The bar door opens again and Sam, Reilly’s girlfriend, walks in. She smiles and waves at the guys as they greet her, then her eyes meet mine. They’re too knowing, something I noticed the first day I met her in the shop.
I take another gulp of IPA. It’s cold and refreshing going down, and I realize how much I miss summer already.
Sam smiles at me. “Hi, Colton.”
“Hey, Sam.” I smile a little and watch as her face lights up when Nick comes out from the back of the bar. They chitchat back and forth, razzing each other. It’s heartwarming and makes me a little uneasy seeing how close-knit the people are in this town. There’s nothing like knowing you’re an outsider when you’re trying to settle in and get your life back on track.
And then there’s Machaela. If Sam’s here, it won’t be long before boss-lady shows up, I would imagine.
“You bring the Ducati?” Bobby asks. He’s grinning at me, his eyebrows waggling. He’s a young kid, but has an appreciation of all things mechanical, like his father, even if hockey seems to be his biggest passion.
I notice his missing tooth and smile back. “You’re a beast, man.”
“And yet,” Bobby says, smoothing out his imaginary lapel, “I still get all the ladies.”
I chuckle and take another drink. “Yeah, it’s a conundrum. And yes, I brought the bike, but I’ll have to cover her up soon. It’s getting too damn cold out there.”
“Yeah, black ice is a problem, too. Mac says Thanksgiving is the cutoff. She doesn’t let my dad drive his Harley after that, says it’s too dangerous.”
“I’m sure she does,” I grumble. That’s one thing Machaela’s not—shy about anything.
“Man, I wish I could afford a beauty like yours. I have the Mustang—”
“Yeah, a sweet-ass Mustang.”
Bobby smiles. “Yeah, she is. My dad helped me with her for years. It was sort of our thing. But a bike”—he whistles—“that’s my next investment.”
Knowing that Bobby only recently turned twenty-one and still lives with his dad, I don’t see that happening. “It’s a fun bike, but had my circumstances been what they are now about six years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to afford it. You’ve got hockey and school to worry about. There’s plenty of time down the road to get one. Plus, your sister might have a conniption fit.” She always seems to have an opinion on everything.
“Yeah, that’s true. Mac would fucking flip.” Bobby starts chatting it up with Felix, and I pull my phone from my pocket. When I don’t see anything from Kylie, it registers that maybe tonight will actually be a me night. I’m not sure I know or understand that feeling, but I allow myself to relax a little and take another drink from the perspiring pint glass in my hand. Everyone’s chatter and banter fills the room like white noise, and I find it strangely relaxing.
“Sup, girl!” Nick drawls, and I glance toward the door. Machaela shuffles in, unwrapping herself from an assortment of black and pink and white accessories and hanging them on the coatrack next to the door.
“You came,” Reilly says, clearly surprised. “No Cal tonight?”
She scoffs. “Right. Like that will ever happen.” Mac drapes her polka-dot scarf over her coat before she struts over to the bar. I’ve grown used to the sound of her high heels throughout the shop, but what she wears . . . anything that tight around those curves should be outlawed. When Cal described her to me as a foul-mouthed pistol who keeps the business shipshape, I’d expected to find a homely tomboy that first morning in the shop.
“Took you long enough to get here,” Bobby says and walks over to give her a peck on the cheek.
She pulls Bobby a little closer and squeezes her eyes shut. That white-toothed smile of hers softens. “Long day,” she says and lets out a deep breath. Her hold on Bobby tightens until, finally, she straightens.
The instant her green eyes meet mine, I nod a hello and force every fiber in me to ignore the apprehension I’ve felt around her since the first day I saw her—shirtless, red-cheeked, and glaring at me. I don’t like my body’s reaction to her, not in the slightest. She’s young, she’s got an attitude, and she’s superficial. Not to mention she’s the boss’s daughter and I don’t need any more drama in my life—especially not from someone who reminds me slightly of the life I left behind.
“Long day, indeed,” Felix says. “I can only imagine after what I heard coming from your office at lunchtime . . .” He laughs to himself like it’s the most comical thing that’s happened in weeks. “I’d probably have peed myself if I was in Tommy’s position, I’ll give you that.”
