Chapter 24
RYDER
“Put all the clothes in boxes. We’ll sort through them and see if there’s anything salvageable,” I told Josie.
Jeff walked over the glass from the shop window, staring in disbelief at the mess. “Holy shit. Who did this?”
I grabbed one of the racks and lifted it upright. It didn’t look too bad considering that it was under a broken table. “We don’t know.”
“Ryder!” Mav called out, stepping out of the back room, crunching over all the broken pieces of the shop to get to me. “I’ve finished cataloguing the damage, but I need to know of anyone who might have done this.”
I snorted at the question. “Try the whole fucking town. Better yet, why don’t you go ask every single one of them where they were early this morning?”
He sighed, sliding his hat up higher on his head. “Ryder, I’m trying to help, and talking to every single person isn’t going to make this process go any faster.”
I knew that, but I was so fucking angry at the defeat on Ellie’s face that all I wanted to do was burn the whole fucking town to the ground.
“There was a waitress a couple weeks ago. She was rude to Ellie, and I had her fired.”
“Amy,” Jeff spoke up. “Amy Fewekes.”
“Figures,” Mav snorted. “She hangs out with Melinda and Carmen. Nasty bunch of girls.”
“Do you think they might have done this?”
Mav shrugged. “They’re a catty bunch, but not sure this is up their alley. Still, I’ll check into it. Anyone else?”
“Not off the top of my head, but she had her car vandalized.”
“Already looked into that. All I saw was a hooded figure. No way to tell who it was. And that brick through the store window—”
“Wait, what brick?”
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Had to have been around the time you came to town.” He turned and pointed to the left side of the store. “That front window—Josie and Delaney were here when it happened. Beginning of the day and no one saw a thing.”
Anger surged once again. Every time I thought I was regaining some control, something else pissed me off. And this time, I wasn’t sure if it was Ellie not telling me that it had happened or the fact that someone had already vandalized her store.
“Whoever’s doing this is gonna pay,” I ground out.
Mav snorted, shaking his head at me. “Okay, there, Butch. How about you step back and let us handle this one before you hurt yourself.”
“Handle it like you’ve been handling everything else?”
“We have no suspects. You won’t get much further than us.”
That didn’t stop me from wanting to burn down the whole goddamn town for treating Ellie like crap.
“Look, we’re doing everything we can. We’ll find out who’s doing this, and they’ll pay. I swear to you.”
There was truth in his words, but it did nothing to calm the rage inside me.
“This was personal,” I hissed, keeping my voice low. Spray paint and a brick through the window…that’s petty shit. But to come in here and tear the entire place apart—” I shook my head still unable to believe this happened.
“The closest thing you’ve got to an injured party is Bailey, and I know she could never do something like this. Still, I’ll have a talk with her. At the very least, maybe she knows of someone who’s been extra pissed about what happened.”
“You won’t get anywhere with that,” I snorted.
“I completely agree. But when you’ve got the whole town as suspects, it’s kind of hard to narrow down. We tried to get her to install cameras, but she refused. She didn’t want the town to feel like she was spying on her.”
“Yeah, well, that ends now.
“Hey, I called my brothers,” Jeff said, stepping over the mess. “They’re on their way in with reinforcements.”
“Thanks.” Sighing, I turned and looked at the mess. The store, I could fix. But Ellie, that defeat in her eyes, the absolute devastation on her face when she realized nobody cared.
How the hell was I supposed to fix that?
And because I didn’t know, I got to work, dragging broken shelves and tables out to the street. Josie and Delaney set up a makeshift workstation, sorting through clothes that were damaged and salvaging anything they could.
Frankly, most of it was garbage. I didn’t really see the point in any of it, but they worked studiously, inspecting everything in great detail.
“Jeff, grab that end,” I said, pointing to the large table that was split nearly in half.
Together, we hauled it out through the window since the doorframe wasn’t large enough to allow us through. Glass crunched under my feet, pissing me off every time I walked over it.
Suddenly, Jeff stopped walking.
“What are you doing?”
He jerked his head, looking at something behind me. Setting down the table, I turned, shocked by what I was seeing. The crowd from earlier had returned, and this time, they all wore work clothes and gloves.
