Only, the question was about more than tonight, wasn’t it? It was about Abby and the cult and…and everything. Although, for the first time, there wasn’t an iota of doubt that he was on the right path, no matter that it had flipped his life upside down. At the end of Main Street, Céline’s taillights disappeared, and right here, the bar’s door opened, letting out light, music, and a few laughing people. They stumbled happily to a car as he stood out here in the cold, knowing that he wasn’t good enough for the woman inside.
* * *
“Order up!” André called from the kitchen window, but with no outstanding food orders, Abby couldn’t figure out who it was for.
Rory clarified. “Abby, it’s time to take a break.”
“No, I’m fine.”
After a full day here, she had already gotten used to her boss’s sardonic brow and his amiable way of bullying her into things. “Had André make you pasta, love. Pick it up from the window and settle your arse on a barstool. Or, if you need some quiet, use my office.”
The food did look good. Somehow, Abby hadn’t noticed how hungry she was, but her stomach was gurgling embarrassingly. She wouldn’t pay attention to the exhaustion weighing down her limbs.
“I don’t—”
“Dinner’s on us, love. Always during your shift, remember? Otherwise, you’d never get any food in you. Go eat.”
She did as he asked. He was the boss, after all. And, Abby noticed, she was starving. It was… She glanced at the office clock as she collapsed onto the sofa. Ten thirty. Goodness, where had the time gone?
Remembering how Luc had forked and twisted his pasta, Abby did the same, careful not to make a mess of her apron.
That reminded her. Digging into the big front pocket as she chewed, she pulled out wads of cash. She was shocked by how much there was.
It turned out people paid for food and drinks, and on top of that, they gave her money. Rory had refused it earlier when she’d tried to hand some off on him.
“It’s yours, darling,” he’d said in his British accent. British, she thought, where they don’t pronounce thattin the middle of words like butter or water. Amazing how she’d barely set foot off the mountain and already she’d met an English bar owner, a half-Peruvian sheriff, a Mexican cook, and…the obvious, of course: the Frenchman she did her best not to think too much about.
There was way more than a hundred dollars in here, which would pay for more clothes at the thrift shop for Sammy. Maybe she could start a car fund.
She looked at the clock again, anxiety tightening her back and neck. There wasn’t time to buy a car before getting Sammy out.
She’d leave at two, when the bar closed. Two in the morning sounded right. Nobody at the Church would be awake at two.
She looked down at the pasta and forced herself to take another bite when what she really wanted was to pack it up in one of those white cardboard boxes and sneak it into the refrigerator upstairs for Sammy to eat tomorrow. Common sense told her she should eat more. She took another bite of pasta, which was good. A little too sweet, maybe? Nothing like the rich red sauce that Luc had fed her. The herbs in his pasta had been greener and the tomatoes brighter. The brightest time of her life.
Goodness, would she ever stop thinking of him?
After another few bites, she packed the food up and made her way back to the dining room, where the crowd was changing. More men, fewer families, the bar thick with people and the tables nearly empty.
“Dancing again tonight, love,” Rory said when she joined him behind the bar. “I’ll take care of these punters, and we’ll clear those tables off our dance floor, get things ready for the DJ. You’re welcome to clock out now or…you can stay and tear up the dance floor again. Either way, I won’t need you.” After a lascivious wink, he turned to a group of men at the bar, charmed his way through their order, and joined her on the floor to help her move the tables and chairs, transforming this place into the closest thing Blackwood had to a nightclub.
I work in a nightclub, she thought with a private laugh. What would Isaiah say? What wouldMamasay?
She glanced at Rory—a man who pretended, with every fiber of his being, to be lazy. Every movement appeared somehow slow and laconic, yet look at how much he accomplished. There was an art to it.
When they’d finished, she went to the back to take off her apron, again eyeing the clock. Eleven. Still too early, but her nerves jangled in anticipation of what she planned to do. She didn’t figure she’d be able to sleep with the thumping of the music beneath her. Nor, for that matter, with the thumping of her heart. Lord, she could hardly breathe.
“Here, love.” Rory’s voice cut into her thoughts as he handed her a drink.
“What’s this?”
“Vodka cranberry.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
“Not big drinkers where you’re from, then?”
She shook her head and avoided his eye, because he’d been kind—beyond kind, considering he’d given her the room upstairs to live in for next to nothing—but there was a light in his eye that she didn’t trust.
