She ignored the voice inside her that asked if she was actually being selfish, not altruistic.
Screw that. Of course she was being selfish. Nikki liked cleaning. She was a hard worker. “You want a job?”
The change in Nikki’s face was instant. “But…”
Molly leaned forward in her eagerness. “But is everything. All I have for you is a but. But I have no money right now. But I don’t know what I’m doing. But I know I need help. And somehow, someway, I will figure out how to get you on the payroll. That is…”
“What?”
“That is even if you wanted to go into this with me.”
“I’m loving where you’re going, but as what? What are you looking for?”
“I’m looking for a hard worker. Someone who will help me manage the place. My right-hand woman. Someone to help me hire and train the new staff.” Molly groaned. “God, I feel so stupid. I can’t believe I just asked you that. As if a normal brain and human being would accept a job I couldn’t pay them for until the restaurant opens.” Molly herself could get by on the little cash she had left in her last savings account, and a third of the royalties still trickled in, drop by tiny drop. The fact that she had had the gall to ask someone else to work for free made her cheeks flame so pink her face actually hurt. “I’m sorry, what a terrible idea. I do this thing sometimes where I have a feeling and I act on it and, I swear to God, it’s the thing that has got me into the biggest scrapes in my life.”
But Nikki was still sitting there. Still listening. “So you’re not rich like all of us thought you were?”
Molly gave a soft laugh. “Hell, no. I’ve been working on board cruise ships for the last six years. I’m a nutritionist.”
“Seriously?”
“Every once in a while I got to meet someone famous and look at the plates of baby-bird food they ate. Most of the time I just got paid to counsel people who would listen politely, show me their Lean Cuisines, and then proceed to ravage the seafood buffet. I had some money, yes. And a guy I worked with had a fantastic idea for a protein smoothie made with seaweed. I swear, the second I met Rick, I swung into full-blown crush, and by the time I’d given him seed money for the venture, I was in love. I’d already imagined the beautiful children we’d have together.” Wee little Della with the pink ribbons tied in her blonde hair, Rick Junior pumping his sturdy legs until his swing went highest of all. She’d gone so far as to worry about Rick Jr.’s temper—whether he’d inherit, whether it was something they could prevent a child from getting. So stupid of her. “He and I went into business. He really thought he was going to make a million dollars, and I just wanted to be near him. Instead, the FDA came after him, something about the kelp that he sourced having some kind of small biotoxin.”
Nikki snorted.
“Yep.” Molly had managed to blow her portion of the band breakup money on one guy, one bad idea, one damn heartbreak. It was so like her that the most surprising part was that she had been surprised. “Anyway, I know you probably can’t afford such a crazy idea of a job, and I don’t blame you. I’m embarrassed I asked you.”
From behind her and over her head, came a voice. “Asked her what?”
Molly spun. She felt a completely inappropriate gut punch of lust to see Colin in his crisp blue uniform, the star on his chest so shiny it winked in the sun, smaller pins and chevrons attached to the cloth, symbolizing things she didn’t understand.
He looked like a strong man. A man who would protect his own. She might be in trouble. And not just because he was a law man.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“No.” This wasn’t going to happen. Working in the café was not the job his sister would take.
“Yes.” Nikki crossed her arms.
“I won’t let you.” Shit, it was the wrong thing to say. It was the exact opposite of what he would need to say to dissuade his sister from taking yet another dead-end job she would eventually get fired ignominiously from, probably because of her deadbeat boyfriend. “I mean, obviously, do whatever the hell you want. But it’s a bad idea.”
How Nikki could make a nod look sarcastic was beyond him.
Molly – who was wearing a dirty T-shirt that was snug around her curves, and jeans that fit her just right – looked like she was getting the gist of his meaning.
“You can’t mean that you don’t want her to work with me?”
“I don’t mean –”
“Why not?”
“There’s not a –”
Nikki nodded, her eyes looking viciously pleased. “Yeah, tell us.”