Ruthie, the owner of the diner, stepped forward. “We came to help.”
I laughed at the idea of anyone from town lifting a finger to help Ellie. “Now you want to help?”
“Ryder—”
“No,” I snapped. “You can all fucking go home. You didn’t give a shit about her before, and you sure as shit don’t give a crap now.”
“We were wrong,” Ruthie said forcefully. “This town tends to let gossip run things, and…we let it go too far.”
“Too far? Is that what you think this is?”
Most of them had the decency to look ashamed of themselves, but I wasn’t sure that was enough. Not when her livelihood had been destroyed.
“This is so much worse than taking things too far. Did you see the devastation on her face when she saw her shop? The defeat? Did you feel her body shaking as she cried right fucking here on the ground?”
I eyed all of them, wanting all of them to know just how horrible they had all been.
“She was just trying to help out a friend, and you all turned on her for it. Your beloved Liam and Bailey,” I laughed. “You were so concerned about them getting together, you had no problem stomping all over Ellie in the process.”
Michael and Blake pushed through the crowd, followed by Liam and Bailey. The moment I saw her, I wanted to fucking punch her, and hitting women was wrong. But on some level, I felt like this was all her fault. She couldn’t forgive Ellie, and because of that, the whole town turned on her.
Bailey’s face dropped in shock at the destruction. Stepping forward, her hand covered her mouth as she took it all in. I hoped she felt like a fucking ass for the part she played in all this.
But what shocked me was when she walked over to Delaney and Josie and apologized.
“I should have gotten over it a long time ago. She was only trying to help Liam, and because of my anger, she paid the price. I didn’t see it.” She shook her head. “No, I didn’t want to see it because I wanted to hold onto that anger.”
“We’re not the ones you should be apologizing to,” Delaney said, her tone lacking any real bite.
“I know, but I wanted you to know. What can I do to help?”
They both looked like they wanted to shove her to the ground and stomp on her a few times, but instead, Josie handed her a dress.
“Anything salvageable, we’re putting on that rack. We’ll try to sell them to recoup some of the money.”
Bailey nodded and got to work, and it wasn’t but a few seconds later that the rest of the town surged forward, asking what they could do to help.
There were more workers than I could ever use, and as much as I wanted to tell them to fuck off again, I could use the help.
This was their penance. They could see up close what the damage was and help her rebuild.
It was the only chance I had at getting Ellie to stick around.
The sound of bickering cut through the night, grating on my nerves.
We’d been working nonstop for three days, and I was exhausted.
So was everyone else, but while they’d all taken time to go home and grab some sleep, I’d stayed here to make sure this store got cleaned up and ready to open by tomorrow.
I drifted off to sleep for an hour here and there when I sat down, but quickly jerked awake the moment someone made too much noise. I wasn’t gonna last too much longer, but I forced myself to keep going.
I hadn’t been to see Ellie yet, too concerned about getting the store open, but Josie and Delaney stopped by a few times and assured me she hadn’t drunk herself into a bottle or packed any bags yet. Which meant I still had time.
“They’re here!” Josie called out, pushing a dolly of boxes into the main part of the shop.
“I’ve got the steamer!” Delaney called out, carrying a portable contraption behind Josie.
Josie grinned as she stopped in front of me, but her face dropped in a frown. “You look like shit. Did you go home at all?”
I shook my head, rubbing my tired eyes. “We’re almost done.”
“No, that screw doesn’t go there!” Liam shouted, smacking Jeff upside the head.
“Yes, it does! I’m looking at the directions. It says right there. Screw A goes into the tiny hole!”
“That’s not the tiny hole!”
“Should we go help them?” Josie asked, cocking her head at the men.
Both of them turned to look at the table they’d built in just under half an hour. Jeff and Liam had been working on theirs for the better part of an hour, and it didn’t look like much more than pieces of wood sprawled out on the floor.
“If we want to get anything done—”
“I’ve got this,” JR rumbled, shoving past me with Archer hot on his heels. “Move,” he ordered, snatching the board out of Jeff’s hands. “Go install the lights.”
“Hey! Archer, haven’t seen you in like a year. Where ya been?” Jeff asked.
