Chapter Six
Adrian stared absently at the ceiling, wondering how many more minutes would drop from the clock before he went clinically insane. Since only forty-seven had passed between when he’d woken from his painkiller-induced nap and now, making it to a triple-digit time count looked pretty bleak.
The next six weeks were going to take for freaking ever.
Adrian blew out a hard breath, ignoring the thudding pain that radiated from shoulder to cast as he pushed up from his rumpled bed. His stomach let loose a toothy growl, one that told him he needed to either fill it or face some barbarous consequences. He padded over the worn hardwood to the kitchen, hitting the light switch with his good hand.
Illumination didn’t do much for the state of his pantry, other than to highlight the fact that the space inside was about as naked as the day he’d moved in. But he was never here long enough to use anything other than the bed or the shower, so keeping a stocked pantry seemed kind of stupid, even though his profession suggested otherwise. Not that it helped with the nausea currently making a playground out of his belly.
The sling grated uncomfortably across the back of Adrian’s neck as he rummaged one-handed through the few items on the white plastic shelves. He pulled out some crackers he knew were past their prime, but since it was that or a jar of molasses, they’d have to do until he could hit the grocery store.
He shifted awkwardly against the sling, grappling with the plastic sleeve sealed around the crackers to no avail. How ironic that he’d managed to survive nine months in one of the nastiest penitentiaries in New York City, yet he was about to be bested by a package of fucking saltines. Frustration welled in his chest, hot and unrepentant, and Adrian twisted his arm up, sling and all, to rip open the package with both hands.
Big mistake.
Pain shot from his shoulder to his fingertips and back again on a continuous circuit of holy shit, barging out of his lungs on a groan. Okay, so maybe he needed the sling for a couple of days. He dropped his arm back into place and focused on breathing for a few minutes before graduating to eating, which thankfully replaced some of his waning strength.
Before he’d crashed into bed, he’d made arrangements to have his Harley towed from the impound to Grady’s Garage. Bellamy’s husband, Shane, ran the place, and he’d promised to take a look at it even though bikes weren’t his thing. Regardless of where it was, though, the thing was as undrivable as Adrian was unable to drive it. He’d have to hit up Plan B if he wanted to get past the four walls that were crushing him like strawberries for jam.
Adrian froze in the dimly lit kitchen, the memory of Teagan’s mouth over his making a permanent imprint on his libido. How on earth a woman could manage to broadcast dare me and don’t touch at the same time, he had no clue, but Christ. Daring her had felt recklessly good, and kissing her had felt even better.
“Plan B,” he muttered, shaking off the thought of her. He needed food, and anyway, his track record with being impulsive sucked. Better to just forget Teagan O’Malley, no matter how mouthwatering she smelled. Or tasted.
He needed to get out of here.
Adrian shoved the partially eaten sleeve of crackers aside, jamming his feet into the black work boots he’d kicked off before face-planting on his bed. He got his leather jacket halfway on before realizing it wasn’t going any further, and he bit back a frown as he grabbed the keys hanging on a hook by the front door.
As much as he preferred the Harley to any other mode of transportation, having no fallback plan for Pine Mountain’s notoriously snowy winters was just plain idiotic. The nothing-special pickup truck he’d bought last year ensured he’d get to work in snow, sleet, hail, or whatever else Mother Nature wanted to curveball his way, and he yanked the door to his apartment shut before making a beeline for the thing. It took a little doing to get situated behind the wheel—definitely weird to one-hand the seat belt into place over the pain-in-the-ass sling—but he managed.
Joe’s Grocery was only three miles up the road, and by the time Adrian got to the sign marking the turnoff, he’d gotten the hang of one-handed driving. His nausea had subsided, but his nearly empty stomach still churned like it was on the spin cycle.
Which became infinitely more problematic when he realized Joe’s parking lot was empty and the only lights on were the overheads brightening the asphalt.
“Shit.” Between the accident and the groggy nap, Adrian had lost all track of time. Of course Joe’s wasn’t open at . . . He paused to let the soft glow of the digital clock in his truck register.
Nine thirty on a Friday night.
Adrian’s gut dropped to his knees. He might have lived here for a little over a year, but the only path he’d taken since landing in Pine Mountain was from his apartment to the resort and back. Hell, the only reason he knew the location of the grocery store in the first place was because it lay between the two.
But he couldn’t go to the resort, not even in the name of a hot meal he desperately needed. Carly had made it clear she didn’t want him there, and his showing up, even just to eat, would reek of awkward. He threw the truck into drive and pointed it back at his apartment. He’d have to settle for the rest of those saltines, although he knew he’d be starving again an hour after he downed them.
And then it would be just him, the four walls, and the molasses until morning.
Jerking his knee up to steady the wheel, he jammed the window control to the down position until lush spring air replaced the glass. Christ, how was he going to manage six weeks of this when the thought of even one night was enough to suffocate him?
