“So you finally got a chance to waitress,” he said eventually, breaking the silence.
“And I blew it,” she finished the sentence.
“What happened?”
As much as she didn’t want to talk about it, Maya told Cody everything. He sat silently and listened as he continued to hold her.
“That wasn’t your fault,” he told her when she was finished. “Tom has to understand that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she insisted as she sat up and wiped her tears from her eyes. Her hands left her face covered in black makeup. She had forgotten she was even wearing makeup. Now knowing it was ruined, she didn’t even want to see how bad she looked. “I need to change and get cleaned up,” she told him. “Then we can get out of here,”
“Take as long as you need.” Cody kissed the top of her head before he allowed her to get up and disappear into the break room.
~2~
“Y ou don’t fit in with us.”
The words echoed through Troy’s head as he walked the streets of downtown Deadwood. He didn’t know where he was going and he really didn’t care.
All he knew was that he sure as hell wasn’t going back to the hotel. The last thing he wanted was to be around his brother and the group of losers that worshipped Jake.
Troy struggled to think of what he would lose if he didn’t return to the hotel. He didn’t bring much with on the trip. Clothes, but they could be replaced. He had his money and credit cards in his wallet. He had the keys to his bike. He had his cell phone, even though it seemed to be useless in the Black Hills.
The only thing he didn’t have was a place to sleep, but that didn’t really bother him. He was alone, but he was used to that.
“You don’t fit in with us.”
He hated those words and his brother knew it. He had heard them his entire life.
Troy’s family had too much money to live in the small town he grew up in. Everyone in town knew they were loaded, and they all knew exactly where the family fortune had come from. Parents didn’t let their kids play with kids from an outlaw biker family. Throughout his entire childhood, Troy really only ever had one friend.
School was dull. It was too easy for him, but he could only be skipped ahead so many grades.
He was too smart for the smart kids. Too much of a trouble maker. He had lost count of how many times he should have been expelled in grade school, but his parents just threw money at the school and they acted like nothing happened.
He really went off the deep end when his parents died, but never once actually got in trouble for anything he did. He was viewed as the poor little rich kid with no parents.
Everyone expected Troy to join the MC that his father had started. His brother became president at the same time he became Troy’s legal guardian. With no other family, Troy hung around Jake and the guys a lot as a teenager, but he had no intention of ever officially joining the club.
Troy was barely seventeen when he graduated from high school, and while he knew he wanted to go to college someday, he wasn’t ready after high school. Two years later, he still wasn’t ready.
When Jake told him that the club was making the trip to Sturgis, Troy jumped at the idea and practically begged his brother to let him tag along. Unlike when he finished high school, he no longer had a reason to remain in town. He had to get away. A place where no one knew who he was sounded fantastic to him.
It took two days to make the trip from Wisconsin to South Dakota, and Troy loved every minute of it. He had never left the state before, and no one else knew but he had no intention of returning.
Troy was thrilled when he found out they were spending a few days in Deadwood before camping in Sturgis for the rally. He was sure the rally would be interesting enough, but Deadwood had history.
Now that he was finally on his own to do whatever he wanted, he didn’t know where to start. He wasn’t old enough for the casinos that lined the streets, but gambling didn’t interest him.
During the day, the streets were filled with buses taking tourists on various tours of the town. Historical tours. Ghost tours. There was something for everyone.
At nearly two in the morning, the streets were mostly quiet. It surprised Troy. With as many people as there were in town, there sure wasn’t much of a night life.
He knew it was pointless to even attempt to find a hotel room. Jake had booked their rooms a year in advance, and even then there wasn’t much to choose from. He had a tent rolled up on the back of his bike, but he was certain even the local campgrounds would be full as well.
Troy glanced to his right. There seemed to be a break in the trees up a hill. Maybe he could find a place to catch a few hours of sleep.
He didn’t sleep well on the cold, hard ground, but it was enough to keep him going for the day. Once the streets of downtown seemed to fill up, he went to buy some new clothes and found a shower room at a campground.
Troy felt bad for the fight in the restaurant. The poor waitress seemed terrified of Jake and he was certain that no one else would have had the sense to pay their bill. Surely the sixty dollars he had tossed on the table wasn’t enough to cover it, which meant that the young server was probably expected to pay it from her tips. Before he even made up his mind to go, Troy found himself walking through the door to the restaurant. He walked directly to the hostess stand.
“Is the manager from last night available by chance?” he asked the young girl at the stand.
“Tom? He’s always here,” she replied as she gestured toward the bar. “Hey Tom,” she called over to him.
“What are you doing back here?” he asked as he approached Troy. “I don’t allow fights in my place. I don’t care who you think you are.”
Troy put his hands up as if to surrender. “I’m not here to fight,” he assured him. “I just wanted to make sure our bill gets paid. I’m sure none of the others threw down after everything happened.”
Tom was confused. “So you mean to tell me that after getting into a fight and being kicked out last night, you come back today to make sure we got paid?”
