Chapter 11
Harper
It’s the day shift at the bar, and it’s pretty chill.
The crowd is always much thinner before five or so in the evening, since most people are at work anyway.
It’s just a few older people who are retired and use the bar like a place to socialize, and those who come in here and there to get food or a quick beer on their way to something else.
Cora is in the back office, hanging out with her coloring books and toys while I work the last half hour of my shift.
Alan, one of the other bartenders, comes in, smiling at me as he goes to get ready for his shift that starts when mine ends.
“Quiet today?” he asks.
I nod. “Yup. Uneventful.”
“Good thing about working in a small town. It’s pretty predictable. Some people think that’s boring, but I say it works out for the best.”
I can agree with him there. The routine of the days is nice, after so much time spent hurrying from one place to the next. It does worry me, that I’m getting too complacent and when it’s time to go back to the way things were, I’m going to be out of practice. But that’s for me to think about later.
The door opens and Lainey comes in, smiling brightly. She stops to talk to someone she knows at a table by the door and then makes her way up to the bar.
“Afternoon, Harper,” she says.
“Hey. What can I get you?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing. I’m here to see you.”
“Oh.” I blink at her. “What’s up?”
“Don’t start worrying now, nothing’s wrong. It’s just a beautiful day today. Too beautiful for you to be cooped up in my brother’s dusty bar.”
“It’s not dusty,” Alan and I say at the same time.
“And I think Everett and Cash would take issue with you calling it just Lincoln’s bar,” I add.
Lainey snorts, her eyes bright. She waves a hand like that’s neither here nor there. “You know what I mean. You and Cora should come to Dolly’s with me for a while. Do something other than work.”
I bite my lip. I like Lainey, but…
“I’m still on shift, technically. For another—” I check the time. “Twenty-two minutes.”
“Alan can start a little early. Can’t you, Alan?”
Alan shrugs a shoulder. “Sure. It’s not like it’s hopping in here or anything. It’s no problem.”
Lainey beams at me. “See? No problem.”
“Okay, okay. Just let me wash up and grab Cora.”
Ten minutes later, the three of us are heading down the street to the diner. Cora looks delighted to see Lainey, who gives her a little hug as we make our way there.
“So,” Lainey says. “How are things going?”
“They’re going. Work is fine, and now that we’re out of that motel, Cora’s been sleeping better.”
“That’s good! Y’all deserve to get good rest, and the Sunset Motel is no place for a little kid. Or you, for that matter.” She sounds firm about that, and I can only imagine what Lincoln told her about the place. “I heard you might be leaving soon?”
I look at her and realize she’s definitely been talking to Lincoln or one of the others about me to have heard that. “Yeah,” I tell her. “Probably soon. Just waiting to hear about this part for my car, and then I guess that’s it.”
“It’s too bad,” Lainey says.
“What do you mean?”
“Just that I’ll miss you.” She smiles at me as we step into the diner. “And I haven’t seen Lincoln this happy in a while.”
That catches me off guard, and I rack my brain, trying to think of times when Lincoln seemed happy. He’s usually hard to read or neutral at best, although I guess when he’s with the other two Alphas he tends to laugh and smile more. But that doesn’t have anything to do with me.
We get waved into a booth, and I finally look up to ask Lainey what she means. “He’s been happier?”
She nods. “Definitely. Lincoln’s got a rough job, you know?
It takes a toll physically and emotionally.
He sees people’s whole lives destroyed. Their families torn apart because someone left the stove on overnight or a log rolled out of the fireplace.
Sometimes because of something as simple as bad wiring.
There was a bad fire about a year and a half ago.
One of the worst in a while, and he lost someone he worked with. ”
My eyebrows climb up my forehead to hear that. I had no idea. Of course being a firefighter isn’t easy, but I didn’t know he was carrying it to that extent. I guess that explains the shadows he’s been dealing with.
“That’s awful,” I murmur.
Lainey nods again. “Yeah. He doesn’t talk about any of it, of course, but I know him. I think having you and Cora around has given him something to be glad about.”
I don’t really know what to say to that. I guess it’s good that we’re not just a burden, taking up space in his home, but I never considered the idea that it could be good for him, and not just a favor he and the others were doing for me and Cora.
Luckily, I’m saved from having to come up with something by a tall older woman coming in with a dog on a leash.
It’s one of those big, fluffy golden retrievers, and Cora’s eyes immediately go wide.
