken a bow, and leapt down again without a word.
No one tried to pinch her, or pick her up again, either.
Except Ken Havvick.
A silver tray, bottle nestled in a silver ice bucket, tulip glasses with pressed white linen napkins folded just so. She
handed it to him, said, "Maybe she'll drown," and picked up her book.
He tried not to laugh as he delivered the gift, tried not to look at the window as he left. He did anyway. The
reflections were there.
Vacation, Maclaren, he told himself then; take a few days off and ... do what? Find someone to buy this place, that's
what. Get out from under. Hard work, nice people, a great bartender in Julia and a fine cook in Willie Ennin, and none
of it added up to a penny more for the pension. A few hours short of forty and not much to show for it but Maclaren's
and callused hands.
Not terrible.
Not terrific.