One More Try

Doc Ryan stood near the edge of it, one hand resting on the back of a chair he hadn’t sat in. At forty-two, he had the kind of face Cordova had apparently agreed to admire on sight: sun-browned skin, dark hair damp from the evening mist, broad shoulders beneath a faded blue shirt. Women found reasons to pass his table. Men found reasons to clap him on the back.

Claire had spent two years watching people make room for him.

Tonight, he was watching her.

Not casually. Not the way a man watched the bartender when he wanted another drink. His attention followed each movement of her hands, lingered when she bent to reach a bottle, returned when she straightened.

She caught him at it.

Doc’s mouth tipped at one corner.

Claire pointed at him with the bar towel. “If you need something, use words.”

“I need something.”

“Then you’re ahead of most men in this room.”

His gaze dropped briefly to her mouth before lifting again. “Put my name on the list.”

“For karaoke?”

“For one song.”

“You don’t sing.”

“I do tonight.”

The request landed strangely. Doc Ryan had never volunteered for the stage. He came in after work, ordered coffee or beer, and sat with the quiet patience of someone who had no interest in being entertained. Until recently, he hadn’t seemed to have much interest in Claire either.

That had changed in small, inconvenient ways.

A cup of coffee appeared beside her elbow when she worked a double. A broken latch on the back door had been repaired before she could call anyone. Three nights ago, Doc had taken a rain-soaked delivery from her hands and carried the boxes inside without asking.

None of it meant anything, Claire had told herself.

Men could be helpful without being dangerous.

She wrote his name on the clipboard. “You get one song.”

His smile deepened. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

“Don’t make me regret being generous.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“That’s exactly what worries me.”

The next singer stumbled through a love song while Claire kept the room moving. She poured, cleared, took money, settled an argument over whose name came next. Every time she glanced toward the stage, Doc was still there.

When his turn came, the room reacted before he touched the microphone.

A cheer rose from the tables. Someone whistled. One of the women near the window shouted, “Finally!”

Claire felt the old irritation tighten beneath her ribs. This was what happened when a man like Doc decided to be charming in public. The whole town leaned toward him. His attention became a spectacle, and she became part of it whether she wanted to or not.

He climbed the two steps to the stage and took the microphone from the previous singer.

“What are you singing?” Claire called.

Doc looked at her. “You’ll see.”

“That is not how the system works.”

“You’re the system.”

“I’m the bartender.”

“Same thing tonight.”

The opening notes filled the room.

Claire recognized the song immediately. An old country ballad about a man asking for one more chance after ruining the first one. The kind of song people chose when they wanted to confess without having to use their own words.

Her fingers tightened around the towel.

Doc sang better than he had any right to. His voice wasn’t polished, but it was low and rough around the edges, carrying something that made the room quiet. He kept his eyes on Claire through the first verse.

She looked away.

The bar needed her. A glass needed wiping. A customer needed change. The ice bin needed filling. She moved through each task with deliberate efficiency, refusing to let the song reach her.

But his voice followed.

At the chorus, Doc stepped down from the stage. He didn’t come all the way to the bar. He stopped several feet away, close enough that she could see the faint white scar near his jaw, far enough that he wasn’t touching her.

That restraint unsettled her more than boldness would have.

He finished the song facing her.

Applause broke over the room. Doc returned the microphone and came to the bar.

“Well?” he asked.

“You survived.”

“I was hoping for more.”

“You got applause.”

“I wasn’t singing for them.”

The towel stopped moving in her hand.

Doc leaned his forearms on the bar, but he didn’t crowd her. “Claire.”

“No.”

“You don’t know what I was going to say.”

“I know enough.”

His expression changed. The teasing eased, leaving him more serious than she wanted him to be. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

“I’ve been working.”

“You avoid me while you work.”

“I avoid plenty of people while I work.”

“Not like this.”

The words pressed against a place she kept carefully locked. Claire set the towel down.

Around them, the bar surged back to life. Someone fed coins into the jukebox. A chair scraped. The door opened, letting in a wash of cool air and the distant cry of gulls.

“You’re making this personal,” she said.

“I am.”

The answer came too quickly to dismiss.

Claire looked at him then. “Why?”

Doc’s jaw worked once. “Because I want to know you.”

“That’s not a reason.”

“It is for me.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know you work until your feet hurt and pretend they don’t. I know you give away food at closing when someone’s had too much to drink to go home hungry. I know you hate when people sing songs they don’t mean.”

Her stomach turned over.

“That last one is an assumption.”

“It’s not.”

She reached for a clean glass, though no one had ordered one. “You’ve been asking questions.”

“I’ve been paying attention.”

“That’s worse.”

Doc’s eyes held hers. “Why?”

Because attention had always started sweet.

It had started with flowers left on a doorstep, with messages sent before breakfast, with a hand at the small of her back in crowded rooms. It had started with men insisting they had never felt this way before. Then came the excuses, the silences, the other women, the sudden changes in tone that made Claire question whether she had imagined the tenderness.

She had arrived in Cordova two years ago with two suitcases, a bruised faith in her own judgment, and no intention of letting another man turn her into a promise he could break.

She polished the glass until it squeaked.

“Go sit down, Doc.”

“I’m not finished.”

“I am.”

He studied her for a long moment. Then he nodded, but the movement held no surrender.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “I’m taking you somewhere.”

