It was a role he never stopped playing, even after the pub was closed. If he accepted the invitation of a woman who’d lingered until quitting time, he knew she expected him to be the same man in her bed as the man she’d flirted with among the mirrors and mahogany. It was better for him to be that man, best to keep the fantasy intact.
The real him wouldn’t be so welcomed by women, nor so successful in business. Connor kept his secrets. Nothing exotic or intriguing, merely that he was an ex-con, a common dropout who’d gotten caught riding in a stolen car at nineteen. Joyriding was a felony in Texas. He’d stood in handcuffs before a judge and pled guilty.
That felony conviction still affected his life. It always would. He hadn’t been able to get a driver’s license for almost two years. He hadn’t been able to take over for Mr. Murphy until enough years had passed that the government would allow him to apply for a liquor license. He’d had to publish his intent to get the license in the newspaper twice, to give the public time to object to a convicted felon operating a bar in their town.
Nobody had objected. Connor doubted many had read the single sentence in the local newspaper. That was best for business. Nothing about his past suited the image he needed to maintain as the proprietor of the Tipsy Musketeer.
Nothing about the real him would be interesting to a woman who looked like a Rembrandt and smiled like the girl next door. He could get to know her, but the most that might come of it was a warm night in her bed as her charming bartender.
Bridget polished off her juice, gave Connor one more dirty look, in case he wasn’t aware how she felt about its lack of vodka, and headed toward the stage. The main door was close to it, and the cluster of guys who walked in were unmistakably students, thinking nothing of hollering Yo, Kristopher across the room.
Connor kept an eye on Ms. Rembrandt to see how she’d react to the student invasion. The second Kristopher looked toward his friends, she groped around the table behind herself until she grabbed her book and stuffed it into her bag. She asked Kristopher something. He gestured toward the door, and she headed for the exit.
That was it. She was leaving.
Connor tapped a stainless-steel keg with the toe of his boot. It sounded like there was next to nothing left in it. He ducked beneath the bar to disconnect the line to the empty keg. He heard the door open and close, more raucous students coming in as she went out. Customers came and went all the time. It didn’t matter.
But it felt like it did.
Connor pulled out the keg, then tilted it on its edge to roll it out from behind the long bar, stopping under the ornate iron chandelier that had been converted from candles to kerosene to gas to electricity. It still amazed him that he lived here now, surrounded by beauty that had lasted more than a century. When he finished a book, the hangover was no longer terrible, because Connor didn’t dread returning to this world.
But Ms. Rembrandt had not enjoyed returning to hers. She’d smiled at Kristopher. She’d laughed—God, that bright laugh—but Connor had seen that moment of sadness. He should have talked to her. He was a bartender, after all. Hangover cures were part of the repertoire.
Doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t have led to anything, anyway.
No, but he could have discovered the title of the book with the blue cover, the one she’d stuffed into her bag like she’d stolen it. He would have known her, then, in his own way.
Devil take it to hell and back. Twice.
Connor hefted the keg to chest height and headed for the storeroom, leaving his fantasy of a beautiful world behind.
Copyright © 2020 by Caroline Phipps
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ISBN: 9781488069499
Daughter on His Doorstep
Copyright © 2020 by Teresa Southwick
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Daughter on His Doorstep Page 22