Jack and Ginger (Sacred Heart Coven Book 3)

by Starr, Felicia

  Ginger gave her a big smile and she chose a stool at the vacant end of the bar. She wasn't really in the mood to be dragged into a meaningless conversation with those guys.

  "How's it going? It's quiet in here. I guess I am used to being here when sports are on," Ginger said as she placed her oversized bag on the bar top.

  "Yeah, it is quiet on week days when there aren't any sports on. Baseball doesn't bring in the same kind of gung-ho crowd as football."

  "There are two factors to that. One is that there are only sixteen games to catch for your team during the football season. And the other is that people can pay to watch the baseball games on any smart phone or computer. I don't think the NFL will ever offer something like that. They make too much money keeping a tight grip on the availability and visibility of the games."

  "You are amazing, Ginger. I swear I don't know how you know so much about sports. I never met another woman that had your passion."

  "I didn't have much of a choice. It was just me and my dad, and you know what kind of a die hard football fan he was." Ginger rubbed the palms of her hands over her bare knees. Instead of sinking into thoughts of sorrow she appreciated the extra smooth texture the salt rub had left behind.

  "Your dad was a trip. He got very excited, but always kept his manners. Not like some of these guys that come in and black out over their teams." Jasinda laughed.

  "My dad was pretty awesome. I miss him." Ginger realized it was the first time she talked about him without getting upset. She actually felt good about talking about her father. She wanted to build on that feeling and rejoice about what he gave her.

  "So what kind of pie did you get?"

  "Sausage, spinach and fresh sliced garlic. It should be here any minute." Jasinda said, "Can I get you something to drink?"

  "Any chance you have fresh iced tea?" Ginger was not about to start drinking and wasn't really in the mood for soda. She tried not to drink it.

  "Do I? Of course, if it is something you can brew chances are I have it. I actually made a mixed berry iced tea for myself today. It is much better with bourbon, but I don't usually drink at work. Not a good habit to get into."

  "That sounds yummy. Where is Steve?" Ginger looked around.

  "Oh he went to the restaurant supply store to get some sanitizer and a box of rocks glasses. He should be back soon. He won't want to miss the pizza and besides we kind of wanted to talk to you together." Jasinda grabbed a pint glass and filled it with ice.

  "You are killing me. I want to know what you are talking about." Ginger had her own list of things she wanted to find the right time to talk to Jasinda about.

  "I know, I know, it's killing me too. So what were you doing at the library?"

  "You really want to know?" Ginger was on the edge of her seat.

  "Probably not as much as I want to tell you what I called you here for..." She laughed as she poured the tea out of a jug into a glass for Ginger.

  "Last night had me thinking about a lot of things. I know that I seemed like I was an emotional basket case, but I think I just needed to purge. I have been holding onto a lot of things, most of which were negative. I didn't sleep much last night so I had a lot of time to think about things, about my life.

  "We talked about how I needed to move on and focus on the life ahead of me. I told you that I wanted to take my time to explore where my heart and passion was. Truth is that I really don't want to wind up in another relationship or job that is not making me feel accomplished or engaged in life."

  "Wow, Ginger, that is great. I am so happy that you were able to take that away from our talk." Jasinda tried to push her curly brown hair behind her ear, but it bounced right back.

  "Working last night was like a gift from you guys. I forgot how much I loved the rush of adrenaline I get from working a busy bar or restaurant. You know I went to school for sports nutrition and I love to cook."

  "I didn't know that." Jasinda eyeballed the guys to see if they needed her, but her attention was barely broken.

  "While I was trying to count sheep last night, I realized that I want to open some kind of restaurant. I went to the library to do some research about putting together a business plan. I know I have the money, I just want to make sure that I do my due diligence."

  "Shut the hell up!" Jasinda said.

  Ginger didn't know what to think, had she offended her by making it sound like she was stepping on her turf. Ginger really wanted to tell her that she wanted to partner up with her and open her business in Jasinda's kitchen, but something stopped her. Fear of rejection maybe.

  Jasinda put the tea on a coaster in front of Ginger and ran around to the other side of the bar and jumped up on the stool next to her. She pulled Ginger's legs around to her and grabbed her hands. Ginger didn't know what was going on.

  "Ok, I really need to calm down for a minute. I'm sorry I yelled at you. Sometimes the universe just showers us with such serendipity I can't contain myself."

  Ginger could feel Jasinda shaking."You are almost scaring me, are you ok?" Ginger made an exchange and took Jasinda's hands in her own in an attempt to help her.

  "We kind of had a similar night last night. Steve and I were up most of the night talking. He had a surprise for me.

  "I told you we have been talking about trying to find the right time to work on getting the kitchen up and running. Well, apparently he has been working on it longer and harder than I thought.

  "He has enlisted the assistance of a restaurant consultant. He will be here on Wednesday to meet with us. He has been interviewing different consultants over the past few weeks looking for someone that would fit with our personality."

  "How exciting!" Ginger said.

  "We also talked about you," Jasinda added.

  "Me?"