And wait. Where the hell was he?
Adrian scanned the road in front of him with a disgruntled curse. The hunger tangling his belly, coupled with the realization that Carly really wasn’t going to change her mind, must’ve distracted him into missing his turn. He guided the truck into the next turnoff, which opened directly into a wide, rectangular parking lot, and he took stock of his new surroundings to regain his bearings.
A decent handful of cars littered the spaces, and even though the gray and white clapboard building beyond wasn’t much to speak of, it was brightly lit. A couple of giggling women made their way past his idling truck, allowing a blast of loud music to escape from within the building as they moved through the front door, and Adrian squinted at the weathered sign over the entryway where they’d disappeared.
THE DOUBLE SHOT BAR AND GRILL
This is a bad idea, came the ingrained survival instinct from the back of his mind, and Adrian knew it was spot-on. Keeping his nose spic and span meant giving places like bars a very wide berth when he was in a bad mood, even if they did have food inside. He tightened his grip over the grooves on his steering wheel, bypassing the front of the building with every intention of making a full circle around the place.
But the strained overtones of an argument, coupled with a glimpse of flame-red hair from beneath the light over the side entrance to the building, had him jamming his foot on the brake.
Teagan folded her bottom lip between her teeth and tried with all her might not to scream as her only cook walked out the Double Shot’s side door and into the night.
“Lou, wait!” She scrambled after him, both shocked and relieved that he’d stopped a few paces into the parking lot. “You’ve got to help me out here. I’ve got a bar full of hungry people and it’s Friday night. You can’t walk, not right now.”
But the expression on the cook’s scruffy face and his cross-armed stance said otherwise. “I’m not working for free, Teagan. One bounced paycheck, I can forgive. But today’s was the third one, and you can’t give me any answers.”
“My dad does all the payroll,” she said, genuinely apologetic. For as many tasks as Teagan juggled behind the bar, the books had always been her father’s job, through and through. “I’m sure it’s a mistake.”
“One he’s not around to rectify.”
“He’s . . . not feeling well.” Teagan swallowed past the softball in her throat. She hadn’t told any of the staff that her father was likely going to have to take a leave of absence. It had been bad enough getting him to go home and call Dr. Riley’s office to at least get advice on stabilizing the episode he’d had earlier. Telling him they needed to figure out a way to run the bar until he was well enough to come back full-time was an argument that would have to wait until later, but she couldn’t run anything without a cook.
She tried again, desperate. “I’ll talk to him about it tomorrow, first thing. I’m sure he can clear it right up, but until then, I really need you, Lou. The only other person in the kitchen tonight is Jesse, and he can’t cook any more than I can.”
Lou didn’t budge. “Jesse’s check bounced too, and I’ve got to be honest. If your father can’t even cover the dishwasher’s pay, that ain’t a good sign.” He took a step closer, his age-creased eyes sweeping from side to side as he met her under the halo of the overhead light. “Look, I like your father, I really do. But I’ve got a family to think about.”
“We’ll get your check straightened out, I swear, if you just—”
“I’m not talking about just my check, Teagan. I need to keep my kneecaps intact, you know?”
She yanked her brows inward, straightening her spine in a blend of shock and confusion. “What are you talking about?”
Lou examined her with apparent surprise of his own. “You don’t know?”
“Know what?” Fear flooded Teagan’s belly. Seriously, she couldn’t handle one more thing going wrong tonight. As it was, they were probably weeded to no end in both the kitchen and at the bar from this little tête-à-tête. “God, Lou. What is going on?”
But he just shook his head. “You need to have a long talk with your father, that’s what. I’m not getting mixed up in this.” He took a step back, then another, each one causing Teagan’s heart to lurch. “I’m sorry. But I didn’t sign on for trouble.”
“Lou, wait!” She stumbled after him, calling again to no avail.
He was gone.
Teagan scraped in a deep breath, squinting her eyes closed against the swing of blazing headlights from a pickup truck doing a U-turn in the parking lot beyond. A million questions bubbled up in her head, but she had more pressing issues right now. Namely figuring out how to survive the night with a staff of five people rather than seven none of whom knew how to cook.
At all.
Teagan dropped her chin toward her chest, trying like hell to come up with a plan. She could no more run the kitchen than she could sprout wings and fly. There were reasons she stayed as far from the food as possible, reasons she didn’t want to contemplate.
But thinking about that was a luxury she couldn’t afford, so Teagan turned on her heel and marched back inside. She could take care of this. She would take care of this, even if it was a disaster.
There were no other options.
“Jesse!” she barked out, rounding the corner with haste. Please God, let this guy have some kitchen skills. He’d only been back home in Pine Mountain for a couple of months, and even though she’d known him since grade school, Teagan had been so busy working one job or another lately that she hadn’t gotten past basic pleasantries with him.
