Chapter 2
“Shit.”
The man backed away, rubbing a knuckle under his eye. She blinked, shaking her head as the world snapped back into place. A truck trundled down the main road, and a distant train whistle echoed off the hills. “I’m sorry. I?—”
“What makes you think I need something?”
“Well, for starters, you fell for John’s ‘trial shift’ stunt.”
Heidi narrowed her eyes. “Perhaps if the person who camped at the bar for several hours had warned me, I would not have fallen for his ‘stunt.’”
She emphasized the point by spinning around and marching toward her hotel.
The man did not argue, but he followed three steps behind with footfalls so soft she barely heard them. They stopped when she passed under the porte-cochère of her hotel, and in the absence of his soft shuffle, she glanced to where he lingered beyond the covered drive.
“Thank you,”
she said. His presence had grated, at first, quickly becoming comfortable as she left the streetlights behind and entered the dark stretch of road between the small downtown and her hotel.
“You’re welcome.”
Hands in his pockets, he rocked back on his heels, then onto his toes. If he started whistling, Heidi was going to scream. She needed a job , not some mountain hillbilly following her around like a lost puppy.
“Ah, so.”
She grabbed the handle. “Good night.”
“Work for me,” he said.
“ Was? ”
English left her. “Was haben Sie gesagt?”
“Work for me.”
He gestured vaguely to the town. “You need a job; I need someone to work the day shift.”
“I never said I needed a job.”
He blinked and stepped back, shadows nearly swallowing him. “I’m sorry; I just assumed that since you got swindled into working for John for free , you needed a job.”
He put up his hands, shrugged, and turned away. “My bad.”
“Wait!”
Heidi was halfway to the edge of the porte-cochère before she stopped herself from running after the man and begging. “What is the job?”
He turned, revealing a sly, tight-lipped smile crinkling a cheek. “I own a bar. Well, it’s more of a beer garden, really. Down by the train tracks.”
“If you own a beer garden, why were you at John’s?”
“Don’t you know the old saying?”
He stepped closer. “Never drink at your own bar.”
“But you were not drinking,” she said.
“No, I wasn’t.”
He rocked back on his heels again, waiting.
“I do not know your name.”
“Cam.”
“Okay, Cam.”
Heidi’s next step took her right up to the edge of the porte-cochère . “I do not know what kind of joke you think this is, but making fun of someone in a desperate situation is the furthest thing from fu?—”
“I’ll give you a week’s pay up front and file the petition to immigration services tonight.”
Heidi’s teeth clacked together.
“Assuming this is a work visa issue, you being trained at … Oktoberfest, was it? Luckily, I know an immigration attorney and have, uh …”
Cam’s eyes darted to the side, and Heidi narrowed hers. It was the move of a liar. A quick one, granted, but a liar nonetheless. “I have connections that can fast-track everything. How long do you have, by the way?”
She considered him. The offer. The liar’s move. It was a risk, one among the many Heidi had taken in recent weeks, but a week’s pay…worst case, she could afford the hotel room and avoid sleeping on the street. Best case, this was real, and she would not have to return to Munich with her tail tucked between her legs.
“Just under three weeks.”
Cam whistled, rocking back on his heels. “You certainly cut things close.”
“I did not—you have no idea?—”
“Kidding!”
He put his hands up in surrender, revealing clean, smooth palms and long, strong fingers. No wedding ring.
Why would that matter?
Cam’s expression turned somber. His eyes flicked to his hand before he lowered his arms and, after a long moment, said in a low voice, “I figured you had to be close if you took that trial shift.”
“If it is impossible?—”
“It’s not.”
He reached out, stopping inches shy, as though thinking better of crossing that boundary for a friendly, reassuring touch. “My friends keep late hours. I’ll get the ball rolling if you don’t mind giving me a few details. Nothing super personal; your name, phone number, um…”
He cleared his throat. “Marital status, birthdate, passport number. There’s a studio apartment attached to the property; I can use it as your address if that’s alright?”
“I—”
Heidi croaked. This was too good to be true, and the temptation to slap the man and storm into her hotel nearly moved her hand. But there was an earnestness to Cam, liar’s move aside, and a quickness to his thinking that she could not help but respond to. This man was a problem solver. He saw that truck careening toward her and acted. He saw that she was getting scammed and offered a solution. He even had a plan to get her a work visa, even if a temporary one, before her travel visa expired.
But could she trust him?
She wanted to. How could she not? He had spared her from being flattened into a pfannkuchen in the middle of a North Carolina state road, then escorted her to her hotel at a safe, friendly distance. Everything about Cam, despite that suspicious flick of his eyes, screamed he was a gentleman. That this was a real offer. A real job. A real solution.
“How about this,”
he said, “you share the information you’re comfortable sharing with me now; I’ll fill in the petition best I can and get my friends pulling strings, then you come by tomorrow morning with your passport to fill in the rest?”
Heidi licked her lips. Then did it again when his eyes dropped to follow the movement of her tongue. His lips parted, white teeth dimpling the plump flesh before he met her gaze.
“Alright.”
She nodded and held out her hand. When Cam did not move to take it, she took the half step to bring them closer. The shadows beyond the porte-cochère blanketed her hand, capping her wrist like a glove, and only then did Cam press his palm to hers.
His grip was strong, steady.
Honest .
The word bloomed in her mind, and her breath caught as he gave one firm shake and withdrew, leaving Heidi’s palm chilled in the absence of his touch.
