Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
ANABELLE
By the time Saturday night comes, I can’t wait to get off Midnight Manor’s grounds. Normally I would head home to see my family, but I can’t handle the idea of seeing zero improvement in my mother this week.
Ever since my conversation with Jack yesterday, I keep seeing flashes of my father’s dead body in my head, so instead of driving home, I ask one of the workers who is leaving until the morning if he would mind dropping me off at the Black Magic Bar.
My only mission for tonight is to drink so much that the image of my father’s dead body leaves my head.
I’ll worry about how I’ll get back to Midnight Manor later.
I push past the rickety door of the bar and glance around inside. There’s no one here that I know right now besides the bartender, which is preferable. I’m not up for making chitchat with anyone.
“Hey, Sawyer.” I take a seat on one of the wooden barstools along the bar.
The place hasn’t changed since high school.
We’re a small town, and the Black Magic Bar has never been huge on making sure you’re of age to drink.
The owner is a strange woman—in her late fifties now, I’d guess—and there are always rumors that she’s a witch or something.
I think it’s just because of the bar name, but there’s no doubt she’s a little out there.
An exposed brick wall holds the shelving where all the bottles of liquor are lined up like soldiers.
Interspersed between them are various knick-knacks—voodoo dolls, portraits of tarot cards, half-burned candles of different colors, crystals, skulls.
Those themes repeat throughout the small bar in the wall décor and the things hanging from the ceiling.
I’ve always likened it to a creepy dive bar.
“What can I get you, Anabelle?” Sawyer asks.
He was a few years ahead of me in school and never went anywhere after graduation. I can’t imagine why.
“A shot to start, pick whatever. Then a whiskey sour.”
His eyebrows raise. Probably because I’m usually a beer girl. “Long week?”
“You could say that, yeah.”
He nods, knowing enough not to ask anything further. People in these parts are good about minding their business. At least in front of you. Magnolia Bend keeps the gossiping behind your back.
I pull the book I’m reading from my bag. I’ll read until I’m drunk enough that the words start to blur.
Sawyer slides a shot glass down the bar to me. I lift it and toss it back, coughing a bit when the taste of tequila hits the back of my throat.
“Lime?” he asks, hand on the bowl of limes in the middle section of the bar.
I shake my head and wave him off, picking up the whiskey sour he set in front of me to chase down the shot.
It’s a good start, but I’ll need more if I want to push away all my intrusive thoughts.
It seems as if the more time I spend isolated at Midnight Manor, the harder it’s becoming to turn away from the demons that chase me.
I sip on my drink as I read. The book I’m reading is a small-town romance about a large family who lives in Alaska. It feels worlds away from where I am, which is exactly what I need right now.
When I’m on my third drink within an hour, I hear my brother’s voice behind me, and I stiffen.
“Figured I’d find you here.”
It’s not that I don’t want to see Luke. It’s just that seeing him makes me think of the rest of my family, and not thinking about my father or my mother was the goal tonight.
I put the bookmark in my book and turn on my barstool to face him. “Hey.”
He frowns, probably either because he can tell I’m already half drunk or because he can see the sadness flooding from all the cracks in my armor.
“How come you didn’t come to the house tonight? Grandmother was worried.”
I shrug. “Didn’t have it in me to see Momma tonight. It’s been a long week.”
His forehead wrinkles, and he takes a couple of steps closer. “Are they forcing you to do something you don’t want to up there?”
I shake my head. “Nothing like that. It’s just a bad week, that’s all.”
His shoulders fall. “Well, I’m glad you’re here instead of up there, even if you’re not at home. The fleet was moving through town when I came in here.”
I rush over to the window and watch as a stream of expensive cars with blacked-out windows make their way through town as they do on the last Saturday of every month. No one has to wonder where they’re going because we all know—Midnight Manor.
I’d forgotten that tonight was the night for whatever weird shit goes on at Midnight Manor. It dawns on me that this is probably exactly why Asher Voss gave me Saturday nights off.
“Any idea what that’s about now that you’re on the inside?” my brother asks me on my left.
“None. The people who work there are nice, but they aren’t exactly forthcoming about anything to do with the Voss brothers.
