Niamh
Working as a waitress wasn’t so hard. Over the years I’d come to realize that taking a job at the diner was the best form of defense. I didn’t know why, but everyone, be it local, regular, or even a tourist, always ended up at the diner. This was the best form of protection, though not always on a personal level.
Both men and women were not nice, and both could be positively cruel. Yes, I’d had my ass slapped. I’d been called a lot of rude words that I didn’t think children of any age should hear. But I did get to see everyone who arrived in town, which made the diner another great source of protection, While I was making my judgment of people, I was also well hidden. It helped that I wasn’t a pretty girl. I was the kind of woman most people glanced over without a second look. This helped me.
If anyone came to Pickle Quest at my father’s request, I would have time to make my escape, and that was most important to me.
Running away from my father wasn’t the best idea I ever had, but it was the only one that made any sense. Going to my mother was out of the question. My mom was completely in love with Finn, and, well, I was the one at fault for everything. She would gladly sell my ass to the Devil if it meant she’d get a chance to marry Finn.
She had me, and had tried to have more children, but Finn Byrne was a fussy bastard. It would seem he had a taste for women, but once they gave birth, if they didn’t provide him with the right kind of child, then you were all but dead to him.
This should have meant I got to grow up without a father. No such fucking luck. Nope, as much as my mother became dead to him, he kept coming around to play with her. I’d often heard him refer to her as his fuck toy, which was totally gross. She loved it, though, relished every second with him. Finn Byrne was all she wanted.
To be honest, I think she wanted the title he had to offer. It had nothing else to do with Finn. She loved the idea of people being afraid of her. That was the draw for her, the drug. She got a small taste of it and from that moment on, nothing else could compare.
Just thinking about my mother brought back all the anger and frustration I had spent a long time trying to repress. There was a time I worried about the way I felt for my mother. I feared I would turn into the very type of person I hated. The guilt would threaten to completely consume me, but now, I saw the truth.
It had taken me a long time to accept that it’s perfectly fine to not like my parents. Not that it has always been easy to accept. For the longest time, all I ever wanted was to have a family like the ones depicted on billboards, or in cliché movies. Like the dad that wanted to spend time with me and see his little girl grow up, or the mom that didn’t mind baking cookies or making spaghetti sauce from scratch.
That was the life I craved.
I never got it.
In fact, the last time I saw my father, I ended up with a split lip, a black eye, and a cut that bled into my hairline. This wasn’t the first time I’d gotten on my dad’s last nerve. What did I do? I wasn’t pretty enough. He decided I looked too damn ugly, and he wanted to teach me a lesson.
There was a time when he also tried to rip my hair out. Yeah, that sucked. He wanted a blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty. What he got was a brown-haired, brown-eyed ugly. That’s what he called me.
Running away was either a stroke of genius, or completely stupid. I hadn’t made up my mind yet which it was. With no one following me, I was happy to think of it as a genius move, but if he ever came for me, then I’d know I was a fucking idiot.
At least Pickle Quest was nice. Don’t get me wrong, none of the locals were very accepting of a stranger. I’d been in town four months, and still, people didn’t like to make small talk with me. Not that I minded. I wasn’t good at small talk, or any kind of talk. It was easier not to get close to anyone. This meant I didn’t have to fabricate any lies. I decided to keep to the basics. I was Niamh Long, twenty-five years old, and my parents were both dead. A tragic car accident. Graduated high school and since then, jumped from job to job as I traveled. Basic, easy to remember, and it doesn’t give anyone the chance to ask questions.
So far, it had worked for me. It was terrifying. I didn’t know if my father was ever going to come after me. I’d not stolen from him or my mom. Even before I left, I had been sneaking around, doing odd jobs, building some savings. The plan had always been to leave. Knowing who my father was, and what he was capable of, meant the only solid plan I had in my life was to run like hell.
That was all I wanted to do.
To be free.
Freedom wasn’t quite as fun as I thought it would be. There was always that fear. The fear of my father finding where I was and ruining it. This is why I didn’t even bother to try and make friends. I was guessing that was why the good locals of Pickle Quest hadn’t tried to run me out of town.
I was a single woman, working hard, and not getting into anyone’s business. This was all I wanted.
Plastering on a fake smile, I put down the latest steak-and-fries order. Three guys—I think they were ranchers—always came in and ordered the largest steaks the diner had to offer. The first day I worked here, I got their order wrong, and they made my life so damn hard that day. The next time, I got their order right, I expected the same kind of treatment, yet they left me alone.