Her head whips around to me, and I don’t need her to say anything to know she’s begging to go say hello.
She turns back to stare longingly at the dog, who settles down right underneath the table Dolly shows its owner to. The woman catches sight of Cora and smiles. “It’s all right, Sunshine is very friendly. You can pet him if it’s okay with your mother.”
“Be gentle,” I remind Cora, and that’s all she needs to slide out of her seat in the booth and go scampering over to kneel under the table with the dog.
Lainey and I both watch for a while, and my heart goes warm at the soft way Cora strokes the dog’s ears. Sunshine turns, presenting her with more of its head and neck to pet, and she makes a delighted little noise, pushing both of her little hands into its plush fur.
“She’s good with animals,” Lainey says with a smile.
“She loves them,” I tell her. “You saw her with that cow the other day. She can be shy around people, but show her a dog or a cow or a cat, and she’s in heaven.”
“That’s so sweet. Have you ever thought about—”
Whatever she was going to say is cut off by Dolly coming over. She’s just as much a force of nature as she was the first time Cora and I came in here, pulling her notepad out of her apron and smiling brightly.
“And what can I get you two lovely ladies this afternoon?” she asks, slipping in to sit down next to Lainey.
I realize I haven’t even checked the menu yet and smile apologetically. “Let Lainey go first,” I tell her. “I’ll be ready by then.” I’m mentally preparing myself to order soup or something else quick and cheap, but as if she can read my mind, Dolly interjects.
“Sheriff Kane and his guys have a standing tab for you,” she says. “So you just go ahead and order whatever you want, all right?”
My cheeks flush with embarrassment. “They didn’t have to do that,” I mumble.
Dolly grins. “They didn’t. But they’re good men, so they did it anyway.”
“Silver Falls is lucky to have men that good.”
“We are, and don’t worry, most of us know it,” she replies.
Lainey grins. “If you tell the three of them how good they are, they get all shy about it too. It’s cute.”
I duck my head, not wanting to think about how ‘cute’ they may or may not be. Luckily, the conversation moves to ordering.
Lainey orders soup and a sandwich, with a side of fries, and I give in to the rumbling in my stomach and get a burger and onion rings. Dolly scribbles the orders down on her notepad and then taps her little stub of a pencil on the polished surface of the tabletop.
“It’s funny, Everett couldn’t be more different from his father, that no good bastard.”
So much for moving on, but now my interest is piqued.
“What do you mean?” I ask her.
Dolly makes a face. “His father used to be the sheriff of Silver Falls.”
“Not a good one, I’m guessing?”
“Not even close.”
There’s definitely more to the story, but Cora comes back over just then, and Dolly is distracted by cooing over her and asking her what she wants to eat. Cora points to a picture of a hot dog on the menu, and Dolly beams.
“Coming right up, sweetheart. I’ll have everything out for you all in just a bit.
” She dashes off to put our orders in, and Cora climbs back into the booth next to me.
She entertains herself scribbling on the back of the coloring page with the crayons at the table for kids to amuse themselves with, and I feel that warmth that’s getting to be familiar now.
Every time Cora gets to do something that a normal kid would do, a kid not bogged down by trauma and loss, something unclenches inside me.
And then clenches back up because I remember this can’t last.
Maybe one day we can find a place that’s safe where she can just be a kid and not have to be on the run with me, but right now…
I’m shaken out of my thoughts by the server coming over with the food, and I thank him softly as we settle in to eat.
Lainey crumbles oyster crackers into her potato soup and then smiles at me as she stirs it around. “So…” she says.
“So?”
“How’s living with my brother going for you? I know he’s enjoying having you guys there, but I can imagine it’s been an adjustment for you.”
I dump some ketchup on my plate and dip an onion ring into it, keeping one eye on Cora as she squirts mustard onto her hot dog.
“It’s been… good,” I admit. “Cora’s settled in and comfortable, which is the most important thing.”
“That is important,” Lainey agrees. “But are you settled in and comfortable?”
I don’t know how to answer that really. I can’t remember the last time I was settled or comfortable. But I’m not about to give Lainey the whole sob story in the middle of this diner, so I just force a smile.
“It’s definitely better than the motel,” I say.
She laughs at that. “Low bar. I’ll tell Lincoln he needs to start doing room service or something.”
“I doubt he has the time.”
“True. For such a small town, sometimes things are busy, busy, busy. Speaking of, have you heard about the Summer Festival?”