Hard Luck Hellhound

by Chant, Zoe

  “You did all this yourself?”

  “Most of it.” He told her about how he had found it as a dusty, cobwebby hayloft. “I picked everything out and did all the grunt work—the painting, ripping up the floorboards. I didn’t make any of the furniture, though. I just hunted around in antique stores for most of it—we have a lot of antique stores, if you like those. The rest of it was made by a local woodworker.”

  He was rambling, and it sounded like he worked for the Heaven’s Limits tourism board and was trying to sell her on sticking around. That was the last thing she needed to do.

  She didn’t seem to think he was embarrassing himself, at least. She had just moved on to examining the old-fashioned, buttercup-yellow Frigidaire.

  But then she turned around suddenly, looking alarmed and guilty. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to stay here while I coo over how adorable this apartment is. I promise I’m okay, and again, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I really didn’t mean to keep you up so late.”

  He smiled. “One of the benefits of running a bar is that I don’t have to open it too early in the morning.”

  “Then you should go home and sleep.” She unzipped her suitcase and produced the sleeping bag and pillow she’d mentioned, spreading them out on the bed. Russ made a mental note to bring her some sheets if she had to spend more than one night here.

  Please let her have to spend more than one night here.

  His heart was disloyally getting ahead of his brain. He would have to keep that under control.

  He needed to just leave, call for a ride, and go home and take a cold shower. Maybe two cold showers.

  He handed her a slip of paper. “The towing company, the garage, and the taxi service.”

  “Thank you,” she said, taking it and looking at him with real delight.

  Everything inside him wanted to sweep her into his arms.

  “Well, good night.” He held out his hand.

  She grabbed it at once, with a fervency that surprised him. Her thumb skated over the back of his hand, like she wanted to memorize the way he felt.

  He never wanted to let her go.

  It felt like he was falling into her eyes, which were so dark and sparkling that they almost looked black. Her hair was the same, a black that, under the light, glinted with strands of fiery red.

  He hadn’t had the chance to look at her like this outside, where the light had been so much dimmer. He hadn’t really been able to appreciate how gorgeous she was. She wore a thin, cranberry red sweater and a worn, slightly frayed pair of jeans that clung perfectly to her curves, making her look more impossibly delectable. All he wanted was to lean down and kiss her.

  Neither one of them had broken the handshake yet.

  It took everything Russ had to make himself let go and to not let the flash of disappointment in her face make him rush back. He was doing the right thing. It had to be the right thing if it felt this shitty and made him this unhappy, right?

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

  And he got the hell out of there while he could still make himself leave.

  4

  Anita had gone to bed feeling like her brain was a fizzy cocktail of excitement, worry, and embarrassment. There was someone in the world she could touch! And he was unbelievably sweet and looked like a devastatingly handsome cowboy! But she was handling it all wrong and scaring him off! This was the kind of litany her mind was good at coming up with in the small hours of the morning, when she was tossing and turning and trying in vain to sleep. And she would have had more reason for it than ever.

  But somehow, she got the best night’s sleep of her entire life. She woke up feeling indulgently, luxuriously well-rested, and she stretched inside her sleeping bag, feeling her bare arms and legs slide over the slick nylon.

  It was a lot better than a night sleeping on the floor, that was for sure. She had never stayed anywhere she liked as much as she liked Russ’s little hayloft apartment.

  It felt like she was staying inside an old, hazy daydream, like this was some perfect life she had imagined for herself a long time ago, when she didn’t know anything about the real world or compromise.

  Oh, she knew that she was in the real world, and that in another minute or two, she would have to get up, roll up her sleeping bag, and get ready to get back on the road towards a life that wasn’t nearly as appealing as this one.

  Unless I didn’t do that. Unless I stayed right here in Heaven’s Limits.

  After all, what was waiting for her anywhere else? Floor space in a half-wrecked house? She had just been heading towards Melanie because she had a sliver of an opportunity there, with the free housing. But if she could get a job in Heaven’s Limits, she could scrape together enough to rent a little apartment. Maybe even this apartment, if Russ really was looking to rent it out.

