Chapter 9
GILLIAN
I stared at the email confirmation with bleary eyes. Sent. Done. Finally.
Dawn light filtered through the windows of the saloon, casting long shadows across the empty tables.
The chairs were stacked, the floors swept, and the last beer glass had been washed hours ago.
I’d been here all night, alternating between inventory counts and wrestling with the contract revision my boss had insisted needed to be in his inbox first thing this morning, even though I suspected he’d be on a golf course somewhere instead of reading it.
My eyes burned from staring at the laptop screen.
My back ached from hunching over it, but I hadn’t dared go home.
There was comfortable furniture and potential horizontal surfaces there.
I didn’t trust myself not to pass out in two minutes, so I’d set up on one of the less than comfortable barstools.
The bar was silent except for the ancient refrigerator’s hum and the occasional creak of the building settling. I rolled my neck, wincing at the popping sound it made. “You’ve really outdone yourself this time, Holliday.”
The solitude of the empty bar felt both peaceful and eerie.
This place was meant to be filled with noise—laughter, clinking glasses, the jukebox playing something with too much twang.
Now it was just me, the ghosts of last night’s customers, and the knowledge that I hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours.
I stretched my arms overhead, my muscles protesting. What I wouldn’t give for a hot shower, clean clothes, and about twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep. Doc’s house was just a ten-minute drive away. I could be face-down in my pillow in fifteen minutes flat.
But the delivery was due at eight. The beer distributor, the produce guy, and the meat supplier were all scheduled to arrive within an hour of each other. I’d coordinated it yesterday, making sure I could handle all three deliveries in one morning rather than being tied to the bar all day.
If I left now, I might miss them. Or worse, I’d fall asleep and not hear my alarm. The bar needed those supplies to open tonight. Doc would have my head if I screwed this up, TIA recovery or not.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. Doc’s doctor had ordered him to reduce stress while I was running myself into the ground trying to keep his bar afloat. I’d become what I was supposed to be preventing.
I pushed myself up from the chair and stumbled toward the coffee maker behind the bar. My second pot since midnight. Probably not the healthiest choice, but necessary. The rich aroma filled the air as it brewed, promising a caffeine lifeline.
Through the front windows, the sky transitioned from deep indigo to pale lavender. Another day in Huckleberry Creek. Another day of juggling two completely different lives.
I poured the coffee into a mug with “DOC’S CURE FOR WHAT AILS YA” emblazoned on the side and took a scalding sip. It tasted like survival.
My phone buzzed on the counter—an email notification from my boss.
“Contract received. We’ll review and get back to you with any additional changes needed.”
Additional changes. Of course. There were always additional changes. Never a thank you.
I set the phone down without responding. There wasn’t enough coffee in the world for that right now.
The bar looked different in the dawn light—softer somehow, more vulnerable with its chairs stacked and floors bare.
In a few hours, it would transform back into the beating heart of this town.
And somehow, I had to transform with it, from the exhausted zombie I was now into a competent bartender who remembered how to smile.
I checked my watch: 6:43 AM. Still over an hour until the first delivery. Too risky to leave, too tired to keep working.
I leaned against the bar, cradling my coffee mug between my palms, letting the warmth seep into my fingers. The old Val Kilmer poster stared down at me, his Doc Holliday looking far too smug for this hour of the morning.
“I’m your huckleberry,” I whispered to the empty room, a delirious laugh threatening to bubble up from my chest.
My phone vibrated against the countertop, the screen lighting up with “Dad” and his stern-faced photo. I stared at the image, momentarily paralyzed. Of course he’d call now, when I was running on fumes and caffeine.
I took a deep breath and answered. “Hey, Dad.”
“Gillian.” His voice was crisp, efficient. “Your mother and I have been trying to reach you.”
“Sorry. It’s been a little chaotic.” I rubbed my temple, where a headache had been building since 3 AM. “Doc’s keeping me busy.”
“That’s precisely why I’m calling. How is he?”
“Recovering. The TIA was a warning shot, but he’s going to be fine if he follows the doctor’s orders.”
“Which he won’t.” Dad’s sigh was heavy with decades of frustration. “Has he finally come to his senses about that place?”
I closed my eyes. Here we go. “What do you mean?”
“That bar. It’s always been a ridiculous endeavor. A medical doctor serving drinks to alcoholics—the irony is absurd. And now it’s literally killing him.”
“The customers are not alcoholics, and it’s not killing him, Dad. His blood pressure and stress levels are what caused the TIA.”
“Which are directly related to running that establishment.”
“No, actually. The doctor said his social connections are likely what’s kept him going all these years. The bar is the center of his life.”
Dad scoffed. “He had social connections in medicine. Respected ones.”
I leaned against the bar, suddenly bone-tired. “This isn’t the time to rehash old arguments.”
“It’s precisely the time. He needs to sell that place and retire properly.”
“That would kill him faster than anything.” My voice sharpened. “This is his home. These people are his family.”
“We’re his family.” His tone shifted, softening. “And Gillian, what about your work? Harcourt mentioned you’ve been difficult to reach. This isn’t the time to jeopardize your career trajectory.”
