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What she really wanted was Bec’s brother. Right here. Right now. Which would be a really bad idea.
She was in the middle of a fight with her rotten, cheating ex, a man who described women as “tasty” and who gave his daughter presents just because he could.
And who then forgot about her until something else stirred his memory.
She was also in the middle of a fight with her twelve-year-old daughter, who preferred her charming rat of a father to her drudge of a mother.
Are you jealous, Ruth? Really? She sighed. Yeah, she sort of was. David was glamorous and attractive. She was the one who made macaroni and cheese all the time because she couldn’t ever remember to buy groceries.
She didn’t have time for a lover. Not to mention, she didn’t deserve one. She needed to spend more time being a mom. She needed to make Carol understand why men like David were a trap. She needed to go back to being what she’d always been. Ruth Colbert, cheesemaker, deli owner, and mom. The rest of it was just illusion. This was real.
But I wanted that illusion. I wanted passion. I wanted…
It didn’t matter. Wanting passion was a trap. It made a woman vulnerable. It made her stupid. And Liam was leaving anyway.
She needed to take herself in hand. She and Liam needed to get ready for the end. Maybe they needed to just end it now. She didn’t have time for this. She’d never had time for this. She had too much on her plate already.
Tears prickled at the back of her eyes, and she bit her lip. I don’t want to give him up. It isn’t fair. I’ve spent all this time on my own.
No, it wasn’t fair. None of it was fair—Carol had a point. But she couldn’t do anything about it. Liam was going away, and Carol wanted to go away, too.
She had other things to worry about right then.
Chapter Nineteen
For the life of him, Liam couldn’t figure out what Stanton was planning for Black Mountain Tavern.
The complaints about the food had become constant, almost like white noise. McCullough had dropped nachos from the menu because they were “too much trouble.” That meant their only bar food besides peanuts and popcorn was wings, which were available only because Stanton had bought them frozen by the bag, already breaded and seasoned. However, McCullough’s lack of interest in the time they spent in the deep fryer produced every state from incinerated to suspiciously pink, and the bottled sauce Stanton provided had been watered down so much that the heat was just a memory.
Maybe giving the customers a case of food poisoning would be enough to get Stanton to finally fire the bastard. Unfortunately, Liam doubted that, too.
Not surprisingly, they were losing more of their regulars. The tourists were still hanging around, although they’d had some slippage there as well, thanks to all the bad Yelp reviews. Now the Antero citizens who’d once come in every night or so to test the new craft brews and play a game of pool had also begun to disappear.
Losing customers should have gotten Stanton’s attention, even if Liam’s own complaints about McCullough hadn’t. The locals were a problem, but the decline in tourist traffic was serious since tourists were their bread and butter. But Stanton was seldom around the tavern long enough to notice. He hadn’t been there in over a week.
Which explained why Liam was simultaneously surprised and suspicious when he saw Stanton walk in around six. The crowd was smaller than usual, but then, the crowds had been down for the past week or so, ever since the news of McCullough’s vast incompetence had spread around town.
Stanton nodded at him. “How’s it going?”
“Shitty,” Liam shot back. “We need to talk. Bad.”
Stanton raised an eyebrow, then motioned him toward the back room, which functioned as both storage and Stanton’s pathetic excuse for an office. “What’s the problem?”
“McCullough is the problem. As I’ve been trying to tell you ever since the son of a bitch started working here. His food sucks. His attitude sucks. And we’re losing customers every day because of it.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Getting rid of craft brews doesn’t help, but McCullough’s the main problem here. He’s reduced the menu to next to nothing, and nobody wants to eat the shit he still fixes. He’s a bastard to the wait staff, and the customers hate him. Have you seen our Yelp reviews lately? Jesus, how long are you going to let this go on?”