“Working,” the man answered, not giving anything more than that.
“Here.” Delaney shoved a Coke in my hands with a sandwich. “Eat.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, taking a bite of what looked like a turkey sandwich. It was probably good, but I hardly paid attention as I calculated how much time it would take to finish everything for a grand re-opening tomorrow.
There was still so much to do. The clothes had just arrived.
Everything had to be priced and entered into the system, which I didn’t have a fucking clue how to work.
The mirrors hadn’t been installed over the freshly painted walls.
The tables were still in shambles, which meant clothes couldn’t be laid out.
I just didn’t see how it was all going to come together.
Most of the town had gone home after the cleanup was complete, and those with kids at home couldn’t stick around to help.
Shoving the last of the sandwich in my mouth, I washed it down with some Coke, then leaned back in my seat and closed my gritty eyes. They hurt so fucking much. I just needed to let them rest for a minute.
I jerked awake, not even sure what woke me. Rubbing my eyes, I shoved to my feet to get to work.
“You should have slept longer,” Delaney said.
“How long was I out?”
“Fifteen minutes. Not nearly long enough. You’re dead on your feet.”
“Too much to do.”
“Jeff!” Josie shouted, narrowing her eyes at the man. “What the hell are you doing?”
I spun around to find Jeff holding a dress up in front of him.
“What? I was just wondering what it’s like.”
“To wear a dress?” Josie asked.
“It seems too airy. How do you keep all your wobbly bits from spilling out?”
“It’s probably comfortable,” Michael said. “Think of all the times you wished you had a little more air down there.”
“Ball sweat,” Jeff nodded. “Do you think that’s why Scots wear kilts?”
“Yeah, because of ball sweat,” Michael rolled his eyes.
“Maybe we could get Ellie to sell kilts here.”
“She’s not selling kilts here,” I snapped. “It’s a boutique for women.”
“Yeah, and what’s that about? She’s cutting herself out of business by only catering to half the population. You should talk to her about that.”
“There’s a gentleman’s store right down the road. Go there.”
“I’m just saying, she could have a section right over here,” he said, jogging to the front of the store. “And it could be for specialty items for men.”
“Like kilts?” I questioned.
“Exactly! We could make them a trend over here. And they have those cool pouches in the front that hold all that shit.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s like a bag, and you can put all kinds of shit in there. You know, because kilts don’t have pockets. So, you put your phone, wallet…chapstick for days when your lips crack. Hell, you could probably fit more than that inside.”
“Yeah? Like a purse?”
“Yeah, but manly.”
“Jeff, it’s a purse. It’s not manly unless you’re Scottish.”
“That’s why we need to start the trend over here!” he argued. “If it becomes cool over here, then we can use them.”
“So, what you’re saying is that you want us to sell kilts in Ellie’s store, all so you have an excuse to carry around a purse.”
His face fell. “No, that’s not— you know, you’re missing the whole point.”
“Thank God.”
“Maybe I’ll just open my own store.”
“You do that.”
“And it’ll be awesome. Filled with clothes from all over the world that are really cool, but we don’t wear here in the U.S.”
“And I’m sure you’ll get at least one customer.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “I’ll get more than one customer, and one day, you’ll stroll into my store, and I’ll be laughing because you’ll be looking for my awesome kilts.”
“Maybe, but in the meantime, do you think we could concentrate on opening this store?”
“Fine,” he grumbled. “But when I’m ready to open my own store, I expect you to be there for the opening.”
“Jeff, if you open a store, I’ll be the first one to buy a kilt.”
He grinned widely at me. “Thanks, man. I appreciate that.”
I checked my watch. Six hours until folks started waking up. Another two before Ellie usually opened the store. That didn’t give me much time, but I’d be damned if the store wasn’t ready for her.
If it took any longer, I might not be able to convince her to reopen, and then this would all be for nothing.
“It’ll come together,” Josie reassured me.
“Yeah, but will it be too late by then?”
She didn’t look convinced either, but we both got back to work.
I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but there was some part of me that knew I was doing this for more than just Ellie. Everything I’d worked for had been ruined, and I didn’t ever want her to feel the way I had when I returned home.
Like a failure.