“Yeah, that was fun,” she says with her usual sarcastic sass. She plops her purse down on the bar and pulls out a stool beside Reilly. I glance around, wondering where Sam disappeared to, and my gaze catches one of the women looking at me from the table in the corner. Trouble. Women. All of them. I glance away and watch Machaela as she digs through her purse, adamant, then pulls out a tube of something. She can’t seriously be looking for more makeup.
I rub my brow, silently chiding myself for caring at all. She applies ChapStick, and like she could hear my thoughts, her eyes shift to mine again, and I’m sure she smirks. I force myself to look away and pull out my phone, checking the time again. Almost seven-fifteen.
“So, who’d you unleash the beast on today?” Nick asks, handing her a pint of something light. His faithful smile widens, and Machaela shakes her head and rubs her temples.
“First of all, I’m no beast,” she says curtly. “A Sphinx, maybe.” She flashes him a sneaky smile, and I can’t help but admire the way her full pink lips pull up in one corner.
“Medusa is more like it,” Bobby mutters and she chucks a peanut at him from one of the baskets on the bar. She hits him directly in the forehead, and I chuckle.
“Hey, no food-throwing in my bar,” Nick scolds. “This is a respectable establishment, folks.”
Machaela turns to Nick with wide, puppy-dog eyes before they crinkle with merriment. “Yes, sir.”
Bobby’s shit-eating grin fades. “So, I missed it. What was all the yelling about? Felix said Dad had to step in.”
She tilts her head and lets out an exasperated sigh. “God, you guys, I wasn’t beating the poor man. You make me sound like a tyrant. Dad didn’t ‘step in’ to rescue anyone; I called him in to hear all of Tommy’s excuses.” She turns to face the bar again. “No wonder there are so many rumors in this town,” she says under her breath.
Reilly leans forward on the counter, inching closer to Nick. “There was definitely shouting,” he whispers. “Maybe even whimpering.”
Machaela rolls her eyes. “Well, what exactly did you want me to do? Tommy delivered the wrong parts again. You guys want your jobs to go out on time, don’t you?” She glances between all of us. “I mean, I know they’re struggling with their computer system, but still. It’s been a few months, why is that still our problem? I’m tired of calling our customers to deliver bad news. He’s making us look like assholes.”
“You’re not your father’s daughter at all,” Reilly mutters sarcastically. “You get just as worked up as Cal.” And Reilly’s right. Despite her formfitting attire, she belongs in that shop. She knows her stuff and she’s a force to be reckoned with. I can see why Cal relies on her so much, even if I don’t always appreciate the distraction.
The moment I let myself drift into conversation with the guys, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I’m not sure when a call from Kylie became such a mixture of anxiety, excitement, and partial dread, but that’s what it’s come to every time I see her name on the screen. Lick’s is louder now, and I know I need to make this conversation quick. “Hello.”
“Colt, I know it’s a bit of a drive, but can you come over for a bit, please? There are some things I need to do, not to mention some things we should probably talk about.”
It doesn’t escape me that this woman has broken my heart, pushed me away, pulled me back, and dropped bomb after bomb on me, and I do whatever she asks
without hesitation.
I glance around the bar. The guys wanted to celebrate tonight and, even though I know they’ll understand, I’m going to have to bail on them. “Yeah.” I rest my elbow on the bar top.
“Perfect. Meet at my house in an hour?”
Four
Mac
“Yay!”
I turn back toward the restrooms to find Sam skipping toward me. She looks good, legitimately smiling and happy, like the old Sam I used to know.
“You’re here?” I grin, surprised to see that she’s come down from the mountain. “I had no idea.” I pull her in for a hug, one I apparently need, because I don’t let go right away.
“Yeah, surprise,” she sings and squeezes me tighter.
I take the scent of her in. “I missed you,” I whisper. Sam does more manual labor than all of the guys in the shop combined and she generally smells like it, too, in a cowboy, ranchy sort of way. But not tonight. She smells sweet and comforting, just the way I remember. “You showered and everything,” I joke, because it’s what I do and because it’s Sam and it wouldn’t be us if I didn’t.
