The Bartender's Daughter (12 page)

For once she didn’t feel a surge of jealousy while watching Lee flirt. After all, it was her he was touching only a few hours ago. It was her he was planning to go home with.

Home.

His eyes flicked up to hers, and he gave her a wink and a full on Lee-Stone-smile. His brows rose up in question. She caught herself staring, smiled back, and moved to the kitchen.

Lee had agreed to move in to the cottage with her. It was a stupid idea. He was used to that big, beautiful house. Just because he had turned into a sometimes
plumber, didn’t mean he was prepared to live without the benefits of constant hot water and air conditioning. But she wanted to bring back everything they had before. She wanted Lee all to herself in a place that reminded her of late night talks and the possibilities of forever.

She spent the next hour closing down the kitchen, wiping down counters, the stove, and replacing oil in the deep fryer. All of these tasks were meant to keep her mind
off the front of the house but still her head kept flitting back to Lee.

She was exhausted by the time she pushed through the kitchen door into the nearly empty bar room. Lee and Joanna were removing empties and wiping down tables while a few patrons milled about the pool tables in back.

Lee’s concise movements kept her mesmerized. She loved watching the muscles in his forearms tighten while he wiped down the tables. She shook her head. She was a goner if she couldn’t keep her eyes off his arms.

She turned back to
find a tray to help when she felt Lee come up behind her. “You look tired. Grab a stool and talk to me while I finish cleaning up.”

“
I’ll just check to see if anyone needs refills.”

He laughed.
“Sam, our last customer left five minutes ago while you were staring at me.”

She blushed but ignored the comment.
“What’s left to do?”

“
Sit. You look like you’re dead on your feet. Joanna and I are almost finished.” He put his hands on her shoulders and directed her to a stool. He didn’t let go until she was seated and then was off.

It took another ten minutes before they were all in Lee
’s Jeep. Sam laid her head back and closed her eyes for the five-minute drive. She didn’t open them again until Lee came to a stop in front of his house.

Lee unbuckled her.
“I have to pick up a few things. Want to come in?”

She nodded and followed them into the house. Joanna wished them good night and went upstairs.

As soon as Joanna was out of hearing, Sam stopped Lee from following behind her. “We don’t have to do this now. The cottage is small and it’s not exactly that comfortable.”

“
Are you saying you’d rather stay here or that you’re getting cold feet?” He turned his entire focus on her.

“
I’m not getting cold feet. I’d just understand if you didn’t want to give this up…” she spun around and gestured to the entire house, “…for my little two room shack.”

He stalked the few steps toward her. There was no other way to describe the predatory way he came for her. Even with her eyes on him, her body still jolted when his hands landed on her hips and he pulled her toward him.
“Your two room shack has everything I need. Everything I want. You and a bed.”

He leaned into her and gave her a kiss that had her wondering if maybe one night at his house wasn
’t such a bad idea. He pulled back, took her hand, and walked her up to his room. She was only mildly disappointed when he made it clear he was packing to head back to her place.

Chapter Twelve

After one somewhat full night of sleep, he found himself falling back into the pattern of waking up after a few hours. He rolled out of bed as quietly as possible and shut the door behind him before turning a lamp on. He took his laptop out of the bag along with his notes and got to work compiling information he had on the bar.

When he originally planned to take it over, he knew that it had less than a fifty percent chance of surviving the next two years. He had been willing to take the chance when he was the only one involved, but now the bar had to survive for Sam’s sake. It was more than just a business to her. He felt the pressure build to make it thrive as well.

He slipped a pair of reading glasses out of the front pocket of his briefcase and got to work on a cost benefit analysis for outsourcing the kitchen. An hour later, he felt rather than heard Sam wake up. The door opened a minute later.

Her blond hair was pulled back into a messy bun, her eyes barely opened when she sat down beside him and moved a notebook to put her head in his lap. After a few adjustments, he got back to work, his left hand in her hair, the other scratching ideas across a yellow memo pad.

“
You wear glasses?” Sam started to rise but he patted her to stay put.

“
I do. It’s early. You should go back to sleep.”

“
What about you?” She smiled and that sleepy smile made him glad he’d given up his climate-controlled bedroom for the humid cottage.

“
Despite sleeping in this morning, I don’t need much sleep.”

“
Why is it I need more than eight hours to feel like a human while you’re great after four?”

“
Luck? Good genes?”

“
Don’t blow me off.” She brushed off his hand and came to a sitting position. “Do you really not need sleep or is it something else?”

