Chapter 7
NORA
IT ONLY takes two days of being cooped up in my room at the bed-and-breakfast before I start to feel pent up. I’ve got two contemporary romances and one period-piece romance manuscript to edit, so I’m not without something to do. I just can’t focus like I need to.
I even spent several hours yesterday researching my car and the lights that came on in my dash that night. Reading all the negative reviews from other owners about their similar experiences, and the costly repairs, made my anxiety even worse.
Being without my car makes me feel trapped with no out and has me stopping to listen at each creak in the floor and slam of the front door. I think I’ve spent more time pacing in front of the bay windows, watching all the people on the main street, than working.
Sliding my laptop across the surface of the bay window seat, away from me, I lean against the wall and watch out the window.
Again. It’s lunchtime, and the sidewalks are busy with people.
Just from my window, I can see boutiques, a sandwich shop with cute little bistro tables on the sidewalk, a pub, and an art studio.
My stomach rumbles, and my gaze moves back to the sandwich shop a few buildings down the street.
I’ve been eating all my meals in the kitchen downstairs since they are included in the room rate, but a hot ham and cheese sounds fantastic right now.
And I need to find out where I can restock my sour gummies.
“Oh, Ms. Abernathy.” Allison’s voice comes from the dining room behind me just as I reach the front door.
I’ve noticed Allison’s style changes daily.
Yesterday she looked like a young 80s Madonna with a bandana tied around her head holding her wild curls back, and lots of makeup and red lipstick.
Today she’s more toned down and soft in jeans and a sweater over a T-shirt.
Minimal makeup and clear gloss instead of lipstick.
“Yes?” I walk back to the check-in desk.
“Have you had a chance to get your driver’s license?”
When I checked in, Allison asked for a credit card and didn’t seem too surprised when I told her I would pay with cash, but she wanted to copy my driver’s license, and I told her I left it in my car and would have to get it the next day.
I should have stayed in my room.
“Oh, uhm, I haven’t. I don’t even know where my car is.” I try to laugh it off to hide my anxiety. “Is it okay that you don’t have it?”
I really don’t want to chance her copying it and uploading it into some kind of bed-and-breakfast online system, or whatever.
Tipping her head to the side with a smile, she scrunches her nose. “Unfortunately, my insurance requires me to keep an ID for every guest, well, at least one person staying in the room — it’s a stupid policy. I can give you the address of Ryder’s garage so you can get it.”
Shit.
Most hotel clerks gladly accept an extra twenty when I ask them to keep everything at a cash exchange, the last thing I want is to leave a digital trail of any kind. But I didn’t consider how the rules could be different for a small-business owner.
How did things get so complicated in such a short amount of time? I wonder how long I can string her along before she tells me to find another place to stay. In another life, I might feel like shit for lying, but I can’t afford to worry about that in this one.
I wonder how hard it would be to get a fake ID to give to her. Except she already knows my name…
“Yeah, sure, does it have to be today? I’m on a deadline, and I was going to check out the sandwich shop across the street. Can I go get it tomorrow?”
She smiles as she grabs a small notepad and starts writing the address to Ryder’s garage. “Of course, as long as I have it before you check out.”
Stepping out of the sandwich shop later, I now know why I’ve seen so many people going in and out.
It was amazing, and the owner was charming and nice, just like everyone else in this town.
Well, except for Tucker, even the voice in my head condescendingly draws out his name like he’s some sort of villain.
A pleasant slight breeze blows some of my loose hair across my face, and I turn my head to shake it off, my line-of-sight landing on a sign in the pub’s window a few businesses down the street.
Part-time Help Wanted.
Hmmm. It’s perfect, actually. Only a five-minute walk from the B&B, part-time, and maybe the owner would let me work for cash. It never hurts to try, right?
The lunch rush has thinned, and I cross the little alleyway to walk down the sidewalk lined with flower planters around pretty streetlights to the all-brick building that says ‘Stony’s Pub’ over the door. The two stone front steps are set in an alcove to the front door.
People are seated at some of the little tables scattered around the open part of the room near the front door, and the warm, comforting smell of burgers and fries fills my nose. I’m surprised they serve food and see a door to the kitchen at the back of the long room.
