by Maren Smith
That dreadful tightening returned to squat heavy and cold in the pit of her stomach. “What’s up?” she asked, trying to be as nonchalant as he was, and probably succeeding about as well. “Rent’s not due for another week, right?”
“Oh no, no,” he hastened to assure her, still smiling. “No, I’m not here for that. Nothing like that.” He tried to laugh, but it came out too forceful and nervous. “It’s just… well, I wanted to tell you, I’ve been hearing some talk and I thought I should let you know. May I call you Maybe, Sinclair? I’ve always thought that a very pretty name. Is that spelled with one ‘e,’ or two?”
That dread inside her became a toothy, taloned golem, one already digging claws into her innards. “One,” she heard herself say. “W-what kind of talk?”
Her landlord shrugged. “This and that.”
No longer content to stand opposite the counter of her, he began to mosey his way around the glass horse-shoe style display. And Sinclair just stood there, watching him come, curdling from the inside out with every step he took, her mind a perfectly appalled blank of thought beyond this single frightening reality: in just another few steps, Charlie, her very nice, sweetheart of a landlord, was going to have her cornered behind her own sales counter. And he was still sweating, and looking at her so strangely. So intently. He kept licking his lips. He had fat lips. She’d never noticed that before.
“Mostly what people are talking about is the frequency with which you’ve been venturing out to visit our poor town’s only moral blight, the Castle.” Charlie offered her another nervous smile. “I’ve known you for years, Maybe. I’ve been telling people all day long, that’s not the young woman I know. She would never do that. Surely not, and yet they all sound so certain of themselves. Someone even has pictures of you loading your stock into a van, getting in and driving away with one of those amoral corruptive influences.”
“What?” Sinclair gasped.
“Oh yes.” Charlie nodded. He was behind the counter with her now, cutting off all avenues of escape as step by slow step he closed the last few feet of space between them. “I’ve seen one with my own eyes and I can’t tell you how much that… affected me, seeing you with a man like that. I just knew I had to come here and talk to you myself. Have you been out to that place, Maybe? Is that the kind of thing you… you like?” He reach out and, frozen on legs that refused to move, Sinclair could only stand there—skin crawling, heart racing—while he touched her hair. “Because I’m thinking, maybe if that is what you like, maybe we could come to a different arrangement. You know, regarding the store.”
“What?” This time, the word fell out of her as barely more than a gasp.
“I know you’re having a hard time, financially. If we can, indeed, come to an… arrangement, then I’m willing to drop your rent for a while.” She must have looked as shocked as she felt because he quickly corrected, “Or, or even drop it entirely—just until you get back on your feet, mind you—if… if we can come to that arrangement, like I said.” He didn’t just touch her hair now; his fingers skimmed her cheek and they felt as sweaty as his head was.
Sinclair recoiled, bumping up hard against the counter. The glass doors were cold at her back. “D-don’t—”
But Charlie came in close anyway, shaking his head, sweating and flushed. His excitement was so palpable and thick that it choked the air, making it impossible for her to think. This couldn’t be happening; how could this possibly be happening—she cringed back against the case when he held up his hand, seeking both to shush and to touch.
“It’s all right, Maybe. You don’t have to be afraid of me.” He licked his lips as he looked fixedly at hers. “I’m going to take very good care of you. We’re going to take very good care of each other, right? I-I’ve always had this fantasy, see, and if you share it too, then m-maybe we could…”
“What the fuck is this?”
Sinclair jumped, so did Charlie, leaping back a step to get respectable distance once more between them. Apparently, he hadn’t heard the door chime any more than she had, but never in her life had she been so happy to see another human being in all her life. “Parker!”
He looked from Charlie to her, and she knew exactly when the truth of what he was watching snapped into focus for him because Parker’s entire countenance darkened. He turned on Charlie, charging him from across the store almost faster than Charlie could stumble back and throw up warding hands. Certainly, it was faster than Sinclair could stop him.
“What the fuck?” Parker bellowed again, grabbing her landlord by the lapels of his coat and heaving the slightly shorter man right up onto his tiptoes. He shook him like Charlie weighed nothing at all, as if he were a ragdoll.
“I didn’t touch her!” Charlie sputtered.
“Wait! W-wait, Parker!”
But Parker wasn’t waiting, and he didn’t actually hit him, although that’s what Sinclair thought she was going to see next. Instead, she had to chase them both, racing to keep up as Parker dragged Charlie by his few remaining hairs and one ear, and crashing into two different candy displays and sending tootsie rolls and Charleston Chews scattering across the floor as they went.
“Get out!” Parker bellowed, and if Jackson hadn’t just reached the door to open it, he might actually have thrown Charlie through it. As it was, the only blow he landed was the side of his boot to her landlord’s butt as Parker literally kicked him out of the store. Shoving past Jackson, Parker followed, aggressively chasing her scrambling and red-faced landlord all the way to his car. “If I ever see you put hands on her again, I will fucking break you in half!”
It was six o’clock at night. There were people across the street, most of whom stopped to stare. There were other stores. There were cars. How many pictures of this would be circulating all over town by tomorrow? Hell, was someone filming it? Was she going to see this all on YouTube?
