“Oh! Are you related to Deirdre and her brother?”
“Liam is my husband,” Tilly replied.
Caroline’s eyebrows lifted. “I hadn’t realized Mr. Hannan had married. Congratulations.”
“Just yesterday.” Tilly couldn’t keep the smile from her face, despite the less-than-ideal circumstances under which the wedding had happened. And despite being unable to figure out if her husband particularly enjoyed being married to her. “My brother is Marshal Wright,” she added, only because it felt disingenuous to leave that bit of information out.
“Edie is a good friend of mine,” Caroline said with a smile. “We both worked in the restaurant at the Crest Stone Hotel together before we were married.”
Tilly tried to imagine working in such a place when she could hardly wrap her mind around living there temporarily. “That’s where Liam and I are living, just for now. It must be difficult to obtain work at such a fine hotel.”
“It was,” Caroline agreed. “But I enjoyed my time there.”
The door opened just then, and a man strode up to the counter, dressed in a wrinkled shirt under an equally wrinkled coat. He looked as if he’d forgotten to shave for the past few days, and his face was handsome but weary.
“Mr. Carlisle,” Caroline greeted him with a friendly look. “How is Clara? I hope she’s doing well.”
“She’ll be better once the baby arrives. We both will,” he said.
Feeling as if she were intruding on a private conversation, Tilly lifted her hand to say farewell to Caroline and found her way out the door.
She wrapped her coat closer around her and grinned at nothing. Caroline was kind, and it was nice to have another person she knew in Crest Stone.
She’d taken a few steps down the sidewalk when she spotted a familiar figure step onto the sidewalk across the street. It was Liam.
Happy to stumble across him, she began to move in his direction—until he opened the door of the saloon and stepped inside.
Tilly halted. Whatever was Liam doing going into a saloon before noon?
Chapter Eleven
LIAM BLINKED IN THEdarkness.
The Starlight Saloon always smelled the same—of watered-down spirits, polished wood, and the slight hint of sweat. He wrinkled his nose and tried not to think of the last time he’d come in here.
Last summer, he felt so desperate that he had tried to wash away his mistakes with whiskey. He’d been so embarrassed afterward that he hadn’t stepped a foot inside the Starlight since.
But this was a business prospect, and he was a much better man now. One who had learned from what he’d done wrong. One who would stop at nothing to see his dream come to fruition the right way.
He slipped out of his coat—it was overly warm inside from the blazing fire at the end of the room—and found a seat at the bar. There were only a handful of men in the place this early, and as Liam waited, he glanced around, wondering what brought the other customers into a saloon at this hour.
“Hannan.” Mac Allen, owner of the Starlight, set a glass on the bar in front of Liam. “Haven’t seen you here in a while. What can I get you?”
“A moment of your time. I have a matter of business to discuss with you,” Liam said.