  What if she lived here? What if she got to spend more time with Russ?

  It had been years since she’d been able to touch someone without feeling like her skin was catching on fire. Before last night, she’d almost forgotten what human touch felt like.

  That didn’t mean Russ owed her everything she’d been missing. But she would have to be nuts to leave town without at least trying to get to know him better.

  And honestly, that would have been true even if she hadn’t been cursed. Russ was the kind of guy you only ran into once in a lifetime. How many people would offer up a spare furnished apartment to a complete stranger? How many of them would drive their car on three flat tires just to try to give her a jump?

  She had run into him for a reason. Now she just had to give herself time to find out why.

  She pulled out her phone and texted Melanie: I don’t think I’ll make it there today. Car broke down, but it’s okay. I’m getting it fixed up. Actually, this place is pretty charming, so I might not have to take advantage of your fixer-upper after all. <3

  She pocketed the phone again, thinking about that little heart emoji. When she looked around this apartment, she had the feeling her eyes looked exactly like it. And when she thought about Russ, she had the feeling they put all heart emojis in the world to shame.

  THE MECHANIC, A RUGGED-looking guy with a buzz cut—helpfully nicknamed Buzz—turned out to be on her side.

  “Your car’s toast,” he told her bluntly. “If you park it out in the sun, and it’s a hot day, you can fry an egg on the hood, but that’s about the most use you’re going to get out of her. Don’t get me wrong, I can fix it up for you. We all do kinds of fixes here, including ones that are a bad idea, just as long as the owner knows it’s a bad idea. I’m just saying that it would be cheaper and faster to junk this and look for something else.”

  Cheaper definitely mattered to her. But faster...

  Faster wasn’t necessarily what she wanted right now. But then, even if she chose to junk her car and buy a new one, it would still take a while for her to save up enough money for a decent down-payment. So maybe it really did come down to what was cheapest.

  She looked over the mechanic’s shoulder at her slumped little car, which seemed exhausted but still dogged somehow. It had been good to her. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she owed it something.

  “I’d like to fix it,” she said firmly. “Even if it would be cheaper to trade it in.”

  “George will like you,” Buzz said. “He’s a magpie, you know: he likes collecting things, even useless stuff. He’s a softy about his broken-down cars too. That might be why he likes Russ so much—you said you were a friend of Russ’s?”

  She felt like she had to be honest, even if stretching the truth might get her more of a discount. “Sort of. We only met last night, but he’s a really nice guy. He helped me out a lot.”

  “Yeah, Russ is good people for sure. It’s just a shame about his luck. That’s what I meant about George’s soft spot for him. George likes the idea of fixing Russ’s life up for him.”

  “He could start by getting him a new friend,” Anita said.

&n
bsp; Buzz frowned. “New friend?”

  “I’m sure he’ll tell you when he comes in today—he’s got three flats, he’ll have to get them replaced—but he has some practical joker friend who thought it was funny to slash his tires.”

  “Practical joker—oh. Got it.” His mouth suddenly quirked, like he was amused by something he couldn’t say. “Yeah, I don’t know that there’s anything we can do about that.”

  He scribbled on a pad for a while and then passed it over to her.

  “George is late this morning, but he’ll be in later, and he can do you a formal invoice. But that’s what I’m guessing it will take.”

  Anita looked at the number and gulped.

  “Like I said, it would be cheaper to junk it. You could sell it to a scrapyard and get at least a little bit of cash for it.”

  She squared her shoulders. “No, I really do want to fix it. But... I don’t think I can come up with that much right away. Could I pay you to keep it here for a while until I can get it fixed?”

  The mechanic smiled and gestured back behind him at the mostly empty garage bay. “We’ve got room. Just don’t tell anyone that we’re giving you free parking or we’ll get a bunch of people trying to stay here instead of dealing with meters.”

