by Katie Cross
My body trembled as if it wanted to shake all my organs loose. Maverick walked up behind me. I could feel his chest at my back, only a breath away.
“You all right, Bethany?”
I don’t know what made me do it. What made me lose all sense of reason. Resilience had been woven into the fabric of my life. I’d weathered Dad losing his leg. Pappa’s funeral. Mama’s funeral. Had endured the loss of Dad all by myself.
But in that moment, my strength disappeared.
I spun and pressed into him, wrapping my arms around his back. I buried my face in his chest and tried to close any space between us.
As if I had that liberty.
“No,” I whispered.
His heavy arm wrapped around my shoulders. “He’s gone,” he murmured. “You’re safe.”
For that moment, I believed it. Because both of his arms came around me, hugging me closer. My head fit into his shoulder, brushing the bottom of his jaw, like a puzzle. He put a hand on my neck and stroked his thumb back and forth in an oddly soothing gesture.
The heady scent of pine calmed me. For now, Jim was gone. Maybe he’d stay away, maybe he wouldn’t. But for now, we’d bought some time.
School, he’d said. Get them back before school starts.
“Girls?”
The attic door flew open the moment I tapped it. Lizbeth stood there, shaking. Tears streaked her face. She clutched her favorite romance novel to her chest, a well-loved thing that she’d hauled all the way here in the back pocket of her jeans like a comfort blanket. Love’s True Whisper. Its edges were curled, the spine torn, half the cover missing.
“Is he gone?”
“Gone.” I put a hand on her face. “Gone for the rest of the summer.”
She relaxed. Tears filled her eyes again before she threw her arms around me with a sob. I held her for a moment, feeling her thin body shake against mine the way I’d clung to Maverick. My entire body still burned with the feel of him, the smell of pine heady.
“Just seeing him.” She shuddered. “I . . . feel so much. I thought I could go back but . . . I can’t, Bethie. I can’t go back.”
“I’m sorry, Lizbeth.”
Behind her, the room lay empty. When she pulled away, I advanced in a panic. “Where’s Ellie?”
Lizbeth gestured to the closet door, which I pulled open. A dark lump sat on the ground. I reached down, pulling the ratty black blanket up to find Devin and Ellie next to each other. He had his arm around her, lips pulled into a frown. She shook, her teeth chattering and her gaze averted.
I crouched down.
“He’s gone, Ellie. He already left. Maverick is downstairs to make sure that he stays away.”
She blinked, seeming years away. Then her gaze registered again, hardening. “You said he wouldn’t come!” she cried.
“I said, ‘I wouldn’t let him take you.’”
Her nostrils flared as she turned away. “He doesn’t want me.”
Any reply stuck in my throat, because I couldn’t deny it. He certainly hadn’t spoken kindly of her; his venom oddly targeted her direction. But no little girl should ever feel that way about her father.
“He doesn’t know much but his own pain right now.”
“He’ll come back.”
“Maybe.” His threat echoed in my ears. “But it won’t matter, because we’ll be able to prove that I can keep you, and you’ll never have to see him again. At the very least, we have until the end of the summer. He promised me.”
Devin tightened his arm around her. She looked so young, so scared, clinging to him. The storm in her eyes deepened until Devin whispered in her ear. Her tense arms relaxed, and she nodded.
Devin looked at me. “Can I take her on the reservoir in my canoe?”
Immediately, I understood. Jim hated the water more than anything. Had a deathly fear of lakes since he nearly drowned as a little boy. I wondered if Ellie had told him. Likely, she had some kind of profile on all her enemies.
Which no eleven-year-old should have.
“Of course. Just don’t go out too far.”
They scrambled down the stairs and out the door. Lizbeth and I watched from the window as they sped into the canoe. Within seconds, they were on the lake, Ellie crouching under the blanket.
Lizbeth toyed with the end of her paperback, rubbing her fingers along a portion of the cover that had torn off. Her tears had dried. I wondered what it had been like for her to sit here, waiting in the quiet, alone. No matter how much I tried to protect them, I couldn’t save them from everything.
Would I be able to live with that?
I set a hand on her shoulder. “You okay, Lizbeth?”
She drew in a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
“Really?”
Her welling eyes met mine, and she shook her head. “No. I . . . I don’t ever want to see him again, but . . . but I still feel sad. Some . . . some part of me does want to see him. I mean, he’s my dad. We weren’t really close, but he was still there, and there were some good times . . . and I’m so confused.”
“You might be confused for a while.”
“Yeah.”
“But you don’t have to be scared. He knows you’re here. He said he’d leave you alone until school started.” Panic flared in her expression, but I shook my head. “That gives us time to prove you can live here, all right? You’re going to be all right.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For coming. For shoving us into your life. I really thought your dad was here and that we could just stay for a few days until things blew over.”
“You don’t have to apologize, Lizbeth. Coming here was the right thing to do.”
She paused, then said, “I know about the motorcycle. About the debt. I know it’s not likely you can dig yourself out of debt to prove you can keep us.”
