Page 7 of Summer Rose

“Bar Harbor is a long way from Providence.”

Her father smiled. “It is, isn’t it? It looks so much closer on the map.”

Rebecca wasn’t in the mood to laugh.

“Why don’t you sit with me? Have a drink? It looks as though all your guests have been served.”

Rebecca scanned the tables. Candlelight flickered menacingly over the guests’ faces. Her gut told her to go into the back, find Fred in the office, and take off for the Florida Keys. “My father’s back. He wants something. I just know it.” But Rebecca couldn’t listen to her gut anymore. It lied constantly.

“Not here.” Rebecca’s voice made her sound on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Maybe she was.

“Anywhere you’d like.”

Rebecca pushed the swinging door open to return to the warm pulse of the kitchen. Staff members cleaned the stovetops and the ovens and chatted about their after-work plans. A few noticed her smile as she walked in, as though her presence gave them a grounding she couldn’t understand. How she wished she could reopen Bar Harbor Brasserie for them and return to a life that made sense.

Rebecca rapped on the countertop to make a final announcement. She thanked them for their honest service, for their ability to bring such remarkable energy to Bar Harbor Brasserie. She thanked them for being her support during a particularly dark time. And then, before she could chicken out, she revealed she would not reopen Bar Harbor Brasserie. Her heart couldn’t take it. It was still with Fred, wherever he had gone.

With her jacket on, Rebecca walked out the back door, scooted around the restaurant, and discovered her father already outside. He wore a long trench coat and a hat that reminded her of spy novels. She stopped short and studied him, her mouth dry and her stomach gurgling with angry hunger.

After a period of silence that stretched far too long, Victor said, “I’ll explain when we sit down. Where can we get a drink around here? By the looks of it, you need one. Bad.”

Two streets away from Bar Harbor Brasserie was a hole-in-the-wall bar called Baxter’s. Rebecca hadn’t been there often, just a handful of times with previous employees. Her favorite bar was two streets from Bar Harbor Brasserie in the opposite direction, but she couldn’t go there. It was yet another minefield in a town of minefields. She and Fred had collapsed there for after-work drinks more times than she could count.

Baxter’s wasn’t exactly the sort of bar you took prestigious family psychologist Victor Sutton to. At the counter, Rebecca removed her jacket and collapsed on a stool as Victor studied the graffiti on the walls and the hot dogs that rotated on sticks near the window. Baxter himself had told Rebecca the hot dogs were a way to lure drunk customers in to buy more beer.

Baxter wasn’t working that night, but his brother was. He poured Rebecca and Victor hefty pints and knew not to ask Rebecca questions about her night. Rebecca ordered a grilled cheese sandwich, which she knew they cooked in a half-clean sandwich maker in the back. Nobody had died of food poisoning yet.

Victor raised his pint glass and studied Rebecca. Rebecca felt on display. “I feel like we should toast to something.”

Rebecca took a long sip of her beer. Victor didn’t bother to shield his disappointment.

“How did you know we were open tonight?” Rebecca said under her breath. She was barely audible over the loudspeaker, which played rock from the seventies and eighties.

Victor leaned toward her. “What?”

“Why did you show up tonight?” Rebecca demanded again. Rage bubbled through her stomach.

“I read about it,” Victor explained. “There was an article about tonight’s dinner in a magazine at my dentist office in Providence. Something about the entire Bar Harbor hospitality community coming together to support you. It was heartwarming, to say the least.”

Rebecca raised an eyebrow. “That seems unlikely.”

“Bar Harbor Brasserie is an iconic restaurant in Bar Harbor. People have heard of it. Even my dental hygienist has.”

Rebecca wasn’t sure if she wanted to believe anything he said. At his core, he was a liar—the sort of liar who knew to say just enough of the truth to get away with anything. Perhaps he’d been stalking her online for a while, waiting for the right time to pounce. If so, that begged the question: why? What did he want from her? What did Rebecca Vance have to give a man who had everything? Her respect? Her love? She didn’t have any of that left for him.

“So. Okay.” Rebecca sipped her beer. “That means you’ve known about my restaurant for a while.”

“The internet is a remarkable place. You can discover just about anything on there.”

So he had been stalking her. He knew about her career and her children. He knew about Fred’s death. He knew she struggled with money. What did Rebecca know of Victor? She’d tried hard to leech him from her life like poison from a snake bite.

“It was brave of you to reopen tonight,” her father said.

Rebecca turned to look at him too quickly, causing her neck to shimmer with pain. “It wasn’t brave.”

“It was. Everyone there knows what you’ve gone through. They all know you’ve had the worst few months of your life. There’s no hiding from them, not when you’re the one preparing their food. Not when you’re the one they’re paying.”

Rebecca tried to focus on her breathing, but she felt too erratic. “I don’t need a psychologist to explain to me why tonight was difficult.”

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