  Everyone here was so nice. She couldn’t believe how lucky she had been to have her car break down here of all places.

  She thanked him and ignored the white-hot flash of pain as they shook hands on it.

  It really was just Russ who was the exception to her curse, then. Stopping in Heaven’s Limits hadn’t fixed her. He was just safe somehow, even when the rest of the world still hurt.

  Then she knew what she had to do. She was going to pursue the opportunity while she had it.

  She strode out of the garage trying to feel bold. The way her big purse swung at her side helped, but the flapping of her sandal with its frayed strap didn’t do much to help her confidence. She could do this.

  She got back in the town’s answer to cab service—a beat-up Volkswagen Beetle with daisies painted on it and its driver, a young woman with henna-dyed hair and sleeve tattoos, asleep with her head against the steering wheel.

  She straightened up as Anita got in. “You’re back.” She rubbed her eyes with her fists. “Sorry about dozing off. I know it’s not exactly reassuring. Seriously, I promise I won’t do that while I’m driving. I’m just not a morning person. I mean, I’m an owl.”

  She meant night owl, right? She was pretty sure that was what Russ had said last night.

  “It’s okay.” It was a little disconcerting, but she could live with it. “I know I was in there a while. He had to assess how bad my car was.”

  “And? What’s the damage?”

  “There’s nothing left but damage, apparently.”

  “Rats,” Emily the cab driver said. There was nothing but sincerity in her voice, even though Anita hadn’t heard anyone say rats as an exclamation in decades. And possibly never in real life. “I’m sorry. I know if anything happened to Daphne here, I couldn’t cope.” She patted the steering wheel right where her forehead had been.

  Daphne was a name that suited the daisy-covered car, Anita decided. And Daphne and Emily suited each other.

  “He said I should just give it up and get a new one, but I think I’m going to pay for repairs instead.”

  “You sure? George and Buzz know what they’re talking about when it comes to cars. They wouldn’t steer you wrong.”

  “They’re right,” Anita admitted. “I just like the car too much to give it up.”

  “Well, I can understand that, that’s for sure. Good luck with it.”

  Anita smiled. “Thanks. I can’t get it fixed up right away, though, so I guess I’m sticking around for a while. Do you know any places that might be hiring?”

  “Sure!” Emily grinned. “Right where I picked you up. The roadhouse.”

  “Russ’s bar? Is that what it’s called?”

  “Mm-hm. I don’t even know if it has an official name, but that’s what everybody says, anyway. The dude is in dire need of assistance. He used to have Suzy Lynn, but she blew town a couple of weeks ago.” Her smile faltered a little bit, disappearing before coming back in a more wistful mode. “And—we were together before she dumped me the second she got that scratch-off money, so this is just going to come off as catty on my part, but what the hell, it’s true—she wasn’t exactly top-tier waitress material anyway. Even I didn’t always get the drink I ordered. Have you ever tended bar before?”

  Work in Russ’s bar? Work with Russ, standing right beside him? She felt like her heart was pounding so hard Emily would be able to hear it.

  Yes, I’ve totally tended bar. I can absolutely tend bar. I would serve drinks so much better than your ex-girlfriend and Russ’s ex-waitress.

  But again, she had to be honest. There was no use in starting her life in Heaven’s Limits out with lies, no matter how badly she wanted this particular job.

  “No,” Anita admitted. “And I haven’t mixed too many cocktails either. I’m basically a straight beer and wine girl. But I’ve waitressed before, including at some pretty busy places. I think I could keep up.”

  Luckily for her, Emily just blew off her lack of bar experience. “You’re over twenty-one, you’re friendly, and you seem like you’d work hard. Russ would be lucky to have you.” She started up Daphne. “I’ll take you back there now.”

  It wasn’t that long of a drive, but Anita still felt like they were crawling along. She kept feeling like her palms were sweating with anxiety, and she covertly rubbed them against her jeans. Was she really going to have to do a job interview in old clothes and sandals with a fraying strap?