“Yes, ma’am?” Jesse poked his head out of the dishwashing station set up adjacent to the main kitchen, his blond hair cropped so close to his skull it was barely a step from shaved clean.
“It’s you and me in the kitchen for the rest of the night.” She whipped a clean apron from the neat stack on the wooden shelf by the door, knotting it around her waist. “And I respect that you’ve been in the military for the last six years, but I’m only thirty. If you ma’am me again, we’re gonna have a go. Got it?”
“Yes . . .” He faltered, blowing out a breath in place of the newly missing word. “But I’m just a dishwasher. I don’t know how to cook.”
“That makes two of us.” She snatched the tickets from the tiny box networked to the computerized register behind the bar, slightly woozy at how many there were. “Okay, these first two look pretty easy. Lou makes the sauce for the wings in batches, and I think it’s all right here.” She flipped a couple of stainless steel lids from the containers built into the workstation, guessing blindly. “Throw some of those wings in the fryer, then get to work on the next orders as best you can. I’m going to pull Brennan from the door to run the bar.”
“Okay.”
Teagan propped the two tickets in the metallic slots above Lou’s workstation across from the grill, leaving Jesse to his own devices as she elbowed her way through the door to the main bar area. She blinked hard as her eyes struggled to adjust to the much dimmer lighting, and she caught a passing waitress to cover the outstanding drink orders at the bar. She zeroed in on a tall, deceptively unremarkable figure standing sentry in the alcove by the front door, her rushed steps eating up the space between them in about two seconds flat.
Nick Brennan had none of the typical big-and-mean of other bouncers—in fact, with his lean, lanky build and classic dark-haired, darker-eyed good looks, at first Teagan had pegged him for a nice, average guy with a nice, average job having a nice, average life.
And then she saw him handle himself, along with two drunk, mouthy college students, in the bar, and that impression disappeared faster than she could say Muhammad Ali. In the year and a half Brennan had worked at the Double Shot, Teagan had seen him hold his own in just about every scuffle, even when it was two on one.
Perfect, really, considering she was about to ask him to serve copious amounts of liquor to everyone in a fifty-foot radius.
“Brennan, I’ve got to put you behind the wood tonight, starting now. We’re also cutting the menu to apps only for the rest of the night. Can you grab both waitresses on your way back and let them know?” They usually served their full menu until eleven on Friday nights, but it was going to be hard enough to get by as it was. They might take a little cut in cash-in for the night, but so be it. Right now, Teagan just needed to survive.
Brennan’s eyes glittered black with surprise, and he pushed off from his wooden stool to move with her toward the back of the room. “I can do the bar, no problem, but the food thing’s gonna be an issue.”
A frustrated sound emerged from her throat. The food thing was already an issue, for God’s sake. How much worse could it get than the dishwasher and the kitchen-phobe trying to cook their way out of a paper bag during the busiest shift of the week?
“If anyone gets pissy about it, just come get me.” Teagan turned to race back to the kitchen to make sure poor Jesse had at least figured out how to drop those wings into the fryer when Brennan’s words stopped her cold.
“Okay, but you might want to save yourself some time and check out six and fourteen.” He jutted his chin toward the heart of the dining room, and what was left of Teagan’s composure did a triple-pretzel. Tables six and fourteen were their two biggest, each one seating up to ten people.
And both of them were freshly filled to maximum capacity. With big guys, each of whom looked like he could eat a rhinoceros for breakfast.
Teagan looked up just in time to overhear the only waitress currently on the floor say, “Wow, y’all look hungry! I highly recommend Lou’s burgers. They’re the best in two counties.”
“Oh God.” She was toast.
“They came in a couple of minutes ago, from the baseball game in Riverside. Thought you’d be happy to see the business since we’ve been pretty slow lately.” Brennan slid her a sympathetic look before narrowing his glance in obvious concern. “Is there some kind of problem in the kitchen?”
“Well, that all depends.” She jammed her eyes shut over the hot tears threatening to form there. She hadn’t cried in years, damn it. “You wouldn’t happen to have secret cooking skills I don’t know about, would you?”
Brennan stared at her through the soft, gold light spilling down from the brass lantern fixtures, music pulsing around them in an ironically business-as-usual manner. “Hell, Teagan. What happened to Lou?”
“He quit. And before you ask, the day cook’s gone too, and my father’s sick. I don’t have anybody to call in, and I don’t know anyone who can cook.” Her voice wavered at the gravity of saying it out loud. “So if you have any brilliant ideas, now’s the time to trot them out, Brennan.”
But the response didn’t come from the shell-shocked-looking bouncer. It came from the shadows behind him.
“I know how you can fix your problem, Red. But you aren’t going to like it.”