Chapter 5
Rory
After lunch, we get pedicures in the salon in the community building, and then we go upstairs to her apartment and I help her pay some bills because she refuses to use autopay.
Grandma’s black cat, Bartholomeow, makes an appearance just in time to sit on the papers I’m trying to read and hiss at me.
At five thirty I drop Grandma off at the nicer restaurant in the building and make the drive over to Morgan’s bar. I’ll be back in a couple hours to stay the night, but Grandma and I need a break after spending all day with each other.
Plus, when the residents show up to dinner alone, they seat all the singles at a big table.
I always hope this ends in a friendship, but Grandma said there’s a new couple who’ve moved into the community on the lower age range and she’s hoping to get in good with them on the off chance the wife dies.
Which sounded more like a threat than I’d like to think about.
I pull open the door to On the Rocks and walk inside. I get about halfway to the bar before I realize that something’s wrong.
Something’s really wrong.
It’s quieter, for one. People are huddled together talking in low whispers. The music’s too mellow for the vibe Morgan usually goes for.
But also, Morgan’s not front and center. It takes me a moment to find him talking to a couple of people down the bar. Like he can feel my gaze, he looks up and . . .
Oh no. That smile is about fifty percent of what it usually is.
Who died?
Morgan leaves his friends and meets me at my seat, grabbing a bottle of Call of the Wild on the way.
“What’s going on?”
Morgan sighs and runs his hand through his hair.
He’s not even going to tease me about starting a conversation? Or call me his queen?
Instead, Morgan leans his elbows against the bar. “It was just announced this morning that the owners are gonna sell the lodge.”
My brows come together. “Not Hunter?”
“No, he’s the GM. The Schaefers are the owners and he runs it when they aren’t here.”
I lean forward, ignoring my beer.
“So someone else will be the boss? Will you lose your job?”
Morgan blows out his breath. Since we’re both leaning onto the bar, this might be the closest I’ve ever been to his eyes, which are a sky blue.
Except for last time. But I wasn’t making eye contact last time.
“It’s more than that,” he tells me. “This town has been struggling for some time now. The lodge brings good business in the winter, but a few years ago they shut down their adventure park, and summers dried right up.”
“But couldn’t someone else buy the lodge?”
He grimaces. “There are a few options and none of them are good. There’s this guy, Joseph Rance, who likes to buy up property and sit on it.
Half the unused buildings in town are empty because of him.
Who knows if he’d actually want to run things.
Then there’s also one of the ski conglomerates up here.
It’s not Vail, but who knows what changes they’d make. ”
He breaks eye contact, looking around the room. “They’d probably shut the bar down to renovate, and it’d be easier to fire me than keep me on. Then they’d want someone with actual food and beverage experience, which I don’t have, other than this place.”
When his eyes come back to mine, they’re duller, missing that twinkle I associate with Morgan.
“That sucks.” Ugh. That’s something you tell people when they get stuck in traffic or something, not when their livelihood—the whole town’s livelihood—is in jeopardy.
He snorts. “Yeah it does suck. Because you know what? You belong here.” Morgan straightens, holding his arms out wide.
I roll my eyes, even though it doesn’t sound like a line. But line or not, it makes my heart flutter with the way he says it.
“I’m serious,” he continues. “That’s our town motto. You Belong Here. We may not be a happening place, and we’ve got our problems, but we live our motto. Everyone is welcome here. Especially you.” He winds down, settling his forearms on the worn wood of the bar.
I belong where my grandmother is, I tell myself firmly. I do not belong in Here, New York. Not with a dying town, not with a grandma who has no friends, and definitely not with a charming bartender.