He smiled, and dimples revealed themselves. “Alright.”
The Black Mountain Beer Garden was a gravel and grass yard framed on two sides by cargo containers facing the train tracks, river, and hills to the south of Black Mountain. A massive pergola covered the garden, strung through with bistro lights, and fans spun lazily in the uppermost corners, cutting the humidity down to a tolerable level.
At the opposite end of the garden, under a smaller, shaded pergola, was a fenced-off play area for children, and beyond that, a strip of grass and a stand with plastic bags. Dog bowls were set beside each table, and on the counter of the cargo container behind her, one that had been modified into a kitchen, large jars filled with kid-friendly snacks sat beneath a signed reading, “$1 to fill yer cup”.
Heidi inhaled the faint aromas of fry oil, herbs, and beer. Of rosemary and cedar wood chips in the planters. Across the tracks, the Swannanoa River tripped and burbled over stones, and a flock of geese chose that moment to wing overhead, their muted honks a chef’s kiss completing the idyllic ambiance.
This , she thought. This is what I wanted.
When she boarded the plane in Munich, fleeing her life and relationships in doing so, she had dreamt of a patio or garden filled with families and clusters of friends or co-workers, meeting and chatting over a beer and a tray of snacks. The type of place depicted in the Hollywood movies she had devoured growing up. And here it was.
Now, where is Wren?
She spun in place, displacing gravel with her heels. Aside from briefly writing down the information she was willing to share, Cam had described the beer garden and instructed her to come by anytime after ten.
“Ask for Wren. He won’t be up before then,”
her new Apparent Boss had said, “so it’s no good trying to get in early. But he’ll unlock the bar, and I’ll leave the paperwork out for you.”
Heidi checked her watch, frowned, and scanned the garden a second time. Already half past the hour, and no Wren, or anybody else, in sight.
“Hallo?”
Heidi called, trying the handle on the door to the kitchen container. Locked. Walking to the bar, she peered over the counter, catching her first glimpse of what sort of establishment Cam ran.
A clean one. Impeccably so. Every tap was plugged, the stools aligned at a perfect ninety degrees, and the coasters stacked evenly at regular intervals on the interior bar.
Behind the bar was just as pristine—washrags in a tidy pile, drip trays clean, dry, and stacked beside the sink, and even rows of pint glasses lined the shelf.
So either Cam had a sharp eye for detail or was a bit of a Type-A personality.
“Either is better than John,”
Heidi muttered, spotting a small stack of papers on one of three cocktail tables filling the narrow space. So a sharp eye for detail and reliable. She pushed away from the counter to try the door, surprised when it swung open. With a quick, settling breath, Heidi made to step inside, halting at a series of loud bumps and a muffled curse coming from under the container.
“What the …”
Another thud and a louder exclamation of “ FUCK! ”
had her skirting along the exterior. She swept up a dog bowl, ready to swing the metal dish at whoever was creeping under the bar, and froze.
A small, tidy building pressed up against the container, and two booted feet stuck out of the crawlspace.
“Hello?”
a muffled male voice called out at the crunch of gravel under her feet. “Whosat?”
“What are you doing?”
Heidi brandished the dog bowl, gripping tight. “You need to leave.”
“Tryin’ to!”
he hollered back. The boots kicked and scrabbled in the gravel, legs earning another inch or so of freedom, and then they flopped in defeat. “M’stuck.”
“Are you stuck?”
She edged closer, lowering the bowl as concern crept in.
“S’what I said, innit?”
One booted foot angrily thumped against the ground. “Can you pull me?”
Tossing the bowl aside, Heidi crouched and grabbed the man by the ankles. His jeans were filthy, the hems worn and frayed. The stink of mulch and damp and mold wafted off of him, and she swallowed a gag. “On three?”
“One, if you like.”
“Eins.”
She tightened her grip. “Zwei.”
Braced her legs in the gravel. “Drei!”
And heaved with all her might. The man shouted in alarm, but his legs gained another three inches. “One more time!”
she yelled before hauling again. Muscles straining, she bared her teeth in a fierce smile as his thighs appeared. “Noch ein mal!”
And again, flying backward when the rest of the man popped out of the crawlspace like a cork.
She landed in the grass, watching with fascination as a middle-aged man with a distressed comb-over, scraggly beard, and wide-set watery eyes flopped on his back and started cackling.
“Hoo girl, he weren’t kiddin’ about you!”
Rolling onto his side, he creaked to his feet and stretched his arms high overhead. Like Cam, he wore a flannel and a t-shirt, and that was where the resemblance stopped. A slight paunch hung off of a bony frame that was barely bigger than Heidi’s, and the stretched-out collar of his filthy shirt revealed a thickly furred chest. “‘Stronger ‘n she looks,’ he said. Told me not to give you any trouble.”
“And you are?”
Heidi rose and dusted off her shorts.
“Wren.”
He held out his hand and walked toward her with a rolling hitch in his step. “Cam said to keep an eye out and unlock the bar so you could get started on that paperwork.”
“Heidi.”
She eyed his hand, weighing the value of politeness over cleanliness. In the end, she needed this job, so she took it. His palm was soft and damp, like a soggy coaster.
“Heh heh, yeah, you are.”
He strolled around the container, giving Heidi another look at his curious gait. She fought the urge to search the beer garden for whatever horse he had ridden down the mountain. “This way.”
He gestured for her to follow. “Right through here. Cam said for you to fill out what you can, and he’ll come get them later to send off to his friends.”