“You think working in the café isn’t good enough for her?” Molly sounded incredulous.
Colin was a smart man – he knew he should back away slowly, keeping his eyes on them, the way he would from a junkie holding a knife.
But he wasn’t that smart. “I don’t.”
He swore Molly’s spine grew at least an inch taller, and she was still seated. “Excuse me?”
“I can see how that might offend you, but the thing you have to remember is that my sister is smart.” Oh, crap. This could not end well.
“Ah. Okay. A smart person couldn’t possibly work in a little old place like the Golden Spike Café. That must be why I’m doing it.”
Here we go.
“I’m just a singer. And you know us Songbirds, we’re flighty as all get out. Anyone who makes a country record doesn’t have an IQ more than twenty. Never been sure mine even made it to double digits, actually.”
“Molly –”
“Is this the way you always talk to your sister?”
Colin didn’t feel like he was talking to anyone but Molly at this point. “I talk to her the way she needs to be talked to.”
“Well, that’s the most chauvinistic thing I’ve ever heard.”
If a man could produce steam, Colin could feel it rising from the back of his neck. “I feel like maybe this isn’t any of your business.” He turned to look at Nikki, who still had her arms folded tightly, and her lips even more so. “Come by the station when you’re done here.”
In a cheerful, fake voice, Nikki said, “An order? Lovely. No, thanks.”
Fine. They would do it here. Molly opened her mouth to say something else, but he shot her the look he’d given Jimmy the crackhead that time he’d tried to charge at him with the blowtorch. “This is Todd’s fault. That asshole has kept you under his thumb for long enough. You’ve got to get out of there. Come live with me. You can have the spare room, I’ve told you that a million times, but you have to do it this time.”
“This has nothing to do with him. You’re just mad because I’m not getting the job you think I should get. And you know what the truth is, Colin? The truth is this – no one thinks I’m good enough. And they’re right. I’m not.”
“That’s bullshit!”
“Is it? I’m a McMurtry, just like you. I’m never going to be good enough for this town. You might have risen to the top of the sheriff’s department, but that has nothing to do with me. You’re his son, yeah, but I’m her daughter. I had an interview at the Frostee Freeze up the coast today, and I was told I was under-qualified. Sixteen-year-olds aren’t told that. No one expects a damn thing from me, and they’re right not to. The only one who does is you, and you have to get over it. I’m never going to be the person you want me to be.” Nikki said to Molly, “I’ll take the job. We’ll work out the pay later. What time do you want me at the café tomorrow?”
Molly’s eyes were wide. “Eight.”
“See you then.” His sister spun and paced away. She couldn’t be going far – he didn’t see her car parked anywhere close by. Colin didn’t want to watch Todd scream up in his Camaro to pick her up. Colin never had the desire to illegally discharge his weapon as much as he did when Todd’s ride was in his line of sight.
He glanced at Molly. With good reason, she looked confused. “I don’t boss her around like that all the time.” He scrubbed his face with his hand, hard. “God. The damn Fro
stee Freeze. I have a friend at the golf course, a guy who’s married to one of the instructors who owes me a favor. I could’ve pulled some strings and she knows that. Not that that makes it a sure thing. She’s damn right no one in this town would ever let a McMurtry girl rise any little bit higher than her means.”
“I’m well aware that this is a gold rush town, but are we in eighteen fifty-three now?”
His temper was still frayed, but it didn’t mean he had to be an ass to Molly. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing wrong with working at a café.”
“Well, yeah.”
“It’s just that…well, my dad met my mom in a diner.”
She tugged on the hem of her dirty blue shirt. She was a wreck – sweaty and filthy – and still managed to be adorable. “And?”
“He married her because he thought she was beautiful. He hated her because he thought she was worthless.”
Molly stared. “Oh.”
What the hell was he thinking, opening up to a perfect stranger like this? A hot one, yeah. But still a stranger. “Everyone thinks Nikki’s the same. Beautiful and worthless. Useless.”