Troy couldn’t help but smile. Once he heard the words out loud, he had to admit it sounded ridiculous, but he nodded.
Tom shook his head in astonishment as he gestured for the younger man to follow him to the bar.
Once everything was paid, Troy handed Tom another fifty. “Can you make sure our waitress from last night gets this?”
Tom stared down at the money in his hand. “You have got to be one of the strangest people I have ever met.”
“Not strange, just honest,” Troy replied. “She did an amazing job attempting to deal with Jake last night. He was completely out of line.”
“I will make sure she gets this. Be sure to tell your brother that he better not plan on returning here.”
Troy glanced down at his watch. “That shouldn’t be a problem, sir. I believe he left town about an hour ago.”
“Good. And none of that ‘sir’ crap.” He extended his hand. “Tom.”
“Troy,” Troy said as he shook Tom’s hand.
“You seem like a good kid Troy. Don’t go getting mixed up in the clubs.” He glanced down at Troy’s attire. “You ride?”
Troy nodded. “Since I was too young to drive,” he confessed. “You?”
Tom shook his head. “Not in ten years.”
Troy could sense the sadness in Tom’s voice, but he didn’t want to push. “I need to be going. I’m really sorry for all the trouble,” he apologized again.
“Thank you for making it right.”
Troy nodded and head for the door. With apologizing and taking care of the bill out of the way, he needed to find something to do.
Once outside, he decided he wanted to be a typical tourist. A bus was parked in front of the restaurant. One of the many tours the town offered. He didn’t hesitate to jump on.
The historical tour wasn’t bad. The guide explained how the town had gone from a gulch with a population of zero
to a thriving community with over ten thousand in the course of only a year.
He wasn’t really listening to much of what she was saying, but he was blown away by the scenery. Everything was so beautiful, and it was only then that he realized he had left something important in the hotel after all. His camera.
He was staring off into space, mentally kicking himself for losing his camera, as the guide pointed out the graves of people such as Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane when he saw her out of the corner of his eye.
She was hidden in the trees, off the beaten path of the tour. If he would have blinked, he would have missed her. He barely even recognized her as it was. She looked so different.
He didn’t even know her name, but he was mesmerized by the young waitress from the previous night.
While he had definitely noticed her beauty the night before when she was dressed as a saloon girl with her hair and makeup done, seeing her natural beauty, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
There was nothing special about her attire; she was dressed simply in a pair of jean shorts and a black tank top. Her hair was pulled back from her face in a loose, messy bun. If she was wearing any makeup at all, it was definitely more subtle than it had been the night before and not noticeable from a distance.
She looked happy. The small smiles she had flashed at customers the previous night were nothing compared to her face at that moment. Her face lit up and her eyes seemed to sparkle. Again, Troy mentally kicked himself for leaving his camera behind.
He almost yelled at the tour driver to stop the bus so he could jump off before he realized she wasn’t alone.
~***~
Maya rolled her eyes when she heard yet another tour bus climbing the hill to Mount Moriah Cemetery. The tours usually ran once an hour, but that day there had already been three in the twenty minutes she had been there with Cody.
“I’ll be glad when this week is over and it starts to go back to normal around here,” Cody said.
Maya shrugged. “It also means that summer is almost over,” she pointed out. She wasn’t a fan of all the tourists that flooded her town, but once summer was over, Deadwood went back to being deserted.
“One more year of school,” Cody added.
Maya didn’t answer. For as long as she could remember, Cody and Maya couldn’t wait to graduate high school and go away to college. They didn’t know where they wanted to go, but neither of them wanted to stick around the Black Hills.
Of course, that was before. Her dreams of leaving were now only dreams.
Cody knew that Maya wouldn’t leave town until her younger brother was able to leave too. Gavin was only eight. He needed Maya.
“Are you waiting tables again today?” Cody asked, changing the subject.
Maya nodded. She had been shocked when Tom had called her that morning to ask her to take Chloe’s hours again. She had made over two hundred dollars in tips the night before, so there was no way she would refuse. She was completely surprised that Tom was even giving her another chance.
“I hope those idiots don’t come back again.”
Maya looked at Cody. “Tom said he wouldn’t let them in, but there will always be drunken idiots around,” she pointed out. “I’ll be able to handle it better next time,” she insisted. At least she hoped she could.
“I just hate that you have to put up with it at all.”
Maya couldn’t help but smile. Cody was too overprotective, but at times he could be so sweet.
“Another damn bus,” he complained.
Maya glanced over to the road of the cemetery. Sure enough, another tour bus had just appeared over the hill. It really was getting ridiculous.
“It’s time to get back to town anyway,” Maya told him. She had to run home to change before her shift and Cody had to get to work as well.
~***~
Troy’s smile faded when the guy she was with came into view. He was dressed strangely. Troy wondered if he was part of some 1800’s reenactment that the town was full of. He didn’t care what the guy looked like; all Troy noticed was the way he looked at her.
