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“Wouldn’t do you both any harm to do some training with me, Joe.”
“God’s truth, Mr. Goldhirsh, I’d be dead before we hit the first mile mark.”
“And that’s the problem with the youth of today,” the man said, lifting a hand. He was obviously done with making Joe feel inadequate, and ready to move on and find someone else to hassle.
As he didn’t finish that sentence, Joe did it for him as he started walking again. “No resilience.”
Ryker had two parts to the town. The “green belt,” as Joe called it, was for those who wanted healthy alternatives for their body and soul, like alfalfa sprouts and meditation. You could get a beet and kale smoothie, though why the hell you’d want to was beyond him, and someone to get your chakras back in line and find inner peace.
“Not that I couldn’t do with some of that,” he muttered. His inner peace had been shattered two days ago when he found Bailey in the grocery store. He hadn’t stopped thinking about her since, and now that he’d just seen her, and she’d supported him with Mary Howard, he was even more aware of her.
Then there was his part of town. The place where you could get a meal and pay as little or as much as you wanted. Shops sold everything from hand-painted crockery to high-priced jewelry. Over the years, Ryker had learned to cater for everyone who entered it.
He and Buzz crossed the road and entered his bar. He’d bought the place five years ago, and he’d been making changes ever since. The facade was red brick, the front doors white, like the frames on the two front bay windows. A sign curved over the doorway with the lettersAandSon it, and at night it was lit by twenty bulbs.
Joe loved this place because it was his alone. He shared several investments and properties with his siblings, but not this.
With polished wood floors, and muted lighting, the bar area had plenty of seating or leaning spaces. One wall was bricked, and to one side sat a small stage. Joe looked at the piano and thought of Bailey.
“And that has to stop,” he muttered, walking to where his manager was standing, poring over the bookings for the night. He had to get his head around the fact that she was back, and different, and that they no longer meant anything to each other. How could they after fifteen years?
“Hey, Buzz. We’re full tonight.”
“How come he gets a greeting and I get ‘we’re full tonight.’”
“He’s cuter.”
“You pull out a dog biscuit and you’re fired.”
“What bug crawled up your ass?”
He waved a hand, dismissing the question. “I want to say great, but with the staffing issues, we’re gonna be pressed, Em.” Emily Paul was short, with a big attitude. She had a cap of straight blonde hair, and several piercings that made his eyes water. She had been the best applicant he’d interviewed by far, even though she was younger by a good five years. Joe believed in gut instinct, so he’d employed her, and never regretted it.
Passing the bar he’d had another friend build with one long slab of local timber, Joe ran his hand along the smooth length before heading to his office. Buzz made a few circles on his bed, then settled down with a heavy sigh.
“Yeah, like your life is so hard.”
The dog ignored him and was snoring like the buzz of a chainsaw minutes later. Looking at the clock, Joe noted the time as 4:00 p.m. He’d be lucky to see his bed by 1:00 a.m., and wasn’t displeased. If he was busy, he couldn’t think about her.
Chapter 5
“A drink, a meal, nothing more, Bailey. Seriously, you can’t just hide inside for your entire stay. It’s not healthy. You’re pale, with bags under your eyes, and way too skinny. You’re coming out with me tonight.”
“Don’t hold back, Maggie, and I didn’t stay inside today. Day two, I might add. I had tea with you at Miss Marla and Miss Sarah’s tea shop, then we walked down to the boardwalk.” The tea shop where she’d seen Joe. And then outside where she’d heard that bitch Mary Howard abusing him. The old Joe wouldn’t have just stood there and taken that. He’d have yelled back. Like her, lots had changed, it seemed.
“Do you want me to hold back, Bailey?”
“No, I always liked that you told me what you were feeling, Maggs. It’s taking me a while to adjust, okay? I haven’t been around anyone like you in years.”
“I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”
“I assure you it is,” Bailey said. She did want straight talking, because it was the truth she needed in her life now. No more lies or platitudes. No more empty words because people thought they were what she wanted to hear. “I value your honesty, Maggs. But I’ve been back two days, surely I get some time to just be a sloth?”
Two days of staying in Maggs’s wonderful home. It was close to the mountains, in the less-populated part of town. With two bedrooms, the body of the house was not overly large, but what it lacked in size it made up for with the view from the conservatory. Glass walled the room on three sides and the roof, and it offered never-ending views of the twin mountains. The minute she’d walked into that room, Bailey had fallen in love with the little house.
“Good. Because lying is not what we do, Bailey. And yes to being a sloth—if I believed that was what you were doing.”
“You don’t?”
