by Katie Cross
Her lack of fight was another brutal blow. She really was that desperate. The woman hadn’t even taken the change I’d left her when I bought the scone and water, but now she accepted free help.
Color me intrigued.
And a bit disappointed. Chasing her had been a great time.
She shivered, but stuck out her hand. When I accepted, that damn shiver skittered through me like a cruising firework.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” she murmured.
“See you then.”
11
Bethany
The coffee shop lay in near silence when I returned from a long motorcycle ride to clear my head. The implications of taking the girls had far-reaching effects. Ones I was certain I couldn’t even comprehend now.
One thought stood out above all the static: I wanted them.
They were my family. My only connection to someone, and I desperately wanted them to be safe. Mom would want it. Dad would have taken them in half a second and threatened his shotgun on anyone who tried to stop him. Even though they were the children of the man Mama had chosen after him.
Jada had dropped the girls back off at some point. Shopping bags littered the attic floor. Lizbeth lay asleep in my bed, a book on her chest, snoring softly. Her burnished copper hair spilled across the pillow in the moonlight when I shuffled inside. Ellie sat at the window, bathed in starlight. She wore one of my shirts that was several sizes too big. Jada had texted me a picture of some pajamas they’d bought her. Why wouldn’t she wear those?
I stopped, arrested by the similarity to Mama. That stubborn tilt of her chin. The graceful arch of her nose. Ellie was already a wild beauty. She’d be a handful as a teenager even without her looks. They would only make it harder for her. Even worse because she couldn’t care less about things like that.
Her gaze flickered to me when I advanced into the room, then returned back outside. I stood next to her, peering out. Someone sat in a canoe on the lake, a light hanging from a pole on the side. Devin. Still out fishing.
With a sigh, I sat next to Ellie, pressed my back against the wall, and tilted my head up. The unusual quiet and darkness was a soothing balm, and I sank into it for several minutes. She didn’t say a word, and Maverick’s reverberating voice played on repeat in my mind.
“She cried for you.”
Ellie’s whispered words shocked me. I sucked in a sharp breath as her bright-blue eyes locked on mine. They were the first words I’d heard from her in years.
“Mama?”
She nodded. Her hands gripped the windowsill until her knuckles turned white.
A sinking feeling collapsed in my chest. “I cried for her too.”
Ellie studied me, then carefully crouched down. She sat with her back to the wall, but far out of reach. “You’re going to give us up, aren’t you?”
“Do you want me to?”
Her silence lasted for so long that I turned to look at her. She peered at me with luminous eyes. Then she blinked and looked away. Her knees came up against her chest. She didn’t answer.
“I’m going to keep you, if you’ll have me. Tonight, I met with a lawyer to figure out how to make it happen. You’re safe now, Ellie.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I can,” I countered. “I am. We may not have a lot of space. We may have some things to figure out. And we may not always get along, but I can promise you that you will always be safe with me.”
A sense of rightness flooded my entire body. I’d keep them. I’d keep them and fight for them and make sure Jim never laid a hand on them again. No matter what. No matter how. If I had to leave the state with them, I would.
I’d figure it out.
She swallowed. “If you kept us,” she whispered, “I would stay.”
“Do you promise?”
She nodded.
“You won’t run away in the middle of the night?”
Her nostrils flared, but she nodded. “I promise.”
“You won’t hide supplies?”
“That’s just being smart.”
“No hiding supplies. No plans to run.”
Her voice was stark. “I always have plans.”
“Not anymore.”
For a long moment, there was total silence. Then she let out a long breath. “I promise.”
“Thank you.”
With that, she scrambled onto her bed—a blow-up mattress with a pile of blankets on top. The answer was more than just willingness. For her, it was a sign of peace. Behind every door that lay on the path ahead, I feared that Ellie would just up and leave. Retreat to the mountains to try to live by herself. Or disappear the moment Jim showed up.
Her compromise was exactly what I’d needed without even knowing it.
I remained there for several minutes, the chilly breeze brushing over me from the open window. The quiet clink clink of Devin’s lamp rang from the canoe below. For a moment, I thought I felt Mama. Her touch on my arm. A whisper of her voice.
Then it faded.
I fell asleep on the floor next to Ellie, sliding deeply into the languorous waves for the first time in weeks.
12
Maverick
While I looked forward to going over Bethany’s business with a fine-tooth comb, I knew from the moment I woke up that the day would be an intense one.
Making people face all the places they’d failed was never easy. Most businesses took a nosedive because people didn’t want to see their problems, so they let them keep growing. In Bethany’s case, this wasn’t her fault. But there was still a lot of ugly.
While I’d braced myself for defensiveness on her part—she didn’t strike me as the teary, hysterical type—I hadn’t expected to walk into the coffee shop to see three girls staring at me.
Bethany wore a dress that brushed her knees and a pair of strappy sandals. Her hair, pulled away from her face, still swept her shoulders. One of girls, a redhead, held a cup of coffee. A fortune cookie on the front of it said, Your life is about to change. Order more coffee. She extended it to me, lips pursed into a tempered smile.