” A huge part of me wants to know why these mysterious strangers arrive at the manor once a month, but it’s not something I’m going to figure out tonight. “C’mon. I’ll buy you a drink.”
Luke follows me back to the bar, and I order us each a shot and a drink. I should be feeling really good after I finish these.
I chat with my brother about how things are going with him running the estate. He seems to have a pretty good handle on things but tells me that the coffers are pretty lean, and he needs to have a good year in order to keep things in the black.
“If anyone can do it, you can, little brother.”
He chuckles. “I appreciate the confidence, but I think you’re probably just drunk.”
I laugh and lean into him. “Maybe, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”
He smiles at me, and the way he does reminds me of before. Before my father died, before my mother fell apart, before I was beholden to a man I’m drawn to but know without a doubt could ruin me.
“What’s wrong? Why did your expression just change?” Luke asks.
“What? Nothing, I’m fine.”
He takes my hand. “If it’s horrible, whatever you’re having to do for Asher Voss, you can leave. We’ll figure something else out.”
I know he believes that, and I know he wouldn’t judge me if I did break my deal with Asher, but he’s wrong. The only way out from under the crippling debt my father accumulated, the only way to keep our family’s estate, is for me to do this. At least there’s an end date.
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”
He squeezes my hand. “You know I’m going to until you’re out from under his thumb.”
I give him a sad smile. “I can handle it.” I think. “I’m going to use the restroom. Be right back.” I slip off the stool a little too quickly but catch myself on the bar.
“Maybe you should slow down on the drinks,” Luke says.
“Little late for that.” I stick my tongue out at him and half stumble, half walk to the bathroom.
When I come out, I stop, almost falling over. Galen stands beside my stool, the book I’d left on the bar in his hand. He isn’t in his sheriff’s uniform, so he must be off duty tonight.
The bar is full of people by now, and I don’t want to make a scene, but I stomp toward him and rip the book from his hand anyway, bending to shove it into the bag I have resting against the bar. Luke has to rest his hand on my back when I pop back up so I don’t stumble.
“Why do you bother with that shit?” Galen asks me in a condescending tone.
“Reading?” I arch an eyebrow and cross my arms.
“That crap is totally unrealistic.” He laughs and looks at my brother as if waiting for Luke to back him up.
But Luke shakes his head and sips his drink.
“It’s not unrealistic to think that a man can fulfill a woman emotionally and physically,” I say. “Just because you haven’t had any experience with it doesn’t mean it’s not possible.”
Galen smiles as though I didn’t just insult him. “Why would you need to be reading about fictional men when you can have me?” He puffs out his chest and flexes his bicep. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse.
I slide back onto my stool. “I already told you that’s never going to happen.”
He blows out a breath and shakes his head as though I’m too cute for words. “You don’t have to pretend anymore, Anabelle. I feel the same for you.”
I lift what’s left of my drink and down it in one big gulp. “I’m not pretending anything, Galen. In fact, I think I’ve been pretty clear about how I feel about you.”
Luke chuckles to my right, staying out of it.
“Went by the estate a few times over the past couple weeks. You’re never there.”
“Maybe you should take that as a sign.” I give him a saccharine smile.
Galen waves me off, still unable to take an insult.
Luke, my grandmother, and I all agreed not to tell anyone where I was.
The last thing we want is the townsfolk gossiping about our involvement with the Vosses or my father’s apparent gambling problem.
It’s not unlikely that some of them would stop doing business with the farm or the distillery if they thought we were somehow tied to the Voss family.
Thankfully, the other staff at Midnight Manor seems to be keeping my presence there quiet. I imagine they had to sign the same kind of NDA Asher included in my contract.
“I’m ready to leave.” I turn to my brother. “Can you drive me home?”
“Sure thing.” Luke gets up off the stool and bends to pick up my bag for me. “See ya around, LeBlanc.”
I walk toward the door. “Hopefully I won’t see you, LeBlanc.”
I use his last name rather than his first, hoping it will piss him off, but I don’t think it works because Galen just laughs as I step into the warm night air and look to my right. Midnight Manor is all lit up at the top of the hill.
Although I was eager to leave the grounds earlier tonight, now I feel its pull like a siren’s call. What the hell?