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Around her, other customers—tourists who didn’t know the first thing about her or about Wayne or about any of them—blinked nervous eyes and giggled behind their hands.
Wayne lifted a finger toward one of his employees, pointed toward the register, and said, “You have to take over.”
“What? What has already been ordered...?”
But Wayne lost all track of his customers. It was a good thing, too, since Elise nearly collapsed after that. She pressed her hands against the counter and inhaled sharply. Wayne hustled around behind her and helped her walk toward one of the corner tables, one with a view of the ferry dock.
“Wait here. Let me get you some tea,” he said.
“No. No, it’s okay,” she breathed. “I’ll just sit here. I just need to breathe.”
“You came here for a reason. I’m going to help you,” Wayne affirmed.
“Okay. But I’ll get out of your hair soon,” Elise whispered. “You can get back to work. You can...”
But Wayne had already returned behind the counter to fetch her some tea.
Elise pressed her palms together. Her eyes scanned the crowd at The Grind. Did any of them want to threaten her to leave the island? Did any of them want to lord their power over her?
Before she knew it, Wayne placed a cup of steaming ginger tea before her, then beckoned to one of his employees to continue at the register. In response, the employee rolled her eyes, exasperated.
Wayne sat across from her and tried to meet her gaze. Elise sipped her tea, which was just scalding enough to make her clench her eyes. Somehow, the pain forced her back to reality.
“You have to tell me what happened so I can help you,” he said.
“You told me the Dean Swartz stuff wasn’t good,” Elise said. “But this is the Midwest. I thought ‘not good’ meant, like, two-day-old casserole. Not... men breaking into my room to tell me to get off the island.”
A tear dropped from her left eye. On instinct, she flicked it away. She hated looking this weak, especially around a man she hardly knew. Already, she had bled in front of him. Now, this.
“I don’t expect you to understand what it’s like to have a man corner you in your room.”
“No. Of course, I can’t understand. But I do understand that the man’s an asshole. And we need to do something about it,” Wayne replied.
His voice was dark, ominous.
He seemed to want revenge.
Elise furrowed her brow. “You know who it was?”
“I have a hunch,” Wayne said. “But I don’t want to talk about it here. It’s obvious that somebody heard you in the bar last night and passed along the information. Gosh, if only I had known that your big secret was this— big.”
“Ha.”
“Sorry. I was curious about you. But you’re like a bomb that just went off on Mackinac Island,” he said.
Wayne swept through the crowd that bubbled near the register and spoke into his employee’s ear. The look she gave him was one of murderous shock.
“You can’t leave me like this. Not at rush hour,” she said.
Elise waved her hand toward him and mouthed, “I want to make some notes anyway.” She lifted her laptop from her bag and pointed.
She had the sudden urge to write this down.
Maybe she really would concoct a screenplay on Mackinac Island, just like everyone kept saying.
“Are you sure?” Wayne mouthed back.
It seemed like they already had some kind of rapport with one another. They could speak across a crowded room without saying anything at all.
