Chapter 3
GILLIAN
By the time the dinner crowd hit full swing at my grandfather’s bar the day after the Fourth, it felt like I’d never left Huckleberry Creek behind.
The air was thick with scents that pulled me straight back to my teenage years: the sharp bite of wood polish on the old oak bar top, the yeasty sweetness of spilled beer soaking into floorboards that had absorbed decades of similar mishaps, and the smoky char of burgers sizzling on the flat top in the kitchen.
Underneath it all lingered the faint mustiness of old leather from the worn bar stools and the vintage saddles that served as bizarre but oddly charming decorations along the walls.
I’d tied my hair back in a messy ponytail and picked up a scarred wooden tray like I hadn’t spent the last few years buried in classes, corporate merger documents, and billable hours.
My feet remembered the intricate dance between crowded tables all on their own, weaving through the maze of chairs and avoiding the loose floorboard by the back corner that had been threatening to trip unsuspecting patrons for as long as I could remember.
For all its beautiful chaos, this place was home in a way my sterile downtown apartment had never managed to be.
I dropped off a round of beers at a table, got three hugs and a “Glad to have you back,” and ducked behind the bar to grab the next order.
Doc was there, exactly where he always was, a wiry, lively presence in his faded Huckleberry Saloon T-shirt. He caught me reaching for the tap and arched a brow. “You remember how to pour a beer, or do I need to put training wheels on the tap?”
“I could do this in my sleep.” I grabbed a glass. “I have done this in my sleep.”
He snorted. “That was when you were sixteen and thought this was the big time. You’re a fancy big-city lawyer now. Can’t have you embarrassing me.”
I smirked at him over my shoulder as the tap hissed. “I’ll try not to ruin your sterling reputation, Doc.”
He grinned at that. Everyone called him Doc, even me. Maybe especially me. It suited him better than Grandpa ever had.
I slid the beer down the bar toward him, and he passed me a fresh tray without missing a beat.
“You know, you don’t have to wait tables while you’re here.”
“And miss the privilege of working for free?” I hefted the tray. “What kind of granddaughter would I be?”
He just shook his head, but there was pride in it, the kind that made my chest loosen a little, no matter how many years I’d been gone.
Working beside him had always been easy. He was the only person in my family who never tried to tell me what my life was supposed to be.
I didn’t make it three tables before the ambush started.
“Gillian Holliday, as I live and breathe!” Mrs. Bartlett, queen of the corner booth, flagged me down like she’d spotted a celebrity. She’d been holding that table hostage since I was in pigtails. I leaned over to hug her, because resistance was futile.
“Let me look at you.” She squeezed my arm like she expected to find city miles written into my skin. “All grown up. Law school, right?”
“All finished with that. Working now.” I flashed a smile as I backed away with my tray. Though my lowly position at the firm was more like indentured servitude, as I fought to differentiate myself from my peers in pursuit of the elusive junior partner track.
“And your parents?”
Of course I’d get asked about them. They’d moved shortly after I’d graduated high school, and folks would be curious. “Good. Busy.”
That was all she was getting. My parents weren’t a topic I cared to discuss with anyone.
I pivoted and nearly crashed straight into Casey Barker, who’d once dared me to skinny-dip in the lake the summer before sophomore year. Now she wore a county utilities polo and balanced a sleepy toddler on her hip.
“Holy crap.” Her eyes widened. “I didn’t believe it when Mom said you were back. How long are you in town?”
“Couple of weeks.”
“You look amazing.” Her voice rang out a little too loudly, so half the bar turned to listen. “Big-time lawyer now, huh?”
I smiled. “Something like that.”
“And you’re single, right?”
Ah yes, small towns, where your relationship status was just as, or more important than your employment.
I flashed another smile. “It was good to see you, Casey.”
At the blatant avoidance, she grinned like a cat and wandered off, leaving me to fend for myself as three more familiar faces closed in.
“Gillian!”
“Oh my God, it’s been forever!”
“Where’ve you been hiding? We thought the big city swallowed you whole.”
And, inevitably: “So how’re your parents?”
There it was again. Like the town had a script they’d all agreed on, and that line was bolded and underlined.
My smile strained around the edges. “They’re fine.” I’d stick to the party line, because complicated didn’t even begin to cover it.
I ducked into the back hallway with my tray before anyone else remembered and recounted a story about me from tenth grade that they expected me to smile and nod through.
Small towns had long memories. And in Huckleberry Creek, they’d ask the questions straight to your face, no hesitation, under the guise of friendly familiarity.
I made a beeline for the kitchen window, dropped off the next round of orders, and used the clatter of plates and the sizzle from the flat top as cover to dig my vibrating phone out of my back pocket.
Of course it was my boss. Because why would the term “vacation” actually mean anything to him?
I swiped to answer and ducked into the hallway that led to the back office, pressing the phone to my ear to try to block out the noise of the bar.
“Gillian,” came the clipped, too-entitled voice of someone who’d never had to carry three pitchers of beer at once in his life, “please tell me you’ve seen my notes.”
I braced myself. “Yes, sir. I’ve seen them.” I hadn’t been able to stop myself from checking when the email came in earlier today.
“Good. Because the client wants the revisions first thing tomorrow morning. This is a big one. The kind of deal that puts you on the short list when the partners start thinking about who’s ready to move up. You understand?”
