Chapter 1 #2
She and Belinda had a lot of things in common, but that stubborn streak of pride was, by far, the strongest thread tying them together. The Joneses did not accept charity. Ever. They worked hard for what they wanted, and if they couldn’t get it on their own, then they weren’t meant to have it.
Paxton had lived by that simple philosophy all her life. It compelled her to never settle for second best, because there was nothing like basking in the satisfaction of seeing your hard work pay off.
Like right now. The pure joy emanating from her mother as she swept a floor she’d swept thousands of times over the past two decades warmed every part of Paxton’s heart, and it made all the hard work and sacrifice it would take to pay for this bar worth it.
“Look at that smile on her face,” Paxton whispered in Harlon’s ear as they both stared at her mother.
“Not sure when I last saw her like this. Maybe when you walked across the stage to pick up that fancy college degree.” He nudged her shoulder. “You just make sure she lets me come in and work every now and then.”
“She wouldn’t let you work when you owned the place,” Paxton said with a laugh. “I don’t know why you think things would change now.”
She guided Harlon to the new kitchen that had been added onto the bar. It had been under construction for the past month. With the installation of the three-part sink this morning, it was officially operational.
Donovan walked in and braced both hands high against the doorjamb. His shirt hem lifted slightly, exposing a set of tawny, well-defined abs. For a half second Paxton was intrigued, but then she remembered she used to change this kid’s diapers.
The momentary flourish of awareness was an understandable physical reaction considering the drought she’d been in over the past six months. The handheld device she brought to bed at night wasn’t doing the job it used to do.
“You need some help in here?” Donovan asked, winking again.
Then again, maybe she just needed to refresh the batteries.
“You’d better get that eye checked out,” Paxton told him. “All that twitching can’t be healthy.”
He entered the kitchen, stepping up to her. “Why are you giving me such a hard time? I’m not a little boy anymore. I can rock your world.”
Harlon knocked him upside the head with his baseball cap again.
“Dude.” Donovan rubbed his ear and scowled at his grandfather. “Stop blocking my game, Grandpa. I’m trying to get something going here.”
“It will never happen,” Paxton told him.
“We’ll see,” Donovan said, a cocky smile tilting up the corner of his mouth.
Harlon shook his head. “Hormones got that one acting a damn fool. If he gets too vexing once he starts working here, just strangle him.”
“Hopefully he’ll be too busy helping customers to bother me with his tired pickup lines,” she said.
Her mother had hired Donovan to help out at the bar while he took yet another semester off from college to “explore his options.” Paxton was about ninety-six percent sure that she would, in fact, have to strangle the little Casanova before she returned to Little Rock.
If she returned to Little Rock.
She stifled a sigh. She had only been back in town for two days and already the should I stay, should I go back dance was getting the best of her.
It happened every single time she came home to visit.
But Paxton knew it was better to have some distance between herself and Gauthier, especially now that a certain someone was back in town. Permanently.
The rumble of a diesel engine and tires crunching over gravel came through the open doorway, tearing her attention away from thoughts she had no desire to explore at the moment.
“Finally,” Paxton said, making her way past Donovan and through the kitchen. “That must be the TVs.”
She exited the side door and rounded the front of the building, waving at the delivery truck driver. Thankfully, the rain had lightened to a steady but weaker sprinkle.
“Over here,” Paxton called, waving her hands.
A loud bark came from just behind her a second before Heinz, the huge mutt she’d nursed back to health after he’d gotten into a fight with a coyote, came barreling into her legs. Paxton automatically scratched the scruff behind his ear.
“What in the world?” Belinda said as she came down the stairs, followed closely by Harlon and Donovan. The four of them stood to the side, surveying the deliverymen as they carted a fifty-five-inch LCD TV into the building.
Harlon pointed to the delivery truck’s raised gate. “What did you do, girl? Buy out the entire store?”
“You can’t have a sports bar with that little black-and-white television behind the bar,” Paxton said.
“How many TVs did you buy?” Belinda asked, her voice a combination of awe and trepidation.
Bracing herself for her mother’s reaction, Paxton said, “Eight.”