“Then they’re all idiots.”
He cracked his neck and grazed his holster with the heel of his right hand. “Yeah, well, those idiots are my job security.”
“If it helps, I have no money and she probably won’t work for me for long.”
“Good.”
Molly blinked. “Yeah, that still sounds condescending. You get a lot of action with that attitude?”
“I do all right.” He pushed out his chest. “I can show you if you want.” It was a rebellious, stupid thing to say. It wasn’t even flirting, it was grandstanding, a rooster move.
“No thanks. I’ll stick with your sister.”
“She can do better.”
Carefully, coolly, Molly’s eyes swept his body, all the way down to his boots and then back up again. “So can I.” She swept into the café, closing the door behind her.
Shit. Colin often had women ticked off at him, for a lot of reasons that were usually purely professional. But not these women.
He stalked back to his patrol car and then, closing the door like he did a million times a day, slammed it on his thumb.
The pain felt earned.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The wind was strong on the side of the hill. Molly had forgotten how mournful it could sound up here, a low moan of air that felt like an ache to listen to.
Ahead of her, Adele’s strong legs pumped resolutely as she hiked smoothly and quickly. Molly had lost her breath five minutes up the trail and hadn’t gotten it back yet.
“Wait up!” How many times had she called that out in her life? Adele, always out in front because she wanted to get there first to suss out whatever situation it was (a playground, a sound stage) so she could fix problems before they even arose. Lana lagging far behind because she was so lost in her own world she never cared enough to keep up. Molly almost followed up with her old secondary cry: “Wait for us!” But Lana wasn’t behind her. Molly wouldn’t have admitted that she looked over her shoulder. When she did, her heart fell.
The three of them might never climb to the cliff together again.
“Come on!” Adele’s customary response. Always.
Even with the pang she felt missing Lana, Molly’s spirits rose as they crested the second-highest rise and caught their first view of the ocean. It was dark blue today, with tall whitecaps portending the late-winter storm heading in. The sky blended into the edge of the horizon, where a dark haze hung heavily.
Adele slowed enough that Molly caught up. She gestured up towards where the sun would have been if it had been allowed to break through the thick fog. “No groundhog today, huh?”
Molly shook her head. “Six more weeks of winter, I guess.” It was really February? “I can’t believe I’ve already been here that long.” She broke off – Adele was already ten paces away, and the wind caught her words and blew them back inland. One more rise of the hill and they’d be there, and then Molly could catch her breath. You’d think all the physical labor she’d been doing in the café would have paid off, but apparently that was strength training, not this kind of cardio.
Six weeks. It had flown by in a blur of work. Molly had been sleeping better than she ever had before, falling into bed at the end of long days spent clearing out the old, bringing in the new. The barely new, that was. Adele had co-signed on the loan, which had hurt, Molly could admit. She wasn’t doing it alone, like she’d wanted to. But the look on her sister’s face had made it worth it. The bank had given Molly a loan big enough to pay Nikki (way too little—if Nikki stayed, she’d give her a raise the second they made a dime) and to buy the equipment she needed if she remained a cutthroat second-hand shopper. She’d gotten a walk-in freezer second hand from a fish grocer who was retiring, and an industrial stove (twelve burners!) from a “restaurant supply store” that had turned out to be a guy named Neddo who rolled up a metal door on a huge storage unit. He swore none of the stoves were “hot” and then he’d laughed himself silly at the dismayed look on her face.
And the café still wasn’t open.
It was close, though. Another week and Molly swore they’d be ready, if they had the staff in place and trained. They had interviews the next day, then two more inspections, a test run of the menu, a new sink in the back bathroom and new glass in the front two windows, and they’d be good to go.
Oh, and a door-opening bell. Molly wanted the kind that chimed cheerfully as people entered – a tinkled chime, not the buzzers which were the only things she’d been able to find, even after making the long trip down to San Francisco in the rented van.