There’s a jukebox near the front door, and it’s playing a country song that I’ve never heard of, but I don’t know any country songs.
The bar runs the length of the room on one side, with a row of stools underneath.
On the other side is one long booth built into the wall with red cushions and small square tables and chairs in a perfect line.
“Can I help you?” A deep voice behind the bar gets my attention. A tall man wearing a baseball hat and a white short-sleeved t-shirt with ‘Stony’s Pub’ in cursive written across his chest is standing with his arms spread and palms flat on the bar.
Moving past the customers having lunch, I step closer to the bar. “Yeah, I saw your help-wanted sign in the window, but I’m only in town for as long as it takes to fix my car — a month, maybe.”
His eyes move over me and slide down to my feet like he’s checking to make sure I have legs. It’s not a creepy look, it’s more like he’s sizing me up. “You ever waitressed before?”
“When I was in college.” Stepping up to lean over the bar so I can lower my voice, and he can still hear me, I say, “I also can’t find my driver’s license or my social security card, I would have to work for cash.”
His eyes narrow, and he stares at me suspiciously, like I might be an alien about to burst out of my skin. “You gonna show up for your shifts or are you gonna call out sick every other day?”
“Oh, no,” I point my thumb over my shoulder. “I’m staying at the bed-and-breakfast down the street, so I’ll be close, and I really need the money.”
A girl walks up next to me and leans against the bar, setting down the small round tray I see waitresses carry. “I need two taps and a Coke.”
Looking away from me, he grunts, “Alright, Trudy.”
While he’s getting her drinks, she turns to me. “You here for the job?”
Her T-shirt has the same logo on the front, only it’s pink and knotted in the front just over her belly button to show her midriff.
The logo curves around her very ample chest, and her jeans miniskirt is tight around her hips.
I’ve always been good at reading people when I first meet them, her smile is fake, and I can tell by the way she’s cocked her hip out and set her slender hand with red manicured nails over her half-apron, she sees me as competition.
She’s one of those women who sees every other woman as competition.
She’s pretty. She even has a pretty-girl-next-door look, but there’s anger in her blue eyes. I wonder what happened to her to make her so unpleasant.
Nodding my head, I smile politely. “Yes.”
Cocking an eyebrow, she says, “I hope you can pull your own weight, ‘cause I don’t have time to pick up anyone’s slack.” She flips her blond hair over her shoulder with a tilt of her head.
Nice.
“Your drinks are ready, Trudy,” Stony barks from the other side of the bar as he sets them on her tray, getting him an eye roll before she walks away.
He leans on the bar again as I give him my full attention and rattles off the pay and how tips are split, tells me he’ll pay cash at the end of each of my shifts, and then follows it up with, “If you call out, just don’t come back.”
I never miss work. Being raised by my Grams, who was on a limited budget, taught me from a young age that if I don’t work, I don’t get the things I want and need.
I nod. “That’s fair.”
He takes a deep breath and lifts his baseball hat off his head and scratches the thinning hair underneath it. “I just had a girl walk out last night, and I’m kinda desperate. Can you start tonight?”
Five hours later, I’m carrying drinks to a table at the back of the pub wearing a black cotton miniskirt and a tight yellow T-shirt with ‘Stony’s Pub’ across my chest. I wasn’t dishonest when I told him I’d waitressed in college, I just didn’t tell him it was only for a month before the man who altered the trajectory of my life walked in and swept me off my feet.
What I have on is not even a true miniskirt, it’s more like a band of material around my hips. I’ve never worn a miniskirt in my life. When I came back in at the time Stony told me to be here, one of the other girls, Sammy, who is my height with a gorgeous slim body, tossed it at me.
“Here, try this. Brittney left it when she walked out.” She rolls her eyes as she turns to another locker and pulls her lip gloss out, sliding the wand across her lips as she looks into a little mirror stuck to the inside of her locker.
“I don’t know what she was thinking when she took this job.
An opinionated feminist woman just out of college has no place around a group of guys like this. ”
“What do you mean when you say, ‘guys like this’?” I fold my jeans and put them in the locker so I can pull the stretchy material up my legs.