Page 139 of Tattered (Lark Cove 1)

“What am I doing here?” I poured a shot of vodka into my shaker. “Working. Obviously.”

“You’re not supposed to be here.” He turned his glare to Logan. “Why is she here?”

Logan chuckled and held up his hands. “I tried to get her to go home, but she threw a beer bottle at me.”

I winced. I hadn’t been able to help myself with all of Logan’s nagging to take a break. One minute the beer bottle was in my hand and the next it was flying across the room. Pregnancy had stolen my sanity.

Lucky for me, Logan had fast hands and caught it before it broke.

“Sorry, gorgeous.”

He walked up behind me, putting his arms around my enormous belly and kissed my neck. “It’s okay, baby. I know you’re miserable.”

“I am.” Tears flooded my eyes, something that happened every five seconds. “I just want her to come out.”

“She will. We just have to give her a little more time.”

Easy for him to say. He wasn’t nine months and five days pregnant. I hadn’t slept in days and I was on the verge of a complete meltdown. Exhausted and uncomfortable, my temper flashed on and off faster than a strobe light. If I wasn’t crying, then I was snapping at people.

The doctors said nothing was wrong with the baby, she just wasn’t ready yet. Take it easy. Enjoy this quiet time. Be patient.

Fuck patience. I’d spent the last two days in bed trying to relax without luck. I’d finally gotten so fed up that I’d come to the bar in hopes that work would distract me from my swollen feet, aching back and raging heartburn.

“What are you doing here?” Logan asked Jackson as he took a stool. “It’s our weekend at the bar.”

He shrugged. “I just thought I’d come and keep you company for a while. I didn’t know she’d be here. Go home, Thea. Or for fuck’s sake, at least sit down.”

My hands shot across the bar, stretching for Jackson’s neck. But Logan held me back before I could strangle my best friend.

“Why are you tormenting my wife?” Logan asked.

Jackson just grinned. “Maybe if I get her fired up a bit, that kid will pop out and she’ll turn back into Nice Thea. We can’t afford to keep scaring customers away just because they ask for a lemon wedge in their water.”

“It wasn’t just a lemon wedge!” I shouted. “She already had ten! Ten lemons in one glass of water. Who does that? And I didn’t scare her away. I just reminded her that we served lemonade.”

Logan’s chest shook against my back as he laughed. “Baby, you told her the only way she was getting another lemon was if she found a lemon tree and plucked one herself.”

“We don’t need customers like her,” I muttered.

The woman had come in with a couple of friends about a month ago. Every time I’d waddle over, she’d need just one more thing. Lemon wedge after lemon wedge, followed by a glass of ice, a cocktail napkin and two more straws. The final lemon wedge had pushed me over the top.

“So where’s Charlie and Collin?” Jackson asked.

“With Hazel.” Logan let me go to get Jackson a beer. “They’re spending the evening with her and then having a sleepover at the cottage tonight.”

Hazel loved the weekends when Logan and I were at the bar. It was an arrangement we’d made with Jackson not long after Logan had moved to Lark Cove.

It had taken us less than a month to get pregnant with our son, Collin. I think we conceived him one lazy afternoon out on the boat. When we found out I was pregnant, Logan and I agreed it was time to cut back at the bar.

With Jackson’s agreement, we hired our first employee.

Dakota had been new to Lark Cove at the time, so he’d been more than willing to take some of my evening and weekend shifts. Our weekend rotation just worked out naturally from there. Dakota had one weekend. Jackson another. Logan and I the next.

He was always my weekend partner.

Not once in the last three years had Logan suggested I give up my job at the bar. It wasn’t like we needed the income. But he’d embraced the Lark Cove Bar as part of our family. On our weekends, we worked here together. If I had a new idea, I ran it by him before anyone else. He’d even helped me establish a partnership so Jackson and I could buy Hazel out and fund her retirement.

My husband was so damn smart it amazed me.