How dare my dad use his buddy-buddy connection to one of my bosses to check in on me? That, combined with the undisguised concern for my job over his father’s health made my blood boil. “Difficult to reach? I submitted the Anderson revisions at dawn. I’ve been working around the clock.”
“While bartending.”
“While taking care of your father.” But the implied criticism didn’t land. Dad just kept on beating the same dead horse.
“By enabling his unhealthy attachment to that saloon.”
“By helping him keep the one thing that matters to him.” My voice rose. “Have you even asked how you could help? Offered to come down? Anything besides suggesting he sell his life’s passion?”
“Don’t be dramatic, Gillian. It was a retirement hobby that got out of hand, not a passion.”
“How would you know?” The words burst out before I could stop them. “When’s the last time you even visited him here?”
Silence stretched between us. When he spoke again, his voice was cool, controlled. “I’m concerned about both of you. This diversion from your career path isn’t healthy. You’ve worked too hard to throw it away on some small-town nostalgia.”
“It’s not nostalgia, Dad. It’s family. And right now, Doc needs me.”
“What he needs is to listen to reason.”
Something snapped inside me. “No, what he needs is someone who actually cares about what he wants, not what fits into their idea of success!”
“I see.” His voice turned to ice. “You’re exhausted and emotional. We’ll discuss this when you’re thinking clearly.”
“I am thinking clearly! Maybe for the first time—”
The line went dead. He’d hung up on me. Because of course he had. He wouldn’t accept even the slightest deviation from what he thought was best.
I slammed my phone down on the bar, hands trembling with fury and hurt. Tears pricked at my eyes—angry tears I refused to let fall. I’d wasted enough of them on my father and his opinions.
“Everything okay?”
I whirled around, my heart lurching in my chest. Diego stood in the doorway, his broad frame silhouetted against the pale morning light filtering through the saloon’s front windows. The sight of him there, unexpected and somehow inevitable, sent a jolt through my already frayed nerves.
Frozen in place beside the bar, I stared at him, humiliation and bone-deep exhaustion washing over me in equal measure like twin tides threatening to pull me under.
The phone still lay where I’d slammed it down, and the heat of embarrassment crept up my neck.
How long had he been standing there? How much had he heard of my father’s dismissive tirade—the cold disappointment in his voice, the way he’d reduced everything I was feeling to “small-town nostalgia” and emotional instability?
Diego stepped inside, his movements careful and deliberate as he closed the door quietly behind him.
The soft click of the latch seemed unnaturally loud in the heavy silence that had settled over the saloon.
He moved toward me with the same measured pace he’d use approaching a spooked horse, his face etched with genuine concern that made my chest tighten with an emotion I was too afraid to name.
“I saw your car was still in the lot when I got off shift.” That familiar gravelly tone made something flutter in my stomach.
Even in my depleted state—running on fumes and stubborn determination—I noticed he was in his civilian clothes.
Worn jeans that had seen better days hugged his long legs, and a faded gray t-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders, the fabric soft-looking from countless washings.
Not the crisp uniform of HCFD. He wasn’t here on duty or by accident.
He’d come because he’d wanted to, because he’d seen my car and been concerned enough to check on me.
The realization hit me like a physical blow, threatening what little composure I had left.
“Gillian?” He stopped a few feet away, giving me space.
I tried to summon some professional composure, the same controlled demeanor that had carried me through boardroom negotiations and high-stakes client meetings.
But it was beyond my reach tonight, slipping through my fingers like smoke.
My eyes burned with unshed tears that had been building for hours, my hands trembled with bone-deep fatigue that went far beyond physical exhaustion, and the weight of everything—Doc’s declining health, my father’s crushing disappointment in my choices, the impossible responsibility of keeping the bar afloat—came crashing down at once like an avalanche I’d been trying to outrun.
“I’m fine,” I whispered, but the words felt foreign on my tongue, and my voice cracked on the second word like ice breaking under pressure. The lie hung in the air between us, transparent and fooling no one.
Diego’s dark eyes softened with understanding, and he took another careful step toward me, his work boots silent on the worn wooden floor.
Then he stopped again, maintaining that respectful distance even though I saw the concern radiating from every line of his body.
His hands hung loose at his sides, ready but not presumptuous.
“You don’t have to be fine.” Something about the gentle way he said it—like he was coaxing a wounded animal back from the edge of panic—broke the last fragile threads of my restraint.
A sob escaped me before I could stop it, raw and ugly in the quiet sanctuary of the saloon.
I covered my face with my hands, mortified by the complete breakdown of my carefully maintained facade but utterly unable to stop the emotional dam from bursting.
The tears I’d been holding back all day, all week, came flooding out with a force that left me gasping.
“Hey,” Diego murmured, his voice low and soothing as he finally crossed the remaining distance between us. The warmth of his presence enveloped me even before his arms did. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay.”
Before I thought better of it, before my rational mind could reassert control and remind me of all the reasons this was a terrible idea, I moved toward him.
I was desperate for the comfort I’d been systematically denying myself, starved for human connection after days of trying to shoulder everything alone.
Diego opened his arms without hesitation, and I fell into them like I was coming home, pressing my face against the soft cotton of his t-shirt as the tears finally came in earnest, soaking through the fabric to the solid warmth of his chest beneath.