“I understand.” I leaned against the office door frame and shut my eyes for a second.
“Excellent. Then you’ll make sure the updated draft is on my desk by six a.m. No excuses.”
I could’ve pointed out that I was officially on leave. I could’ve reminded him that the only reason I wasn’t in the office was because I was taking my first time off in four years to visit family.
But I didn’t.
Because in my world, vacation didn’t mean a damn thing. If I didn’t do the work, someone else would. And after all the hours I’d put in—after everything I’d sacrificed—there was no way in hell I was going to let that happen.
“Of course.”
“Perfect. I’ll expect it in the morning.” He hung up without waiting for a reply.
I stared at the phone for a second, then shoved it back in my pocket.
Another all-nighter. It wasn’t like I hadn’t done a hundred of them before.
I’d built my life on the idea that I could do it all if I just worked harder, pushed longer, kept running.
And I had. I would do this. I always had.
I just wished I believed it more now than I did five minutes ago.
The wall of sound hit me the second I stepped back into the bar—laughter, clinking glasses, the jukebox fighting to be heard over the crowd. After the clipped, too-perfect cadence of my boss’s call, it was almost a relief.
Doc saw me coming and didn’t miss a beat. He was lined up behind the taps, one hand on a pint glass, the other steadying a bar rag. “Well, look who remembered she has a shift. Thought you’d run off back to your high-rise before you broke a nail.”
“Ha-ha.” I dodged around a guy with a basket of fries to duck back behind the bar. “I was on a work call. Some of us have to do two jobs tonight.”
“Uh-huh.” He filled a glass, slid it down to a regular, and leveled me with that dry, sideways grin that had terrified half the county back when he was still wearing a white coat. “What’s the pay like on that city job, anyway?”
“Not as good as this.” I grabbed the empty tray he nudged my way. “Where else am I gonna get free burgers and life advice that I didn’t ask for?”
“Careful, girlie. My advice is worth exactly what you pay for it.”
“Good to know.” I winked as I said it.
For a second, I just stood there beside him, drinking it all in—the way the whole place hummed with a dozen different conversations layering over each other, the sharp crack of darts hitting the board from the back corner where the regulars held court.
The way Doc looked completely at home here, like he’d grown roots behind that bar, like this was exactly where he was meant to be.
I’d missed this. Not just the work—though there was something satisfying about the rhythm of it, the constant motion that kept your hands busy and your mind clear.
It was more than that. It was the sense of belonging somewhere, of being part of something bigger than quarterly reports and billable hours.
The way people here knew your name, knew your story, knew exactly how you liked your coffee and whether you were having a good day or a bad one just by looking at you.
I’d forgotten the comfort of being home.
“Order up!” the cook shouted from the kitchen window, loud enough to rattle the glasses.
Doc tipped his chin toward the trays stacked beside him. “Go earn your supper, counselor.”
“Yes, sir.” I grabbed the loaded tray from the pass.
I swung out from behind the bar and into the tide of people, hips twisting to miss a chair that got pushed back too far, and for just a moment it felt like muscle memory more than anything else. Like I’d never left.
The night was running on rails—laughter rolling through the bar, glasses clinking, the jukebox halfway through a George Strait song I could hum in my sleep.
I balanced a tray on one hand, weaving through the crowd with ease, already thinking about the stack of work waiting for me when this was over.
And then I heard a crash behind me. Not the clatter of a dropped glass—heavier. Wrong.
I turned, and everything in me stopped.
Doc was on the floor just outside the pass-thru, his body crumpled in a way that made my stomach lurch.
For a second, my brain refused to make sense of it.
This was Doc—steady, unshakeable Doc who’d never missed a day behind that bar in all the years I’d known him.
He was just—there. Flat on his back against the scarred wooden planks, his weathered face slack and pale.
His eyes were half-shut, unseeing, staring up at the tin ceiling with its old advertisements for tobacco and whiskey.
The tray hit the floor with a resounding bang that cut through the music and chatter like a gunshot.
Plates shattered, sending fragments skittering across the floor.
Beer glasses exploded in sprays of amber liquid and foam.
Food scattered everywhere—nachos, wings, fries—creating a minefield of debris that I barely registered as I lunged forward.
I was already moving before my mind caught up, adrenaline flooding my system as I shoved through the maze of chairs and tables. Someone’s elbow caught my ribs. A chair leg scraped against my shin, but I barely felt it. I dropped to my knees hard on the unforgiving floor beside him.
“Doc? Doc!” My hands were shaking as I touched him. His skin was clammy, his face gray in a way I had never seen, not even when I was a kid, and he worked double shifts at the clinic. His chest was rising, but shallow, uneven, like he was fighting for every breath.
Ice sluiced through my veins.
“Someone call 911!” The words ripped out of me, loud and raw. “Now!”
The whole bar seemed to explode into motion—chairs scraping, someone yelling for a phone, a table tipping over—but all I saw was him.
I grabbed his hand and held on like I could anchor him with it. “Doc. Stay with me, please.” My voice cracked. “Don’t you dare leave me.”
Somewhere in the distance, as if it came from underwater, I heard the faint wail of sirens.
I didn’t glance up. Couldn’t. Everything I’d been juggling—all the plans, the work, the pretending I could hold it all together—narrowed to this moment. Just me and him, and the terrifying possibility that the one steady thing in my life was slipping away right in front of me.