He didn’t know what he would have even said to her if he did jump off the bus to talk to her. Apologize for Jake’s actions of course. Maybe ask her to dinner? He wasn’t looking for a relationship, but his heart definitely sank when he realized that they had to be together.
Troy could practically feel the love radiating off the boy when he looked at her.
Why did that have such an effect on him? He didn’t want to be with her. He didn’t want to be tied down to just one person. He didn’t want anyone to have the chance to break his heart ever again.
Troy refused to be in an actual relationship. Sure, there were a few one night stands in his recent past, and there were probably more in his future, but there had only been one person he ever saw himself actually settling down with.
He shook his head. He refused to think about that in that moment. Or any day in the near future. It was something he needed to forget.
The waitress glanced over at the bus and Troy’s face turned red. He quickly turned his attention to the tour guide and forced himself to pay attention.
He wasn’t sure if she saw him, but he didn’t want to risk turning his head to find out.
~***~
Cody held out his hand to help Maya up as she had the feeling that she was being watched. She glanced over at the bus and was confronted with a pair of bright blue eyes staring back at her. As soon as their eyes met, he looked away.
It was the guy who had stuck up for her when his brother was being an asshole. What was his name? She couldn’t remember.
Why was he staring at her?
“Maya? Are you okay?” Cody’s voice pulled her gaze away from the bus. “Was it one of those guys from last night?” he asked as he followed her eyes to the bus. She could feel his muscles tense.
Maya shook her head. “It’s nothing, Cody,” she assured him. “I just thought I recognized someone. I was must have been wrong.”
She didn’t know why she had lied to Cody. She never had before, but the words were out of her mouth before she realized what she was saying.
“Are you sure?” His eyes hadn’t left the bus. “Do you want me to hang out at the restaurant tonight? I can make sure no one harasses you.”
“No Cody. You have to go to work too,” she reminded him.
Cody waved his hand like it was no big deal. “It’s not like I’m really needed this week. They can live without me for one day.”
Maya shook her head. In the three years he had been part of the Deadwood Alive theater group, he had never missed a single performance and she wasn’t about to let him start missing because of her. She knew how much he loved his job.
“I will be fine,” she assured him. “I’m only working the dinner shift. I’ll be off in time for the Trial.” The Trial of Jack McCall was one of Cody’s biggest performances and it was performed six nights a week. Maya always tried to make it to the shows even though she had seen it hundreds of times.
Hearing that she would be at the final show of the night seemed to calm Cody down. They were silent as they walked down the hill and made their way to the historic Main Street where they went their separate ways.
~3~
A fter a quick stop at her house to change her clothes and check on her dad and brother, Maya walked into work about twenty minutes before she was scheduled. Tom pulled her aside as soon as he saw her.
“One of the guys from your problem table came back today. He paid the rest of the bill and left this for you,” he told her as he held out an envelope.
Maya looked down. After the proposition from Jake the night before, she was almost afraid to open it. She could only imagine what they would have wanted to leave for her.
“It was the sober one,” Tom added when he noticed her hesitation. She felt her face flush as she opened the envelope. Tears filled her eyes when she saw the fifty dollar bill inside.
“Don’t let the oth
er girls see it,” Tom said quietly. “You earned every dime of that.”
Part of Maya felt guilty because all of the wait staff was supposed to pool their tips and split them evenly, but she did as Tom instructed and tucked the envelope into the pocket of her skirt.
That night she didn’t have any major problems out of any of her tables. The night went well and she was surprised by how fast the four hour shift flew by. Before she knew it, Stacie was there to take over her section and she was done for the night.
Her share of the tips wasn’t as good as it had been the night before, but Maya was walking out the door with just over a hundred dollars, not counting the money in the envelope and she had worked fewer hours.
Glancing down at her watch, Maya realized she needed to hurry. Cody’s performance started at eight and it was on the other end of Main Street. It was nearly quarter to when she finally headed out the door not even bothering to change.
She was halfway there when the crowd got thicker. The show at the Number 10 Saloon had just ended and the people crowded around to watch the historic capture of Jack McCall before he was escorted down the street to the Trial performance.
Maya scanned the streets for Cody as she continued to walk. Since she didn’t see him on the street, she assumed he was already in the theater. He wasn’t part of the capture scene and he usually went to the theater early to talk to guests and pick some for the audience participation part of the performance.
She should have kept her eyes in front of her. She should have been watching where she was going, especially in such a large crowd. She should have noticed the person walking toward her before she collided with him.
“I’m so sorry,” she said immediately as she bent down to pick up her bag that she had dropped in the collision.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. I should be the one apologizing to you.”
She froze when she heard his voice. She hadn’t been expecting to hear it again. Maybe her ears were playing tricks on her. When she finally lifted her eyes, she was met with a pair of blue eyes staring back at her. She could feel the heat rush to her cheeks.
Facing Fear Page 2