Clapping her hands to her burning face, Sinclair stared, horrified as Charlie’s car sped off and Parker watched it go. What would be the ramifications? That there would be some, she knew without doubt. She could feel the certainty of it, like cold, hard steel piercing up through her chest. But what form would it take?
“What have you done?” she whispered when Parker came stalking back inside.
He had the nerve to look surprised first and then irritated. “What do you mean, what have I done? He had you backed up against the counter. He had his hands on you and you looked scared as hell! Did I misread the situation?”
“That was my landlord!” she cried, pointing after the long-gone car.
“I don’t care if he was God!” Parker snapped back. “He didn’t have the right to—”
“Everybody—” Jackson held up calming hands. “—let’s just take a breath.”
“You don’t have the right!” Sinclair shouted and suddenly, as scared and as helpless to stop Charlie as she had been just a moment before, it all came pouring out of her on waves of uncontrollable anger. “How dare you! I don’t need your protection. I don’t need you to come waltzing in here like—like—like…Captain Tight Pants to save my virginity! Which I haven’t had since I was nineteen! So why are you here at all? I can take care of myself!”
“If that was a prime example of how well—”
“My friend, you really do not want to finish that sentence.” Jackson tried to catch Parker’s shoulder, to pull him back a step, but Parker ripped free and then he was advancing on her.
“—of how well you take care of yourself, sweetness, you’re God damned lucky I don’t chain you to my bed where I can keep a closer eye on you!” He grabbed her shoulders, giving her a shake now too. It might have been softer, gentler than the way he’d grabbed onto Charlie, but it certainly didn’t feel that way right now.
“Get out of my store!” she shouted, kicking, thrashing and punching her way out of his hands. She shoved him, pushing with all her might just to get him to yield a single backwards step. “Get out! I don’t ever want to see you again! Get! Out
!”
Jackson pinched the bridge of his nose.
His grey eyes as cold as the display case had felt only moments before, Parker took a single, slow, deep breath and then he nodded. “Fine.”
Jackson pinched the bridge of his nose even harder. “Don’t do it,” he warned to no one, since no one was listening anyway.
Snapping about on his heels, Parker stormed out of her shop and disappeared down the sidewalk beyond the view of her storefront window.
That he went at all hit her like a punch. Yes, she’d told him to go, but even as she’d said it, she hadn’t really meant it. She sucked at air, suddenly so shockingly bereft that it was everything she could do not to fall to her knees. She felt stretched, right to the very point of snapping, and so brittle that she just knew, if she did snap, she’d never be able to come back together again.
She began to shake.
“Hey.”
She turned to look at Jackson. She’d forgotten he was there. She latched onto him with her eyes, like he was the last anchor of security she had and the only thing currently keeping her from drowning.
Shaking so hard it felt like the floor was quaking, she gasped for air. Everything before her was blurring behind a fast sheen of watery tears.
“Hey.” Jackson came to her, catching her chin in his big hand and making her look at him. “Breathe,” he told her. “In.”
She sucked air when he did, grateful just for someone to cling to, even if it was the wrong someone.
“Out.”
She followed his lead, letting out all her air the same way. In, and out again. They stood there, holding each other and just breathing until from somewhere inside her she found the strength not to burst into useless tears. She blinked them back. She even managed to get her legs to solidify somewhat, although she still needed Jackson’s strong arm to help her to his van. Walking on them felt like walking on rubber. He practically picked her up and put her in the front passenger seat. Parker was not in the vehicle.
“Where is he?” she asked, so ashamed of her outburst that she didn’t even know if she had the right to ask.
Jackson didn’t pull any punches either. “He brought his own car. He thought the two of you could ride back together privately and talk.” He patted her knee. “Don’t worry. He’ll be calmed down enough to reason with by the time you both get there. In the big scheme of things, this really isn’t as insurmountable as you might right now think.” He pointed at her sternly, but he was smiling when he added, “Don’t forget to breathe now. In and out. I’m going to go back and get your stuff. Give me the keys to your shop so I can lock up.”
He shut the door, sealing her into the front of that van where she had nothing else to do but replay the entire awful day over and over in her head. She stared out the untinted windows at all the people passing in cars and walking in and out of other shops, and watched while they stared right back at her.
She felt stupid. She felt sorry.
She really hoped she hadn’t just ruined one of the best things to have ever happened to her.
And when this whole silly party was over and done with, she really, really hoped she didn’t lose her store.
* * * * *
Parker got halfway back to the Castle before abruptly pulling over onto the graveled shoulder. He threw his car into park, but he didn’t shut it off.
He wanted to hit something, but he didn’t.
He wanted to hunt this Charlie person down and do more than give him a boot to the backside, but he wasn’t going to.
He wanted to drive like hell all the way back to Granger, grab Sinclair by the shoulders and shake an explanation out of her, but he’d sooner cut off his own arms than hurt her. Well, except for the really, really good spanking his palm was currently itching to deliver, except that he wouldn’t dare touch her in the mood he was in right now.
