He flashed her a smile, and holy mother of God, it was wickedly sexy. It might even have been contagious if she hadn’t been so damn worried that any second now he was going to morph into an angry, uptight, aggressive LA attorney who didn’t know how to control his temper.

No, wait. That’d been her ex, Alex. “Honestly,” she said. “Bad idea.”

“Honestly?”

“What, don’t people tell the truth around here?”

“Oh, the locals tell the truth. It’s just that they tell all the truth, even when they shouldn’t. It’s called gossip. Lucky Harbor natives specialize in it. You can keep a pile of money in the back seat of your unlocked car and it’d be safe, but you can’t keep a secret.”

“Good thing I don’t have any.”

He smiled. “We all have secrets. Come on, I know the bartender. It’ll help you relax, trust me.”

Yes, but she was in the red on trust. Way overdrawn. In fact, the Bank Of Trust had folded. “I don’t know.”

Except he’d nudged her inside already, and her feet were going willingly. The place snagged her interest immediately. It was like entering an old western saloon. The walls were a deep sinful bordello red and lined with old mining tools. The ceiling was all exposed beams. Lanterns hung over the scarred bench-style tables, and the bar itself was a series of old wood doors attached end to end. Someone had already decorated for Christmas and huge silvery balls hung from everything, as did endless streams of tinsel.

Hot Biker had her hand in his bigger, warmer one and was pulling her past the tables full with the dinner crowd. The air was filled with busy chattering, loud laughter, and music blaring out of the jukebox on the far wall. She didn’t recognize the song because it was country, and country music wasn’t on her radar, but some guy was singing about how Santa was doing his momma beneath the tree.

Shaking her head, Maddie let herself be led to the bar, where she noticed that nobody was here to drink their problems away.