Her voice was lyrical. “Bethie said you like it black, two sugars.”
She set it on my usual table, which was filled with piles of paper, several binders, and an open laptop. The girl retreated to another table by a stack of books. Behind the counter stood another young girl. Raven hair like Bethany, but her eyes were more seafoam than glacial blue. Her gaze darted to my prosthetic then back to my face without a flicker.
Bethany could have been her sister.
“Maverick,” Bethany said with a smile laced with . . . something. “I’d like you to meet Lizbeth and Ellie, my half-sisters.” She motioned to the two girls with a sweep of her arm. “They wanted to meet the man who’s going to guarantee them a new home. I figured it would make sense for you to understand the urgency behind what we’re doing.”
I paused, halfway to the table.
Wait, what?
An awkward pause filled the room, instantly kicking my instincts to life.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, slipping into my best attempt at smoothing the situation into something more comfortable. Nerves made for terrible deals. When I looked back at Bethany, eyebrows raised in silent question, she almost smiled.
“Do explain,” I murmured, on guard already.
“Lizbeth, Ellie, and I share our mama. Their father is a pig and deserves to be shot, but since I can’t legally do that, I’m keeping them. We want to do everything we can to prove to a judge that the three of us can live together in better conditions than at Jim’s home, where they aren’t safe.”
The bartender at the restaurant had mentioned that Bethany’s date last night had been a local lawyer. The puzzle pieces slid together slowly.
The family-law attorney.
Pro bono work.
Worries about cash flow and the business.
Sugar in her grocery cart.
Half-sisters.
“I see,” I sai
d. It all made sense now.
Bethany stepped out from behind the counter wearing her usual faded black apron with pockets in the front. She tucked her hands into the pockets, her teeth worrying her bottom lip. It was her only tell.
“Maybe you see a little of it,” she murmured, “but not entirely. Their bruises have faded for now, but if Jim gets ahold of them again, they won’t.”
My fists clenched at my sides. A little fire had ignited in Ellie’s tempestuous gaze, but she hadn’t moved a bit. Lizbeth peered at me from the top of a book, her long legs sprawled over the side of her chair, as if she wanted to shield herself from the world but didn’t want to miss this moment.
I held Bethany’s gaze in wordless question. Bethany nodded, her jaw tight. All right, then. Stakes were higher. Abusive father of young girls. Challenge accepted. Nothing would feel better than taking this bastard down.
“I brought out everything that I have on the coffee shop.” She waved a hand toward the cluttered table. “Any paperwork Dad left when he died. Books. Receipts. Whatever. I think there are delivery logs there too. I haven’t really kept track since I took over.”
The flippant whatever made my skin crawl. No wonder this place was such a hot mess. No part of the numbers of any brick-and-mortar business could be whatever. This clutter, while entirely unnecessary with the right organizational system, could hide a gem.
Could. We’d see.
Her nose wrinkled. “Owning a business is a lot of paperwork.”
“You don’t own a business yet,” I said quietly. “You’ve been operating one, but until you can walk away without fear of debt, you don’t truly own it. The bank owns it. You’re running it. There’s a difference between keeping plates in the air and sculpting, executing, and realizing a vision.”
That same annoyance I’d seen the first time we spoke about this flared up in her gaze. “I disagree,” she croaked. “But for the sake of efficiency, we’ll go with that. I’m running this business.”
No, it was running her, but now wasn’t the time for that clarification.
A few things clicked for me in that moment. Bethany was taking a huge risk bringing these girls into her life, and even though I didn’t have any of the details, I could tell they weren’t sister-close yet.
Not only was the risk significant, but her business was about to bottom out. Her only chance to prove herself able to provide for these girls was likely just about to crash in a final blaze of financial debt and lackluster glory.
If she truly lived upstairs, that meant losing the Frolicking Moose really did mean she’d lose everything. So would the girls. Someone at the gas station had mentioned that Bethany had walked away from college after her father died, which meant she had no real chance of saving herself or them without this firepit.
But there was something in her eyes that told me she wasn’t ready to walk out of the flames yet. Impressive as hell. As long as she’d try, I would too.
And then she would win.
Setting aside the unnerving desire to maim the man who’d harmed either of these girls, I nodded to the table.
“Then let’s get started.”
13
Bethany
“This is bad,” I whispered, “isn’t it?”
A muscle in Maverick’s cheek twitched as he stared at the mass of papers in front of us. The disaster that the Frolicking Moose hid was so much bigger than I’d really wanted to know. It seemed easier to not think about it.
Until it wasn’t.
Recent credit card statements told only part of the story. There were invoices due on supplies. Some insurance for the building that was just about up, and three mortgage payments I hadn’t paid. Not to mention the line of credit with the bank that was just about gone. Still didn’t even cover the credit card debt, either.
“It’s . . . not great,” he finally said. He glanced up briefly through thick eyelashes before turning back to his computer. Why did men get the most gorgeous eye fans?
“Worse than you thought?”
His lips thinned.