This had been our pattern. They came in, ordered the biggest steak and fries, along with lots of coffee. I served them, they ate, and left.
When I first saw them, I thought they were going to cause a lot of trouble, but nope, just nice guys with a rough exterior.
My smile was pointless. With the last plate ordered, I spun around toward the door as I heard the bell dingle.
A guy I had never seen before stepped into the diner, cell phone in hand, along with a scowl on his face. My first instinct was to run. There was something about this guy that had every alarm bell going off inside my head.
I needed to run.
But he didn’t even look around the diner. He didn’t even see me noticing him, with how attentive he was to his cell phone. The only time he glanced up was to check for a seat, and I noticed he went toward the far corner of the diner and slid inside the small booth.
The diner wasn’t too busy today, so he did have a choice. Lunchtime run had already gone, which meant we were on a steady slump till about five o’clock, when the dinner rush would start. So far, I’d not experienced anything too troubling.
This man, though… My alarm bells were ringing with his deep-black hair, and I think I’d spotted blue eyes, maybe. I hadn’t really paid too much attention. He wore a white shirt, rolled up to his elbows, showcasing several tattoos, and that wasn’t unusual either. A lot of the men in Pickle Quest loved to get inked. Even the three guys I served regularly had their arms heavily inked. The man in the corner was also dressed in jeans and what looked like boots. Work boots? I didn’t know.
No one was serving that corner other than myself. This was a risk. I promised myself that any question of doubt, and I’d be hightailing it right out of there. That was the super plan. Only, running away would mean defeat, for a guy that might have never come into the diner.
With my notepad and pen in hand, I made my way toward the mystery man. Squaring my shoulders, I was trying not to seem as tense as I felt. This was next to impossible. I felt so incredibly tense.
Standing in front of this man, I tried not to think or to feel, or to showcase fear. I had no idea if I was managing to achieve these things.
“Afternoon, what can I get you?” I asked.
He didn’t even look up. His cell phone seemed to be interesting to him, which I was more than okay with. It allowed me to look at him closely to see if I recognized any distinguishing marks, like my father’s insignia. Finn Byrne liked to use the insignia of a bull with horns dripping with blood. It was always a small symbol, but it was ugly as fuck. My dad always said that anyone willing to mark their body with such an ugly piece of shit would be loyal to him. There also had to be the initials, “FB.” For generations my father and his father, and his father’s father, had always been called Finn Byrne. This is why it was important to my father to marry the woman who had given him a son.
I had a brother out there. Actually, I had a lot of brothers and sisters. A woman finally giving birth to a son hadn’t meant my father remained loyal to her. Nope. There were a lot of us Byrnes.
Seconds passed, maybe even minutes, as I stopped and waited for whatever he was going to order.
“What’s good here”—he stopped to look up“Niamh?”
Okay, first, I loved his deep, guttural voice. It was kind of shocking, yet exciting at the same time. There was a slight accent there I couldn’t quite place. It was so subtle, it was impossible to detect. Then the way he said my name … wow.
“Uh, pretty much everything on the menu is good.” I know because one of the perks of working here all day is they give you free lunch, so long as you try something on the menu. Over the last few months, I had tried pretty much everything.
The food was amazing. I knew why the diner was always so busy, and why a lot of people opted to come here to eat rather than cook at home.
Still, the guy hadn’t said another word, so I knew he was waiting for the recommendation. Reaching out, I grabbed the menu and quickly scanned over the new recipes. “The chicken burger is great. The Mexican sub is amazing.”
“I’ll go with the chicken burger, extra fries, extra cheese,” he said. “Also, chocolate milkshake, extra sauce.”
Okay, it was wrong to be attracted to a guy I had only just seen for like five minutes, probably not even that.
Extra of everything, and a chocolate milkshake.
I quickly wrote down his order, kept a smile on my face, and then turned to leave. My nerves had started to get the better of me. I felt that twisting in my stomach, and that sick feeling I struggled to ignore.
Ringing up the new order, I told myself not to turn back and look, but I just couldn’t help it. Turning back toward the corner of the room, the mystery man was still looking at his cell phone. He had absolutely no interest in me whatsoever.
I didn’t know why all my senses were going off, but right now, I hated every one of them. This guy posed no threat to me. He didn’t work for my father, and I needed to learn to stop freaking out. I’m the one that had nearly caused a scene. This was just a hot guy, traveling. I didn’t know his name, who he was, or what he was doing, and it didn’t matter to me either way.
We were two strangers who had found Pickle Quest, and that was how it was going to stay.
End of sample chapter