“Ha. Ha. You’re so funny.”
I take a good, long look at her. “Reilly looks good on you,” I whisper.
“Yeah. He does, doesn’t he?” She bats her eyelashes and we walk to the bar. Reilly scoots over, vacating his stool so we can sit next to each other.
I glance around at the guys. “I’m glad to see you’re slummin’ it with this riffraff this evening.”
“Yeah, sorry I haven’t been down the mountain much,” she says, fiddling with the zipper of her red down vest. “Things are going so well at the ranch, and I don’t want Sommer to lose the momentum. I want her in the full swing of things so that when Nick goes back to school and spring comes, I can give her the reins and I don’t have to work quite so much.” Sam is so gleeful she can hardly suppress it.
I can’t help but smile with her. Her joy seems almost euphoric. “I’m glad you finally have help. And I’m happy to hear Alison’s finally got her head out of her ass.” I can’t help but say it, no matter how well Alison and Sam have been getting along since they started therapy. I’ve held a grudge against her for the way she’s treated Sam since Robert died for far too long, and I guess it’s harder to let go of than I thought.
Sam glowers at me. “She’s doing a lot better, Mac. Anyway, you should be careful what you say about her. She’s mentioned your dad a couple times in the past week alone. I’m not sure why or what’s going on, but . . .” She lifts her eyebrows in warning.
“Yeah, I’ve heard the rumors. My dad swears he’s only working on her car. Then again, I’m not sure my dad knows how to date or even flirt, for that matter. He probably wouldn’t know if he was in a relationship if it bit him in his stubborn ass.”
Nick clears his throat. “Madame.” He hands Sam a beer, mine only a quarter gone. We’ll both be nursing them most of the night given our distaste for piss-flavored beverages.
Savannah, Nick’s girlfriend, pops out from somewhere behind the bar with a dishrag hanging out of her pocket and a rack of clean pint glasses. “I heard trouble was here.” She winks at us with a smile.
“Hey!” I say with a small wave. She’s been lithe and a little curvy since I met her, but she’s lost enough weight to notice she might not be doing so well with the family stuff I know she’s got going on.
She leans up against the bar and crosses her arms over her chest. “It’s been a while.”
“I know. I hear you’ve been at your parents’ place up north a lot lately. Are things looking any better for them?”
She shrugs, but she’s clearly exhausted. “They’ll be fine. It would be easier if they lived in town, you know? Finances are always hard, especially when you’re elderly. My brother’s a fancy businessman in New York, so that leaves me to check in on them and help when I can.”
I nod, imagining how hard it would be to try to juggle her family’s financial burden on top of her own life, especially living hours away. I don’t want to pry too much, so I offer her a weak smile. “Let us know if there’s anything we can do, okay? I’m not a mixologist by any means—well, I actually make an amazing hot toddy—but if you need someone to cover your shifts . . . anything, just ask.”
“I said the same thing, but she never does,” Sam adds blandly.
Savannah wipes her brow with her sleeve. Her dark blue eyes seem almost black in the dim light. “It’s nice of you both to offer, but you’re both really busy—all the time. I wouldn’t ask you to bartend on top of that. Besides, Brady’s been cool about it and Nick’s been able to pick up some of my shifts since he’s on break right now. I think we’re covered.”
She walks around the bar with a damp rag and turns to face Sam, my eyes latching onto Colton. He hangs up his phone and runs his fingers through his combed-back hair as a dark-haired woman walks up behind him and leans against the bar. She’s simpering and smiling and batting her eyelashes, but if I’m not mistaken, Colton looks unamused.
Nick hands the woman two fruity drinks and she says something more to Colton before she heads back to the table. When Colton’s eyes meet mine I quickly glance away. “What’s he doing here, anyway? He never meets us after work.”
Sam slowly turns around to look at Colton before smiling ruefully at me. “Still not your favorite person, huh?” She barely tries to hide her intrigue.