  "Yes. I have a tendency to hear everything that people say and replay it in my head over and over again. I think it's why people find me so easy to talk to. I tend to read between and around the lines and have a deep understanding of what people are really trying to say.

  "I truly believe that things always happen for a reason. I am a very spiritual person and feel like when we know what we want, and when we ask for it with an open heart the universe gives us what we can handle."

  Ginger just kept nodding in agreement with her waiting for her to spill it.

  "I am babbling aren't I? What I am trying to say is that we think that you would be a perfect fit to walk this new path with. I don't know why I am surprised, but I can't believe you are sitting here telling me that you are thinking about the same thing. Well, almost the same thing. I don't know if you had something else in mind." Jasinda was talking so fast, Ginger had to just interrupt her.

  "Jasinda, I am in."

  "What?"

  "I am in, I wanted to ask you if you would be open to the idea of me coming in here to work on this with you or for you. I was just nervous to bring it up yet."

  "Steve will be so thrilled. A little upset I didn't wait for him, but excited none the less. He was really impressed with you last night. He said that you were very efficient and had a special way with the customers."

  "Awe, I try. It is really nice to hear that though. So tell me about this guy," Ginger said.

  "I don't know that much. He is flying in from Illinois and will be here for a few days. He will go over everything with us and set us up from the ground up. I don't know all the details. Steve knows more."

  Jasinda got up when the door opened and a guy walked in holding a big white cardboard box in a red, green, and white soccer jersey. Behind him Steve followed tapping him on the shoulder.

  "I got that, bro." Steve handed him some cash and sent him on his way. He walked the pizza over to the bar. "Woman, get some plates, I'm hungry."

  Jasinda laughed at him and went into the kitchen to grab some paper plates. When she returned, she put them on the box and checked in with two guys milking their drinks at the other end of the bar. It was pretty obvious that they had nowhere else to be and p
robably didn't have a lot of money to spend drinking all day.

  "She told you didn't she?" Steve asked Ginger.

  "Really, is it that obvious? I'm not saying anything." Ginger was smiling so hard she might have knocked someone over with her cheeks if they were standing next to her.

  "So I am guessing by the show of your teeth that you are on board?" Steve had a funny way of delivering things.

  "I am not completely sure what I am on board for, but it feels right. I told Jasinda that I went home last night with the intention on waking up to start a new life and one that would include being in the restaurant business.

  "Jasinda might sound like a dreamer to other people, but she is right about how sometimes being in the right place at the right time can feel like magic. So I guess we have a lot to talk about," Ginger said.

  "We need to eat this pizza first. I don't mind cold pizza, but luke-warm pizza not so much." Jasinda opened the box, and Ginger's mouth watered at the aroma.

  "Oh I forgot to tell you that Sally called after you left and said that some things have come up and she is sorry that she had to call out last minute last night, but she needed to let us know that she wouldn't be returning to work and that we can mail her last pay check," Jasinda said as she shoved a slice into her mouth.

  "Tell me what you need. I am here to help. It will give me more time to get to know this place from the other side of the bar," Ginger offered.

  "She was supposed to work tomorrow. We actually have two bartenders coming in tonight to work, somehow we are double staffed for a Monday night. With the consultant coming we want to spend some time strategizing what we want from him so it worked out so we kept them on.

  "If you don't have plans tonight we can sit down and go over our books with you and talk about our options with the restaurant. We have talked about taking on a partner as a whole and expanding what we do here, and we have also considered having someone run the restaurant as a separate business and pay us to lease the space," Jasinda explained and went to fix two more glasses of her mixed berry iced tea for her and Steve.

  "We are open to both options. I spoke to Redford about it and he said that if we had an interested party when he gets here that he would help us to come up with the best option for all of us. Of course we would then need to get our lawyers involved with contracts and such," Steve interjected.

  "I would love to consider both options. This bar has a very special place in my heart. You know that this is where I spent a lot of time with my dad.

  "Oh I wonder if there is a chance that we can get something going by the time football starts. You know if we can get these guys eating they will be drinking more. Not to mentions more women would join them if there was food to entertain them while they watched the games. Hopefully increasing the amount of traffic by at least twenty percent." Ginger sipped on her sweet tea. "You think I am excited?"

  "Those are some very valid points. I am sure that we will be able to work something out, even if we do a light appetizer menu to get started. The kitchen is fully operational. When we bought the place we made sure that all the equipment was inspected. Jasinda had a bread baking party or something in there last month so we know the oven works great."

  "You bake bread too?" Ginger couldn't believe how much she could do.

  "That's funny, no way. My girlfriend owns a coffee shop slash cafe. She is a baker, she was in charge. I made Jell-O shots."

  "Having cooking parties during the down season would be a great way to make extra money and draw a new crowd of people here. Did you happen to talk concept with Redford yet? Is that his first name or last name?"

  "I'm not actually sure, he has two last names, he called himself Redford, I think. We didn't really get into the concept yet. He told me that I should brainstorm some ideas and he would sort through them until we found an appropriate niche that works for us." Steve somehow managed to polish off two slices of pizza before Ginger finished her first.