A spreadsheet filled the screen as he scrubbed a hand over his now-full beard. Lizbeth watched like a hawk from a nearby chair. Ellie sat in the hallway where she could see the front parking lot and dash away whenever a new customer appeared. She moved like a cat.
A lump filled my throat. There were still hospital bills and funeral expenses to pay off, too, but I didn’t tell him that. Maybe they’d disappear. Maybe I had an unknown relative about to die. Maverick leaned back in the chair, scrubbing a hand over his eyes. We’d been sitting here for three hours.
“Let’s take a break from numbers and focus on processes.” He stretched his long, corded arms overhead. Out of the corner of my eye, I appreciated the elongation of his torso. How did shoulders get that wide, anyway?
“Sure.”
“Mind if we go behind the counter?”
“Not at all.”
I jumped to my feet, relieved to be away from the financial prison Dad had built. Of course, he never would have done any of this if he’d known. Known how short his time would be. Known he’d be leaving me with a disaster . . . and then some.
“Would you like the official tour?” I asked. “It’s not much, but then you can see what machines we have and what we can offer.” My nose wrinkled. “Assets, would you call them?”
A quick smile lit up his face.
“Assets, indeed.”
Ellie watched us from the hallway, tossing a bouncy ball back and forth between her hands. Quickly, I described the different machines, the fridge, the storage in the back, the cleaning supplies, the broken ice machine that didn’t make ice, but at least kept it cold, and the cash register. It didn’t take long. He took it all in smoothly, seeming none the worse for wear despite our hours of misery.
Finally, we stopped. He stood with his arms crossed. I kept my eyes on his face, then realized that wouldn’t help, and looked at the spot behind his right shoulder.
“You mentioned not having an operations manual before,” he said. “So, how did you teach your employee to work the machines?”
I shrugged. “Just . . . taught them. Showed them how. Want me to teach you?”
My voice perked up a bit, unintentionally, like this was a game. In truth, I loved talking to people. Overseeing a task from beginning to end and creating a product. Only I wanted this on a bigger scale. Houses instead of cappuccinos. Lifestyle and decor instead of coffee and pastries.
And, if I were being totally honest with myself, I wanted him to see me in a moment of doing something well. My life in front of him had been one failure after another. Not that it should have mattered.
But it did.
Maverick lifted an eyebrow.
“Yes,” he drawled. His tone suggested he was testing me. He leaned back against the counter, eyes bright. “I would love to learn your espresso machine, but I’m a terrible visual learner. Before I can be hands-on, I need to see it written down so I can process it.”
I frowned. “Then this is going to be a difficult working relationship.”
He shrugged. “You own this place, right? You take responsibility for all aspects of it. You’ve hired me, so now you have to deal with the situation.”
Another test.
“Yes, I suppose that’s true . . . but maybe I just needed to have better questions in the interview process.”
He tilted his head back and laughed, a deep, throaty sound. Lizbeth perked up. Ellie stopped throwing the ball to pay attention.
I tried to ignore the sparks shooting all the way down my spine and into my toes.
“Nice try.” He leaned back. “If I’m better studying in words first, it’s in the best interest of your company to provide that. Otherwise, I may burn myself and hold you accountable, saying I didn’t have appropriate training suited to my needs.”
“That’s a risk regardless of training,” I shot back like a power-debater. “And you’ll have to do it, eventually. That is the purpose
of the job.”
“But if I don’t feel adequately prepared, that means my safety is in question.”
Heat rose in my cheeks. Maybe I wasn’t the linguistic powerhouse I imagined myself to be. He had me there.
“If you haven’t provided training in a way I can understand, and I get burned or worse, you’re responsible for covering my medical bills.”
My eyes widened. “Shut up!”
“You’re the owner.”
“But what if I showed you how? It’s not my fault if you mess up.”
“Do you have documentation that you showed me?” He leaned a little closer. I stopped breathing so I didn’t get distracted by his smell. “Can you prove your training process? Do you have something written down in case I need to troubleshoot, or in the event of an emergency?”
The blood drained from my cheeks, leaving me cold. I had never considered this. Why couldn’t people just . . . work?
“I see,” I murmured.
“It may seem boring, but it’s absolutely essential that you have an operations manual and a training program dictating every aspect of running your shop. It’s the only way you’ll ever be able to leave it, turn this into an investment, and do whatever else it is you want to do.”
Like sell houses.
His words stung in all the wrong places, because how could I even deny he was right? When he presented the facts like that, they seemed indisputable. Even if it wasn’t really that easy. I fidgeted. What business was it of his, anyway?
Oh, yeah. Definitely his business now. He wasn’t saving the Frolicking Moose or the girls. He was saving me from myself. I’d promised to work harder than he expected, so I forced down the bitter pill of pride that had lodged deep in my throat.
“Okay.” I blew out a long breath. “You’re right. I need to figure this out. How do I start an operations manual? I’m ready to get started, but I don’t . . . I don’t know how to do that.”
He grinned, and his deep voice rolled like thunder. “That is easier than you think, and takes longer than you think. But if you have help, it can be efficient.”
