But as I dropped down onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, I knew that wasn’t the case.
I knew who I’d seen.
I’d been admiring Lula for longer than I cared to admit. You could drop her face into one of thoseWhere’s Waldo?Books, and I would find her in a heartbeat.
The question wasn’t if I could trust my eyes.
It was why a woman like Lula was in a place like this.
I needed to get my ass back to Shady Valley to find out.
CHAPTER TWO
Lula
The clanking of glasses and the rush of water as the dishwashers cleaned the pub’s glassware used to be background noise to me, something almost soothing that helped me get through my work.
Cillian had offered to rent me an office or allow me to work from home. I declined both. From home because I had a strict work/life balance that I felt was important, considering how high-stress it was to hide funds from ill-begotten means inside the everyday operations of the Murphy brothers’ pub, The Bog. As for the office, well, a part of me was already worried I didn’t have nearly enough of a social life as it was. If I was sitting in some cushy office on my own somewhere, that was only going to get worse.
So, I had a tiny little office in the back of the pub.
“Office” might have been generous. It had been an extra supply room at some point. But when it got too hard to share an office with Cillian, he had his other brothers clean it out and spruce it up for me. So instead of the scuffed, peeling linoleum you could find in his office, I had a lovely wide-plank, light-wood click floor under my feet. The beige paint that had been on thewalls since before I was born had been stripped and replaced with a stark white and gorgeous accent molding. My white desk was likely too big for the space, but the nature of my job meant that I needed to make sure there was no evidence of what I was doing, so there was no need for printers, scanners, notebooks, or binders.
I’d recently added a plant stand and all my plants from home, along with a strong full-spectrum lighting setup.
When asked, I claimed that the point of having plants was to enjoy them, and that I worked so much that it made sense for them to be at work with me.
Because they could never, ever find out the truth. No one could. Well, no one else. Two people were enough. One, the person responsible for the mess I was in. The other, an antisocial town recluse who barely ever spoke to anyone and was known for his discretion—his job demanded it.
Outside of them, I didn’t want my employers to know. My friends. Not my cousin Detroit. No one.
I couldn’t stand how differently they might look at me if they found out. Just the thought made a shiver work its way up my spine.
Or maybe that was the sound of a rack of dirty glasses slamming down on the platform beside the sink just a few feet away from me.
I let out a sigh and closed the lid of my laptop. It was no use. Each sound coming from the dish pit was setting my teeth on edge, making it impossible to think clearly.
For the first time in my career, I kind of wished I’d taken my boss up on his office offer.
Quiet.
A place to rest.
No one to see me and assume correctly that my entire life had just been turned upside down and shaken.
Standing, I soothed a hand down my sleeveless sage green A-line dress even as I cursed my shoes for pinching my toes. I had a very sit-down job, so my sit-down shoes were definitely more aesthetic than functional.
I grabbed my mug off the warmer on my desk and stepped out of my office and into the controlled chaos of the pub kitchen.
The humidity hit me first. The never-ending dishwashing station meant hot water was constantly filling the air.
I normally had my hair in more protective styles—twists or braids—but I’d cut back on my salon visits the past few months. When someone asked, I claimed I was into that new ‘clean girl’ aesthetic with the center-parted slick-back hairstyle. Which couldn’t be further from the truth. I liked fun hairstyles and great makeup. But my life had been full of a lot of changes lately. I was trying not to let myself think about them.
At least the Murphy brothers took their coffee seriously, so my caffeine habits didn’t have to change.
I greeted a few of the back-of-house staff, then pushed through the door leading to the bar.
“More coffee?” Casey, a new hire, asked as she reached for the soda gun.