Claire gave a short laugh. “No, you’re not.”

“I’ll pick you up at six.”

“You will not.”

“Six-thirty, then.”

“Doc.”

“I’m asking you to have dinner with me.”

“That sounds like a date.”

“It is.”

The simple certainty of it struck harder than a flirtation would have.

Claire placed the glass on the shelf. “You don’t get to decide that for both of us.”

“No.” His voice softened. “You do.”

The room seemed to narrow around them.

He reached into his pocket and drew out a small white card. Not a business card. A folded piece of paper, creased once down the middle. He set it on the bar between them.

“Dinner,” he said. “Somewhere quiet. No crowd. No stage. If you say no, I’ll leave you alone tonight.”

Claire stared at the paper.

The offer should have made it easier. Instead, it made the cost visible. If she accepted, she couldn’t pretend his attention was harmless theater. If she refused, she would feel the loss of something she had not even allowed herself to want.

A burst of laughter rose behind her. The singer onstage announced the next name.

Claire looked at Doc. “One song was the agreement.”

“I know.”

“And now you’re asking for dinner.”

“I am.”

“You’re persistent.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

“I’m sure.”

His hand remained beside the card, palm open. He wasn’t reaching for her. He was leaving the choice where she could see it.

That should have reassured her.

Instead, she remembered every man who had once offered her a choice while quietly arranging the outcome.

“What’s the favor?” she asked.

Doc’s brows drew together. “What favor?”

“There’s always one.”

“Not with me.”

“Everyone wants something.”

“I want dinner.”

“That’s something.”

His gaze lowered, and for the first time all night, uncertainty crossed his face. It was quick, nearly hidden, but Claire saw it.

“I want you to stop looking at me like I’m about to hurt you,” he said.

The words emptied the space between them.

Claire’s throat tightened. She had expected charm. Persistence. Maybe another joke. Not that.

Doc glanced toward the stage, then back at her. “I don’t know who did it. I don’t need the whole story tonight. But I know I’m being punished for it.”

“You’re not being punished.”

“Then what is this?”

She folded her arms. “Self-preservation.”

“From me?”

“From what happens when I believe a man means what he says.”

His face changed again, the confidence stripped away so cleanly it frightened her.

“I mean it,” he said.

The bar noise seemed too loud now. The music, the glasses, the scrape of boots on the floor - all of it pressed against the quiet truth he had placed between them.

Claire looked down at the card.

She wanted to take it. She wanted to tear it in half.

Instead, she slid it beneath the register.

Doc watched her do it.

“That isn’t a yes,” he said.

“No.”

“But it isn’t a no.”

“No.”

His mouth curved, but there was no triumph in it. “I’ll take that.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I’m going to.”

Before Claire could answer, the karaoke machine chimed. The screen flashed her name.

A cheer went up from the nearest tables.

She turned sharply. “Who put me in?”

Doc lifted both hands. “Not me.”

The bartender’s clipboard had been altered. Beneath his name, someone had written Claire’s in thick black marker.

“Absolutely not,” she said.

A customer shouted, “Duet!”

Another joined in. Soon the whole room was chanting it, stomping their feet against the floorboards.

Claire glared at Doc. “You planned this.”

“I didn’t.”

“Your face says otherwise.”

“My face is innocent.”

“Your face has never been innocent.”

He stepped closer, lowering his voice so only she could hear. “You gave me one song.”

“I gave you one song.”

“Give me one more.”

The request should have been easy to refuse. She had refused him all night. She had kept the bar between them, kept her hands busy, kept every dangerous feeling in its proper place.

But his eyes were steady. No performance now. No crowd, no charm. Just the question.

Claire took the microphone from the waiting singer.

The room erupted.

Doc climbed onto the stage beside her. Their shoulders nearly touched. Heat moved through the thin fabric of her blouse where his arm brushed hers, and she hated how quickly her body recognized him.

He leaned toward her. “Pick the song.”

“You’re not choosing this time?”

“I trust you.”

That was worse than any compliment.

Claire scrolled through the list, pulse uneven. Her finger stopped on a duet she had avoided since arriving in Cordova. Two voices circling the same wound, neither willing to admit which one had been bleeding first.

She selected it.

Doc looked at the screen, then at her. “That one?”

“One song,” she reminded him.

The music began.

He sang the first line. Claire answered.

Their voices weren’t perfect together. His was low and weathered; hers carried a sharper edge. But somewhere in the second verse, they found a rhythm that belonged only to them. Doc turned toward her. Claire didn’t move away.

When the final note faded, the applause came softer this time.

Not because the room was bored.

Because everyone had heard what she had tried not to say.

Doc took the microphone from her and set it aside. His fingers brushed hers, a question rather than a claim.

Claire let the contact last one breath.

Then she stepped down from the stage.

“Six-thirty,” he said behind her.

She stopped.

The card waited beneath the register. His invitation waited in the air between them.

Claire turned just enough to see him. “Six-thirty,” she said. “But if this turns into a favor, I’m leaving.”

Doc’s expression held something dangerously close to relief.

“It won’t.”

She wanted to believe him.

That was the trouble.

Outside, the harbor bells began to ring through the pale summer night, and Claire reached beneath the register for the card she had pretended not to keep.

End of chapter one. 29 more chapters in the full book.