Reilly leans over Sam’s shoulder, a line creasing his brow. “I asked him to stop by and celebrate with us for getting the Caddy out of the shop. The poor guy never gets to hang out, I thought it would be nice.”
When I look at Colton again, he’s having a thoughtful conversation with Felix. Everyone’s buddy-buddy with Colton, and all I get are impatient glares from him or stilted office talk. I know our initial encounter wasn’t ideal—he’s the only guy in town who’s seen me in my bra, for Christ’s sake—but it’s been months since that day and things are still . . . off.
When I realize I’m staring at him, I look at Sam. She’s watching me with a small, secret smirk.
“I already told you, it’s not like that,” I grind out. And it’s not. His handsome, well-groomed looks aside, there’s no welcoming emotion in his eyes or friendliness in his tone. We’ve never even had a conversation that wasn’t about ordering car parts or job deadlines. “He sort of intimidates me, actually,” I admit. “Maybe that’s what bothers me.”
“Hmmm.”
“You ready for another beer yet?” Savannah asks.
I pry my thoughts away from Colton’s arrogant exterior and look at her. “Umm. Do you have anything on tap that isn’t so horrible?” I flash her my pearly whites.
The girls laugh and Savannah takes my warm beer away and hands it to my brother to finish. “Okay, Mac,” she says. “A prissier beer, coming right up.”
“Perfect, thanks!”
“You know what I think?” Sam asks, and I resituate myself to give her my full attention.
“About what?”
“I think he fascinates you, that’s why you’re intimidated.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, he’s not some old guy that’s been friends with your dad your whole life. He’s not a macho athlete friend of your brother’s that hits on you every three seconds. And he’s not some guy you’ve known since grade school who you’ve seen pick his nose in class, and you don’t have to wonder if he slept with Bethany, like everyone other guy our age here.” Sam rolls her eyes. “You know next to nothing about Colton and he acts indifferent to you, and you can’t stand it.”
I give in a smidge. “True. Regardless, though, I need to figure out how to get past it. It’s distracting.” Savannah hands me a new pint of something light with an amber tint. “Thank you,” I chirp and take a sip. Whatever she poured is absolutely delicious and citrusy going down. “This is perfect.”
“That’s a hard cider.”
“Well, I like it. It’s my new favorite.”
Savanna
h finishes putting the clean glasses away and moves down the bar to grab the guys’ dirties.
“Did something happen?” Sam continues, pulling my attention back to her. “Besides the whole walking-in-on-you-shirtless thing?”
I take another sip of my cider.
“Something that would make it weird between you two?” Her gaze skirts from Colton to me.
I remember the first time I saw his eyes, ice cold and staring directly at me. I let out a breath. “Not really. Just that once. But I admit, I might’ve been a little . . . over-reactive.”
“I can barely fathom,” Sam says dryly.
I sneer at her sarcasm, but I feel my cheeks reddening the longer she studies me. “Do you think that’s it? Do you think he’s holding a grudge or something?”
Sam’s brown eyes crinkle in the corners and she tilts her head a bit. “What was your reaction again? I can imagine there was cursing.”
The last thing I want to think about was my mortification that day, but I shut my eyes and reach back to the memory. “I slammed the door in his face and we exchanged a few words. Nothing crazy. It’s not like we fought or anything, it was just . . . awkward as hell. I might’ve called him a Peeping Tom.”
When I open my eyes, Sam’s covering her mouth, stifling a tickled-pink laugh.
“It was sort of horrifying, Sam. Don’t laugh.”
“Yeah, just like you didn’t laugh at me when you found out about my skinny-dipping run-in with Reilly’s fishing line at the lake?”
She looks so smugly excited I can’t help but smile. “Fine.”
“Mac, whatever this is,” Sam says, tilting her head in Colton’s direction, “it’s fixable. You just need to put in a little more effort. He probably feels uncomfortable because you feel uncomfortable. Maybe you guys just need to hash it out and have an honest conversation about it. Maybe he likes you.” She tries to waggle her eyebrows and it just looks ridiculous.
Saratoga Falls: The Complete Love Story Series Page 36