“What? How do you know?”
A guilty expression crossed her face. “I’ve been reviewing Maverick’s spreadsheets. His accounting is sound. Statistically, you do have a shot at pulling it all together, but it’s not a great shot. So . . . I guess . . . thanks. For giving up everything for us.”
“You’re worth it,” I said quietly.
Tears filled her eyes again. I folded her into my arms and let her shake softly against me as she cried. Her thin body trembled, gripping me hard.
I had two more months to turn this place around and secure their life with me.
I had to believe we could do it.
20
Maverick
This wasn’t good.
Not. Good.
Bethany fit into my arms like my body had built itself to accommodate her. Holding her against me had left me weak as a kitten. No deployment, surgery, board meeting, or sales presentation had ever taken my courage in the same way.
My feelings for Bethany had long ago crossed the professional line. Watching her stand up to Jim, saucy blue eyes narrowed like cold firecrackers, sent a thrill through me. Pride, too. She was all vulnerability and rage in the same breath.
She could take care of herself. She had taken care of herself. But I didn’t want her to have to do it alone. No, I wanted to step in. That’s how I knew that this had gotten out of hand. While I would have stepped in to protect any client, I wouldn’t have held them for that long. Imagined their soft lips on mine. Or forced myself to leave hours past closing.
I wanted to prove to Bethany that she wasn’t alone. That the burdens weren’t hers to bear. But how wrong would that be? In a few weeks, I would be gone.
And she would be alone.
I sat in my truck and stared at Grandpa’s house with a mental sigh.
Only a few weeks lay between me and completion on this project. A few weeks to prove my business idea, sell the house for some initial capital—not that I needed it, but it would help—and tell Mallory, Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t want to be your CRO.
If I could walk away. Not just from Mallory, but from Bethany, too
.
The way things looked?
I stepped out and slammed the door behind me, the smell of her hair still burning my nose.
21
Bethany
That night, I stared at an empty binder.
Maverick said the new operations manual would be the beginning of the new Frolicking Moose, and I believed him. It was the place where we made coffee-tinged magic happen. Where profitability put more money into my bank account, and that money brought me a certificate to support my sisters and sell real estate.
But executing that new coffee shop required energy and time that the girls had been taking up.
Daily trips to the library, grocery runs, meal coordination, and the stress of living with two other people who suddenly saw me as a mother figure. Ellie still didn’t even seem sure that she liked me, which made it hard to force her to sweep and do her laundry. Two weeks of living with them had made it abundantly clear that neither of them had really been taught how to clean.
Putting together this stupid operations manual had forced me to see exactly what was going on in the shop. To intimately face the failure of Dad’s attention to detail. To stare down every speck and spot to which I’d been turning a blind, overwhelmed eye.
For every process I knew about the shop, more questions popped up that I was clueless about. Maverick combed through Dad’s paperwork to get clues when we didn’t know answers. Called vendors. Even contacted Dad’s most loyal customers. And he constantly had decisions for me to make. All of that meant the operations manual had inched forward like a broken slug.
But now it loomed in front of me.
Everything I wanted seemed to lie on the other side of this. We couldn’t truly improve until we’d swept our way through every part of this store, put in an efficient process, and documented it.
My brain hurt just thinking about it.
Jim’s expression ran through my mind, tugging at an already-weak system. The wariness of his gaze. The utter lack of caring. I couldn’t decide which was worse: that he’d left the girls willingly for the summer, or that he’d figured me out so quickly.
This wasn’t just a goal. This was their lives. This was Ellie and Lizbeth facing down the ugly Jim monster.
Court rooms.
Custody battles.
It was about more than just winning. We had to destroy his ability to ever get them back. And I had to do it before the end of the summer, a mere two months away.
With Ellie and Lizbeth upstairs reading Ellie’s favorite horror story out loud, I opened my computer. The shop was closed and quiet. I’d changed into a loose pair of sweatpants, flip-flops, and an old college T-shirt. My hair perched on top of my head in a messy bun. I liked the feel of Dad’s stuff around me as I pulled up the operations manual documents. With one last, determined look at the machines behind the counter, I pulled up my first document.
Time to get truly serious.
When I started to type, a desperate punch of energy hit me. All the things I needed to figure out came together slowly. Emptying my thoughts onto the page made it much easier to think this operations manual through.
Organized procedures
Efficient decisions
Don’t crowd the workspace if more than one person is working.
Need a cleaning section.
Ooh, can’t mix two of those chemicals—BAD BAD.
Work culture
Smile with every new customer?
We’re here to bring the joy and the caffeine. (Could be a T-shirt logo.)
How to deal with an angry client
Validate
Team has each other’s backs
Do not accuse or throw coffee no matter what happens, FULL STOP.
What to do when the Wi-Fi goes down
Or the power
Who to call if the furnace dies
Make a list of all contacts for maintenance? A maintenance flow chart!