“Eight!” Belinda’s screech echoed around the open clearing. “No, no, no.” She held her hands out in an attempt to stop the deliverymen. They bypassed her and carried in the second television. “There’s not enough room in this bar for eight TVs.”
“We’ll make them fit,” Paxton said. “Oh, I forgot to mention that the guy from the satellite company will be a little late, but it should be installed by tonight.”
“Oh, yeah,” Donovan said, rubbing his hands together. “You got the football package?”
“Of course.” Paxton nodded. “And I’ve already ordered the NBA package, too.”
“This place is gonna be fiyah. Maybe I don’t need to worry about college. I can just work here.”
Belinda grasped Paxton’s forearm and gave it a slight squeeze. “How much is all of this costing you?” she asked.
Despite the genuine concern in her mother’s voice, Paxton ignored the question, just as she had ignored it the 542 times Belinda had inquired about the cost of all of this in the months since Harlon decided to retire and sell the bar.
She knew her mother was concerned about the money.
She was always concerned about money. She’d tended bar at Harlon’s for the past thirty-two years, and although Harlon had always paid her a fair wage, this little watering hole on the low-income side of Gauthier had never made enough to make anyone rich.
Barely scraping by had been a way of life for her mother for far too long. She’d sacrificed everything—food in her belly, clothes on her back, countless hours of sleep—all to make sure Paxton had an easier road than the one she’d traveled.
One could argue that Paxton had sacrificed just as much as her mother had.
After all, she’d spent the better part of her adolescence working side by side with Belinda in this very bar.
They were a team, always had been. But the few hours she spent helping out in the evenings and weekend here at Harlon’s was nothing compared with the time and hard work Belinda had put in day after day, year after year.
That she could now afford to properly thank her mother for all she’d given up for her filled Paxton’s chest with pride.
Which was why she refused to engage in any discussion of what all of this was costing her.
As a project manager for one of the largest engineering firms in the Gulf South, she’d managed to build a nice nest egg in a relatively short amount of time.
Sure, she’d emptied it in order to buy this place and renovate it, but Paxton had a set of career goals in front of her; she was confident she would be able to replenish her savings in a matter of a few short years.
Especially if things went as she’d planned them out in her head.
“With all the money you’ve put into this place, you’ll have to sell a lot of beer and tater skins to break even,” Harlon remarked as the final television was carted through the door.
“Could we please close this subject?” Paxton said. “We still have a lot to do before the grand opening, and I’ve got to be at the Gauthier Law Firm early in the morning.”
“What you got going on over there?” Harlon asked. “You need Matt Gauthier to get you out of a bind?”
Paxton shook her head. “Matt has been kind enough to let us use the extra conference room as a temporary office for the flood-protection project I’m working on. I’m lucky that he had some available space.”
At least Paxton had thought she was lucky, until this past Thursday when she discovered that the state engineer who’d been assigned to the project had abruptly left the Army Corps of Engineer Civil Works department. He’d been replaced by another civil engineer. Sawyer Robertson.
The muscles in her belly tightened just at the thought of his damn name.
Why, why, why did it have to be Sawyer?
Although it didn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why, of all the civil engineers on the state’s payroll, Sawyer would be the one chosen to take over for the departing engineer.
It was the same reason the management team at Bolt-Myer had tasked her with this project.
They were both familiar with the area. Like her, Sawyer had grown up in Gauthier.
He knew the lay of the land, and, more importantly, he knew the people.
The people in Gauthier could trust that both she and Sawyer would give their all to this project.
Still, if given the option, would she trade her car instead of working with Sawyer? Heck yes, she would.
She’d tried to convince herself that it wasn’t a big deal, but the thought of facing Sawyer tomorrow had her stomach in knots.
She hated it, but Paxton couldn’t deny it.
She was human, after all. She had an exceedingly acceptable reason for why just the thought of working with Sawyer made her nervous and uncomfortable and ready to bury her head in the sand and not come out until this project was over.
But she couldn’t do that, either.
Nor could she walk into that office tomorrow with even a hint of trepidation or intimidation at seeing Sawyer Robertson for the first time in three years. She’d made her bed where he was concerned—literally. And now it was time to lie in it.