He felt like he was smothering under a thousand regrets, but if he had it to do all over again, he couldn’t for the life of him think what he’d do differently. From the moment he’d seen that “help me” look on her face, he’d just lost it.
The cellphone in his back pocket chimed the receipt of a text message.
He ignored it, but when it chimed again a half-second later, stifling a sigh, he dug it out and looked at the message.
Your sub just had a panic attack, the first one read. The second was much more succinct: Jackass.
He dropped the phone on the passenger seat and was about to whip the car around when the third message chimed in.
On our way back now. Be ready in twenty minutes to pick up the pieces.
Chapter ELEVEN
Although his car was there, Parker was nowhere to be seen when Sinclair and Jackson arrived at the Castle. A long line of kitchen help came out to take half the totes to the ballroom and the other half to the kitchen. Struggling to keep herself together, Sinclair lingered in the ballroom just long enough to realize Parker wouldn’t be coming and then she followed the line of totes to take stock of the kitchen that had been made available to her on this, the last night before the Castle’s first Valentine’s Day party.
She was met at the door by Cook Connie, the same gruff, frowning woman she remembered from the day she was hired. Cook Connie made no bones about her displeasure at having an interloper taking charge of her kitchen. That the Castle cook did, in fact, have two other fully operational kitchens made absolutely no difference to her. She was still cross and resentful, and she let Sinclair know exactly how she felt.
“I’ve been told to give you access,” she started off by saying. “That doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”
The tour of the kitchen pretty much went straight downhill from there.
“My kitchen bitches are mine. If you need help, you ask me. You go above my head and I’ll make a rotisserie out of your scrawny ass.” Looking her up and down, the stocky cook turned on her heel and beckoned. “Follow me. I don’t have time for this crap, so keep up. Ask questions if you have to, but if they’re stupid ones, I’ll ball-gag you. This is the pantry. It’s fully stocked. Any modern appliance you need, you’ll find on the far shelves. If you take it down, you damn well better put it back. I’m not your maid or your mother, and I want it all back where you found it, am I clear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Stopping mid-step, Cook Connie turned around and looked at her. “I look like a ma’am to you?”
No, but she did look like one of the scariest—if not the scariest—woman Sinclair had ever met. She didn’t say that, however. This was not turning out to be a good day no matter what she did, and she still felt so brittle and raw right now, she didn’t think she could bear any more confrontations. “I didn’t mean any offense.”
Tipping her head, Cook Connie edged a step closer. “When and if you ever actually do offend me, little girl, don’t worry because you’re going to know it. You can say “Yes, Cook Connie,” and “No, Cook Connie,” and you keep your ma’ams to yourself, you understand?”
“Yes, Cook Connie.”
Another moment of silent speculation passed before, with the barest nod, the Castle chef continued the tour. “Walk-in fridge is here. Freezer is around the corner. Anything you need, I’ve been told to make available to you, so fine. If we don’t have it or you can’t find it, you talk to me. You use it, you put it back. You make a mess and leave it for me to clean up, I’ll skin your ass and make a purse out of it. Got it?”
“Yes, Cook Connie,” Sinclair said, but she was starting to bristle just a bit.
“I’m giving you a spic and span kitchen,” the terse cook said, pointing out the bank of ovens on one wall and the cooling racks lined up neatly along the other. “I expect to get it back in the same condition. If I don’t, I’ll—”
“Torture me in some truly sadistic way and make me really sorry I ever met you?” The minute those words were out, Sinclair regretted them, but probably not half as much as Cook Connie could have made her regret them. Though when she sn
apped around on her heels and stepped stiffly right up in front of Sinclair, she looked like she wanted to try.
“Are you having a tough day, baby cakes?” she said, her tone both soft and mocking, hard and yet strangely gentle all the same time.
Had it been any other day, Sinclair might have been able to hold herself together, endure what little time she would have to spend with this truly unpleasant woman, maybe even let her comments wash over her and roll away. Like water off a duck’s back, as the saying went. But today wasn’t a normal day and, having dangled for what felt like hours now at the end of what she could take, to her horror, she found herself tearing up right in front of the hard-as-nails Cook Connie. She’d have sooner cried in front of Casey.
“No, Cook Connie,” she breathed, fighting to keep her tone steady and the tears from falling.
The Castle cook looked at her, the dark brown of her eyes piercing right through the middle of Sinclair and all the way into her fragile soul. “Was someone mean to you today?”
“I don’t have to put up with this shit.” She was breaking, trembling, and her voice was trembling along with her.
“No, you don’t,” Cook Connie softly agreed, a tight ghost of a smile curling at the corners of her mouth. “So why are you?”
Tiny fissuring splinters cracked her. She weakened, and almost as if the words were being pried out of her against her will, said, “Because I need the money, or I’ll lose my store.” And there was a chance that, no matter what she did, it was already beyond her ability to save. She didn’t know what she’d do if she lost her dream now. How could she live in a town like this, where everybody looked at her the way they’d looked at her today and where Casey—Casey, of all people!—took everything that was important away from her?
Except that Casey hadn’t won everything yet, and Sinclair hadn’t yet lost anything.