Maintenance flow chart
Espresso guy
Wi-Fi company
Furnace guy
T-shirt person
Coffee bean company
Things to write procedures for:
Length of brewing time
How to restock the creamer
What kinds of milk to buy and when
Cleaning out the fridge
For the next two hours, the systems of running a coffee shop poured out of me. Night descended fully. Traffic outside slowed. I scrounged in the fridge for a diet pop, then sipped it to make it last while I typed, and typed, and typed.
Sometime around midnight, I hopped myself up on two servings of iced chai. At one point, I made a cup of coffee, taking notes on every single step. Snapped pictures of the espresso machine and uploaded them. Created a chart with details on different types of roasts and how they tasted based on what Dad used to say. (No way was I going to drink them.)
One o’clock in the morning closed in.
In the midst of everything, I drafted an even longer list of ways to clean the shop up and increase our profits. Stop stocking those gross scones, for one, and introduce cupcakes. Just because I didn’t like sugar didn’t mean I shouldn’t sell it. This was America. Everyone else liked sugar way too much.
Eventually, I moved to the biggest table at the front of the store to allow myself space to stretch out. My fingers ached. A cup of green tea kept me up, though my eyes burned like sandpaper.
Two o’clock came and went.
Somewhere around 3:15, my bleary eyes felt like I’d been blowing smoke in them for days. I’d have to be up soon to prep the store for the morning commuters. I thought of an hourlong nap but turned back to my computer with a jaw-popping yawn. Only a few procedures away from finishing.
It would be a yoga pants and comfy bra kind of day.
The feeling of a heavy hand on my shoulder startled me from a dream. Dancing coffee beans had been trying to throw broken pieces of a coffee mug at me. They’d laughed whenever I fought back, and then turned into money. The moment I’d touched the money, it disappeared.
“Bethany?”
Groggy, I straightened.
Dim, overhead lights felt painfully bright to my eyes. Those definitely weren’t my attic bedroom lights. Understanding dawned slowly. I’d fallen asleep working at my computer. I jerked fully awake with a gasp.
“Whoa there,” came a deep rumble. “Everything okay?”
Maverick crouched next to the table. The world was still dark, the shop quiet. A faint blush lingered on the distant horizon. The clock said 4:15. It would be full light soon enough, and I was already fifteen minutes late for prepping.
“Fine.” My voice croaked. “I’m . . . I’m fine.”
The puzzle pieces slowly slid together. Vaguely, I remembered a long, long blink that must have turned into a nap.
Maverick slipped into the chair next to me, one arm across the back of my chair. He wore a metal running leg. Sweat glistened in a light sheen over his face and neck. I forced myself to look away, assaulted by butterflies. The man looked like a Viking god without eyes brightened by a run. Now he was otherworldly.
He motioned toward my laptop with a wry tilt of his head.
“Working late or up early?”
I pushed the hair out of my eyes. “Both.”
My thoughts lay heavy and sluggish. It would be a bear of a day trying to stay awake.
He put a hand on the back of my neck. The comforting warmth sent an electric zip under my skin, melting me into a puddle. I turned to face him. All the hours of caffeine, fueled by desperation, crashed around me. I’d finished a hard thing.
But now the terror had settled in.
“Mav,” I whispered. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
His inquisitive expression softened.
“It’s going to be all right, Bethany. Everything will get done. We’ll turn this place around so you have profit and can pay your debts at the same time.”
“It’s so much.”
“You’re n
ot just talking about the shop.”
“No. It’s more than just the shop. Of course, I’ll throw my all into saving the girls from their father. I’ll do whatever it takes to prove they belong here. But then what? Then I have to mother them. I have to be something I’m not. Something I’ve never seen before. Mama . . . she tried, but . . . she couldn’t. At least not well.” A half-sob choked me. “She messed all of us up. What if I do the same thing?”
Until I’d spoken the words, I’d had no idea the fears were even there. They’d been dammed back by my determination to finish this stupid manual. I buried my face in my hands.
“Sounds like you had a tough relationship with her,” he murmured. He hadn’t moved his hand off my neck, and I was glad. It centered me. No makeup. Hopped up on caffeine and drowning in sweats. He was a saint for not running as far as his prosthetic would take him.
“Mama and I were . . . complicated.”
Maverick’s expression softened. His breathing evened out. He waited, gaze soft with curiosity when I let my hands fall. His thumb rubbed a circle on my skin, setting it aflame.
“My parents divorced when I was seven. I lived with Mama at first, but mostly because she filed while he was on a deployment. She took me and ran without a word.”
He winced. I bit my bottom lip, grounded by the pressure, and silently agreed. It had been a cowardly thing to do. Their marriage hadn’t been abusive or lackluster. Dad had tried hard, but Mama had itchy feet. She’d never really thought she’d stay when she married him, but she wanted to see if she had it in her.
She didn’t.
“Life with her was just . . . too unstable. She flailed around, trying to figure out what was next. Find something. Her emotions swung on a pendulum. We lived out of her car, occasionally stopping at seedy hotels. She’d disappear at night and come back in the morning without explanation. Then we’d leave for another small town.