And new silverware.
And maybe a few more bread baskets.
Oh. Candles? Did they need candles? They were getting paper menus printed (cheaper to change out while still working on the menu) and Molly herself had started a small blaze at a romantic restaurant years ago when she hadn’t noticed she was holding the menu over the flame – and how long was training going to take, anyway?
“Watch yourself!” Adele’s voice was sharp.
“Oh!” Molly leaped away from the edge.
“Just because the trail leads to the brink of danger doesn’t mean you follow it! It’s an old trail.” Adele put her hands on her hips. “Do I need to leash you to me like Mom used to do with Lana at airports?”
“Sorry.” Molly followed carefully behind Adele, trying to keep her mind off the café.
But the café was all she’d been thinking about.
She had definitely not been thinking about Colin McMurtry. Almost never, that was. Not that often.
Okay, except for the time he’d been at Martha’s Market. He’d turned onto the row where she was – the tampon aisle, as luck would have it – holding his basket like it was a weapon. She’d hurled herself through the nearest door she saw and ended up nose-to-nose with Benny the butcher. She’d fanned herself. Hot out there. Just cooling off for a minute. This is refrigerated, yes? Benny, not used to people in his area, had just blinked slowly and then gone back to cutting pork shoulder.
After she’d bought her tampons and yoghurts, he’d been chatting on the front sidewalk with an old woman who had bright-purple hair. Colin had smiled broadly at Molly.
Like Molly was just another citizen in his jurisdiction. As if she were a vote he needed to win.
She’d smiled back as cheerfully as possible. She didn’t have a problem with him, no siree.
They’d repeated the scene at least four more times – at the library where he’d been talking animatedly to an old cowboy holding a stack of paperback westerns; at the post office where he’d chatted so long to Dot Rillo about the upcoming postal increase that Molly had almost been unable to return his smile. At the drugstore. At the bagel shop.
Every time, he’d been nothing but friendly. Each time, he’d smiled. Friendliest sheriff west of the Mississippi, no doubt. People seemed to love him.
No. The sheriff hadn’t been on her mind.
Not at all.
It didn’t help that he kept dropping off goodies, invisibly, leaving things on one of the tables out front. A bag of warm cookies from Josie’s, two fresh cups of coffee. Once he’d left a whole pizza. Nikki’s phone would chime her brother’s text noise (a siren) and she’d grin and run outside to wave at him as he pulled away in his patrol car.
It didn’t help that Nikki didn’t seem to notice that Molly was actively trying to avoid thinking of him. As they worked together, she chirped all the time about her brother. He’s so driven, you know? He works so hard. He’s supposed to have weekends off but he never takes them. He ends up in the office anyway, doing paperwork, or helping his officers with stuff. Investigating. He’ll come around, you know. He won’t mind me working here forever. We’ll serve him a bleu burger and he’ll just die, I know it.
Molly hadn’t asked one question – not one. Still, she now knew that Colin’s favorite meal was mac’n’cheese, and that he’d gotten an MBA before getting a job at the department and rising to take his father’s place. She knew that he liked dogs but he liked cats better, even though he hadn’t had one in a while, since old Sammy Joe’d died.
She did her damnedest not to wonder what he’d done with the kitten, Asiago. He’d probably just dropped her off at the pound. She would have been adopted in a heartbeat.
Nikki filled the air with talk as they worked. When Nikki mentioned her father, her voice tightened. Molly and her sisters had had a terrible time recovering from their parents” deaths, and they’d died of natural causes. How much harder would it be to heal from a suicide?
And besides, she was learning plenty just by keeping her mouth shut and her ears open. Now she knew Colin’s favorite color was dark blue, though his personal car was gold. It was an old Chevelle that he didn’t drive much since the department provided his take-home patrol car and gas, but that he loved.
Molly knew that his last girlfriend, Maggie, had been an accountant with tiny boobs. (Of course.)
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