  Russ won’t mind, she told herself. He understands that you’re not exactly working with your full wardrobe right now.

  Her nerves didn’t seem to think that was adequate reassurance.

  Luckily, Emily turned out to be a good distraction. She glanced over at Anita and said, “So... you didn’t plan on stopping here, right?”

  There was something a little strange in her voice. She still sounded friendly, but she had been easy and relaxed a second ago, and now she sounded like she was just pretending to be relaxed.

  “No,” said Anita. “I still had about a hundred miles left to go before I got to my cousin’s place. That’s where I was going to stay.”

  “And you hadn’t, um, heard of Heaven’s Limits before.”

  “No.” She drew the word out a little this time, unsure of where this was going.

  The whole town wasn’t a cult, was it? Wait, was that why everybody was so nice? Were they just trying to lure her into a false sense of security? Should she open the door and roll out when they came to a red light? Even imagining that made her laugh—but the way Emily was acting was weird.

  And Emily seemed to realize it, because she let out an abrupt laugh. “Sorry. I know I sound like a total creep. Don’t mind me. We just don’t get a lot of strangers here.” She paused. “And now I can’t unhear how ominous all this sounds.”

  “Just promise you’re not going to sacrifice me for some kind of harvest festival. I watch a lot of horror movies.”

  “No, no,” Emily reassured her. “Harvest isn’t until October anyway.”

  Anita laughed.

  “Really, honestly, it’s just that we’re a tourist town and it’s not tourist season,” Emily said. “We’re so small that we don’t see a lot of traffic otherwise, so usually when someone shows up, it’s because they already know someone here and they’re coming to visit. That’s all.”

  “That’s exactly what someone planning on sacrificing me for their crops would say,” Anita said.

  5

  Russ was trying to channel all his worries into polishing glasses. At this rate, he was going to have the cleanest glassware in all Heaven’s Limits.

  He kept finding himself wanting to play some kind of idiotic “she loves me, she loves me not” game.

  If I get to the e
nd of this row of glasses before I hear from her, it means my hellhound won’t screw all this up. It means I can tell her about being mates.

  If no customers come in before I finish, it means she could love me back.

  He knew it was ridiculous. There wasn’t going to be a magic answer to his problems. The universe wasn’t going to suddenly intervene and give him a sign that he should talk to her; that just wasn’t how life worked—

  Anita walked in, a warm summer breeze accompanying her and stirring the dark waves of her hair.

  “I heard you need a waitress,” she said.

  His hellhound looked at him pointedly. This is the universe talking. This is a sign.

  “I haven’t tended bar before, but I’m a fast learner. And I’ve been a server and a hostess. Look, I have tray-carrying muscles.” She extended one arm and did a loose bicep curl that made his stomach flip-flop. She was soft and round, but he could see the strength underneath her velvety curves. She had the vibe of someone who was ready for anything and who could take on anything.

  Maybe even the truth about him.

  But the words froze up inside him. He couldn’t risk her safety and happiness just because she had good arms—what the hell was he thinking?

  And that wasn’t what she was here for, anyway. She was here to... interview for Suzy Lynn’s old job?

  Russ pulled himself together. “I believe you. But maybe we could backtrack to what happened with your car.”

  She gave him a sheepish smile. “Sorry. I planned my pitch on the way over here, and I got carried away. My car needs a lot of work. From what Buzz was saying, I think they’re basically going to have to rebuild it from the ground up, and the only thing that’s going to survive the transition is the air freshener. It’d be cheaper to just get another car, but I like this car. It’s stuck with me through a lot of tough times, and I want to stick with it. And...” She took a deep breath. “And I might want to stick with Heaven’s Limits, too. The only reason I was going to my original destination was because I knew I had a place to sleep there, and that was as good a foothold as any. I wanted to get away from home more than I wanted to go any one place in particular. And I like it here. It seems like this would be a nice place to settle down.”