AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I could always fire you. Again. And hire someone who will do it. ” She shrugged.
She hated to admit that she preferred working with Janey over working at the Bar. The Bar had saved her at one time; it had helped to remake her at a time when she had been smarting from the loss of her
teaching job and the humiliation of the pictures that had hit the Internet.
Over the years the bikers that had helped her survive had slowly drifted away. A few had died, others had found lives, until there was just her and Jonesy. And now, Jonesy was drifting away as well.
Maybe it was time to admit what she had sensed all along. The bar wasn’t a permanent part of her life. It was a way to piss folks off and a means of survival. It wasn’t what she enjoyed doing though.
“There were comments made about you sneaking off with that sheriff last night,” he spat back at her. “Folks are gossiping over it. It’s going to hurt business. ”
She rolled her eyes as she shoved the receipts into a large envelope to go over later.
“My private life is just that, Jonesy,” she informed him. “If folks don’t like it, then they can find another bar to go to. ”
She was wary around him now. She kept him in her peripheral vision and made certain she had room to run if she needed it. She should have ordered him out of the bar the night he had thrown her across her office. Where would he go though? Rogue knew him; she knew he had nothing but the bar and the little house he owned a few miles away.
Jonesy didn’t have family, with the exception of a daughter that rarely spoke to him, and the only friends he had worked at the bar. He was always snarly and grouchy, but lately, he had been extreme, tense, and hard for anyone to get along with.
“Lea quit last night,” he informed her.
Somehow, that didn’t surprise Rogue.
“Then hire someone else,” she told him as she looked over the liquor that lined the wall and the shelves beneath the bar.
“It ain’t that easy,” he ground out between clenched teeth.
Rogue straightened and stared back at him suspiciously as he towered over her.
“What would make it easier, Jonesy, is if you didn’t scare your bartenders away,” she told him. “You’re like a rabid junkyard dog and the employees get tired of taking it. ”
She should have done something about him before now. She’d always convinced herself that Jonesy was just like that. It was a gruff exterior, and it didn’t mean anything. But now, she was beginning to wonder if it didn’t go deeper.
“Pussy-faced employees are what they are,” he snapped. “None of ’em have a lick of sense. I told you to let me take care of hiring them, but you have to just stick your nose in it, don’t you? You tell me to take care of hiring, then you turn around and get all nosy and bossy. What good does it to do me to even consider anyone?”
“Jonesy, what the hell is your problem?” She swung around on him, anger beginning to beat harshly inside her. “What makes you think you can tell me how to run my life or my bar? And what in the hell made you think you could manhandle me the way you did the other night? Are you losing your damned mind?”
He stared back at her in surprise now, his face flushing before he turned away and ran his hand over his bald head.
“I didn’t mean to get rough with you,” he snarled, his back to her. “It was an accident, and I shouldn’t have touched you. ”
An apology from Jonesy?
“Then why did you?”
He turned slowly, his expression fierce as he stared back at her. “You don’t listen anymore, Rogue. You’re tramping yourself out to that sheriff knowing damned good and well he won’t stick around no longer than it takes for him to get his rocks off. Just like Joe and Jaime. I told you they were bad news. Always in here bumming beer and sucking up to you. You were going to give them part of the bar, weren’t you? I heard you talking about it. ”
That had been her plan. Joe and Jaime had loved the bar; Rogue had known she was growing discontented with it. But she wanted it to remain in Walker hands.
“Joe and Jaime loved the bar, Jonesy,” she said, a sense of sadness enveloping her.
“They helped me a lot here. ”
“They got in your damned way and conspired to take this damned bar from both of us,”
he snarled, his beefy arms crossing over his heavy chest. “They were good for nothing, Rogue. You just couldn’t see it. Just like that damned sheriff. He’ll get you killed as dead as he got his wife killed. ”
Rogue stared back at him in surprise.
