Page 12 of Spiritwarrior

The old man jerked. “Fuck. You trying to scare me to death?”

“No. I was trying to keep you from taking a nosedive onto the grill,” she told him sharply.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” he denied.

Sophie wasn’t going to argue over the fact he was. Next time, she would just let him fry himself.

“I put up an order.”

Turning away from the window, she promised herself that, before the end of the day, she was going to run another ad. Customers already didn’t want to eat here because of Sophie’s father’s reputation of being a foul-mouthed, hateful son-of-bitch. The last she needed was to have to deal with the cook’s inept skills. The way she was going, she’d put the restaurant out of business during the same week it opened.

Thinking about the restaurant going bust had her worried. Every dime of her savings had gone into stocking the restaurant, turning the utilities back on, and renting an apartment. She didn’t have a safety margin.

Her parents had already given their notice and were packing to move to Treepoint. If she failed, they would be left high and dry.

Cut it out, Sophie, she scolded herself.You’re going to make it. She needed confidence right now, not doom and gloom.

“Order up!” George yelled out.

Sophie returned to the window to stare at the food George had put there.

God help her, everything was going to hell in a handbasket.

Chapter Five

Parking his truck in the driveway, Jody walked to where Silas and Fynn were standing.

“What’s going on?” he asked his eldest brother. “Why isn’t Fynn getting ready for school?”

Silas’ craggy face turned toward him. At his expression, Jody knew he was in trouble, though he didn’t know what he’d done when he hadn’t even been home.

“What’d I do?”

“Fynn, go get ready for school.”

Fynn gave him a sympathetic glance as he headed for the main house.

“I wasn’t supposed to be here for another thirty minutes—”

“Where were you last night?” Silas’ solemn voice cut him off.

“I’m not a kid anymore, Silas. Where I spent the night isn’t any of your business.”

Silas’ inscrutable expression became even more withdrawn. “Fine.” His brother started toward the house.

“Wait.” Jody started after him. “Why did you have Fynn out, reading the sky?”

“I was double-checking something.”

“What were you double-checking?”

“Nothing pertaining to me, or the others.”

“You saw something that would affectme? What was it?”

Silas went up the steps to the house. “Like you said, you’re not a kid anymore. Find out for yourself.”

Shit, he had pissed Silas off.

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