Page 78 of Smoke and Shadows

The lunch shiftwas almost over and Marissa was dead on her feet. Friday lunch had been busy. There were a couple of group lunches that came in like a rowdy bunch of boys trying to be men, college kids propositioning waitresses. Sheila kept them in line for which Marissa was thankful because she had the strong urge to elbow one of the frat boys in the face after he had grabbed her boobs. Marissa just wished Sheila was as assertive with Fletcher. It was sad what love could do to a person.

She was wiping down the counters when Jerry asked her to check on some inventory in the stockroom. The storage area was an attachment to the main bar with the entrance located outside. She made a right at the hallway and pushed through the back exit, turned left and took a couple of steps to the stockroom entrance.

The door was unlocked. She cautiously turned the knob, but the door was suddenly yanked from her as she fell inside. Hands gripped her upper arms as she came face to face withHenry Logan, their missing guy from Bluefield. So this was where he was hiding out. Since when?

“What are you doing in here?” Marissa put enough squeak in her voice to sound frightened.

Logan narrowed his eyes. “I’m a friend of Garett Fletcher. I store some shit here.”

Liar, Liar, pants on fire.

“Jerry sent me here to do a stock check.”

The hands released her. “Don’t let me keep you.” He stepped aside and slammed out of the room.

Holy shit. Marissa could barely contain her frustration. She needed to call this in, but she needed to maintain her cover a bit longer. She quickly took a gander of the stockroom. She had been in here one other time, and that bedroll in one corner wasn’t here. Logan definitely was a recent arrival and he definitely was keeping a low profile. Marissa quickly made an inventory appraisal and walked back to the bar. She was passing by the office when she heard Sheila crying and yelling at Fletcher. “I don’t trust him. What are you hiding?”

“Keep it down, you cunt,” Fletcher hissed. “Do you want the whole damned bar to hear you?”

“I want him out of my house.”

“It’s my house, too, Sheila,” Fletcher replied. “We’ll be gone tomorrow morning.”

“You’re leaving again?”

“Yes.” There was a sound of a scuffle and the wall shook as if someone was backed up against it. “And if you take that tone with me again, bitch, we’re done. You don’t own me. You work for me. And if you ain’t shutting up like a good ole’ lady, you can leave right now.”

Marissa clenched her fists, wanting to charge in there and kick Fletcher where it hurt. She heard Sheila crying, so Marissa quickly made it back to the front of the house andhanded Jerry the inventory report he needed. She hoped to hell Sheila had the sense to leave the bastard.

Four p.m. wasthe start of happy hour, and the bar was starting to fill up again. Marissa managed to shoot off a text message to Tim requesting for an update because she had not heard anything since this morning. She was getting antsy, feeling like a one-man army on this mission. She couldn’t be freaking everywhere.

The door to the bar opened, and a young man clothed in a flannel shirt and ripped faded jeans walked in. He wore a baseball cap in reverse. Nathan Stark.

He sat at her section.

“The kitchen open, sweetie?” Nathan asked. Even dressed down, he was devastatingly handsome and all the estrogen at the bar certainly noticed. Unfortunately for them, Marissa knew that Nathan was very much in love with his fiancée, Lucy Cortez.

“They sure are, handsome,” Marissa said. “What can I get you?”

“Your house burger and a Duvell, please,” Nathan said after looking at the menu.

“Fries or chips?”

“Fries.”

“Be back with your beer.” She ordered the beer from Jerry and walked off in the direction of the kitchen.

She bumped into Fletcher who was looking at her with the same leery gaze from yesterday.

“You like working here, sugar?” he asked. Marissa did not like the undertone of his question.

“Sure do!” she answered chirpily.

“You like pretty boys like that one?” Fletcher nodded to Nathan who was frowning at them.

For Christ’s sake, was this jerk acting like a jealous asshole already? She just met the man yesterday.

“No.”

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