  Chapter Eight

  AFTER FIDDLING AROUND TRYING TO get the lock open on the door for what felt like an eternity, Ginger finally got into her dad's condo. It might have only taken a minute or two, but that was way too long for it to take a key to turn. It wasn't the first time it happened either, otherwise she would have chalked it up to just being her exhaustion kicking in.

  She considered writing herself a note to call a locksmith to come out to and take a look at it, instead she repeated it in her head three times hoping that would help her remember in the morning. She tossed her bag and keys on the console table and tossed her body onto the love seat.

  She knew there was more room on the sofa, but it was where her father always sat. She tried to convince herself her choice was because she liked to put her feet up on the arm rest, but that was a lie.

  It was bad enough that her marriage to Roger was a lie. She didn't even want to know how many falsehoods he fed her over the years. He clearly wasn't happy. But the questions still plagued her: for how long and was there ever a point when he was happy? And for that matter was she?

  Ginger tried to remember what it was like when they first met. Was there a time when he looked at her like it was the first time he had seen a sunset? She remembered him holding her hand in the car when they first started dating. She was always nervous that he should have two hands on the wheel.

  So how did things go so wrong? Ginger wondered who had changed, or was it that neither of them grew so they became bored of one another. Had life become so monotonous? He got up and went to work and then the gym, she got up made three square meals and did the cleaning. The weekends consisted of yard work and movie night with an occasional bottle of wine. In the beginning they did these things smiling at each other, in the end they worked with their backs to each other.

  She wondered if maybe the marriage dissolved because there was another woman. The idea that she was sleeping with him while he was sleeping with another woman or man for that matter disgusted her. She was never one to sleep around or to not use protection before she was married. She thanked the heavens that she didn't catch anything from him.

  Ginger was at a point emotionally that she knew it didn't matter if he was with someone else. She didn't feel like he was anything worth holding onto let alone fight for. Maybe if he had been a more supportive and attentive husband she would have felt different.

  Her eyes were heavier than her heart. She rolled over and tucked her knees into her chest. Ginger didn't want to spend her time thinking about what could have or should have been with Roger. The truth was that it was over. She pressed her eyes tight together and a tear forced its way from the outer crease.

  If she was so tired, why couldn't she calm her mind enough to fall asleep? She'd had a very exciting day and wanted to be free to rejoice in the excitement. The harder she tried to be thankful for the positive things, the more her mind drifted to dark places.

  The tightness in her chest grew. In an attempt to soothe away the pain her leg started to bounce up and down. She felt like the harder or faster she bounced her leg the longer she could hold off her tears that were threatening to unleash. If only the extra energy she was exerting would have wiped her out enough to drift off to sleep.

  Ginger inhaled a long breath trying to cleanse away the dirtiness she felt thinking about her ex-husband. Instead she took in the scents around her, her father's scents. It took her back to when she was a little girl and he would rub her back at night when it was time to get tucked in.

  She wished that he were there; he always had an open ear for her. Even though there were things that weren't appropriate for her to share with her dad, she always knew she could. He never once judged her, even when she was making a decision that wasn't the best thing for her.

  Ginger wished he knew that she was single again. Even though it had been an emotional roller coaster for her since her divorce came at the same time as his passing, she thought that he would be glad she wasn't married to Roger anymore. On the flip side he wouldn't be happy to see he
r in so much pain. She knew that if he was watching her, his heart would be breaking for her.

  The thought of him hovering over her with his hand on her back, crying tears of her sadness was the last straw. The tightness in her chest coiled up into her throat depositing a knot that stung with each attempt to swallow. The muscles tightened between her eyes and her shoulders pushed up to her ears.

  Her tears didn't fall, they poured out of her. Silent moans echoed in the corners of her mind. Her body rocked back and forth with each heave of her chest. She tried to imagine what her father would say to her.

  She could almost make out the sound of his voice, if only it wasn't the first thing people forgot.

  You are stronger than this, my sweet ginger snap. You don't need me to tell you that you are strong enough. You are enough and more. You don't need someone else to prove your worth they should only validate it.

  Ginger could almost taste the warm cup of tea loaded with milk and sugar, just like her father would make her when she was feeling down or ill. It brought a small smile to her face and the rocking subsided.

  Ginger's eyes burst open as her heart thumped hard against her chest. At some point she had drifted off to sleep. She wasn't sure how long she had been down for, she assumed it hadn't been much.

  It wasn't long enough to fall into that deep of a sleep. A bleeping sound woke her in such a way that her adrenaline amped up her blood flow causing her heart to gallop. Ginger wasn't sure what the noise was, but her first concern was the smoke alarm. She got up so quickly that she felt like she was going to black out.

  Since the bleeping was clearly not a loud smoke alarm she sat down for second to regain her composure. As soon as her heart slowed she got up to get herself a glass of water. Chances were the beeping was her phone or the computer. She wasn't in the mood to look.

  Ginger's eyes felt swollen from her unexpected crying episode. She lifted her fingers and patted them around her right eye feeling how puffy they were. When she looked over at the clock she was surprised to find it was only twelve thirty. It felt like it was the middle of the night.