He took a deep breath and pulled off his glasses. She wasn
’t going to let this go. “I can only sleep a few hours before I have nightmares. Four hours seem to be the limit.”

She slid closer until his arm pulled her in. He dumped the pad on the floor to make room for her on his lap. Her head came to a rest under his before she asked the question he
’d been waiting for. “What about?”

“
The accident. Sometimes it’s just a vague memory. The sound of glass breaking, metal twisting. Other times, it’s different. More real. I’ve seen my father in the passenger seat get crushed by the tree. Sometimes it’s you, Joanna, my mother.”

“
That’s awful.” She kissed his temple and nuzzled in closer like she wanted to take away the offending dreams.

“
I tried sleeping pills but I didn’t like how I felt after. It’s okay. I sleep in four hour stretches and I get more work done.”

“
But last night, you slept for at least six hours before I left for the bar.”

He tilted her chin up so that he could kiss her lips.
“Then we’ve found another way to keep the nightmares away.”

She kissed him back while sliding her hands around the back of his head, keeping him still. She controlled the kiss, finally pulling back when he was starting to consider the advantages of going back to bed.

He lost his chance when she noticed the paperwork covering the coffee table.

“
What are you working on?”

“
Some ideas for the bar. We can talk about it tomorrow. Why don’t you show me how you can help me sleep?” He pulled her back to him, but she slipped out of his hands and pointed to a graph.

“
I didn’t get my MBA but I know that’s bad. Really bad.” She bent back to pick it up and eyed the downward spike. “This is projected?”

He sighed. If they went down this road tonight, there wasn
’t going to be any more talk of going back to bed.

“
If we continue with the way things are. Yeah, that represents projected earnings.”

“
It’s in the negative. That’s not earning.” Sam put the paper down and looked at him. “I knew it was bad, but I wasn’t sure if I was being realistic.”

“
Your father kept the bar afloat by keeping overhead as low as possible. Too low. Over time that hurts business. Quality takes a nosedive. People want good food to go along with the friendly atmosphere. Frozen clams and cheap beer are not going to get the tourist crowd.” He hadn’t wanted to have this talk with Sam like this.

She slipped off his lap and crossed her arms over her chest.
“You want to change everything?”

“
No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying we need to consider that change might be necessary if we’re going to keep the bar from going under.”

“
So you’ve already come up with a plan without talking to me.”

It put his back up, the way she assumed he was working behind her back or up to something nefarious.

“No. I’m trying to find options for us, for the bar. Do you want me to sit and watch it continue to fail? It’s not the money, Sam. This place means more to me than that.”

Her shoulders loosened and she uncrossed her arms, exhaling a deep sigh.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I know we need to make changes, but I keep hearing his voice in my head. He wanted everything to stay the same, Lee.”

He pulled her hand from picking the worn buttons on the couch.
“Are you going to make decisions based on what we think is best and give the business a chance, or keep things the same and watch it burn?”

“
I know.”

“
Look at me. We don’t have to make any hard decisions right now but you have to make me a promise. Trust me. I’m not trying to pull one over on you. If this is going to work, you need to give us a chance, and that starts with knowing I could never do anything to hurt you.”

She climbed over and straddled him.
“I promise I’ll give you a chance to explain things before I jump to the wrong conclusions again.”

He kissed her and then took her back to bed. For the second night in a row, he caught more than four hours of sleep wrapped around Sam.

****

She sat on the floor in her jersey shorts and worn college
T-shirt. After washing her face, she felt awake enough to finally hear the real deal on the money situation at the bar. The conversation started rough. He ran through the numbers, vendors, taxes, and paychecks. It wasn’t intended to be a fun conversation but it was downright painful to hear how much money they needed to come up with to make things solvent.

Now she knew why she allowed herself to get pulled into the daily problems of running the bar and the personal problems with Lee before finishing organizing the office.
She’d been hiding from the facts here.

“
Why even bother? From this, it looks like we should close the doors tomorrow and cash in.”

“
It’s not over yet. We can still pull it out. This isn’t what you want to hear but some big changes could draw in a new crowd.”

She dropped the papers down on the table and looked up at him.
“What are you suggesting? Turn it into an Indian restaurant? A strip club?”

“
I think we should outsource the kitchen.”

“
Outsource the kitchen? What does that even mean?” She was momentarily distracted when he slipped on his black-framed glasses. She pulled her eyes away from his as he slid a piece of paper to her.

It was a print out from the website of a local seafood shack.
“My dad used to take me here for fried clams and hot dogs. The food was terrible. I always assumed it stayed open because of the location on the shore. What does this have to do with the bar?”

He took off his glasses and peered down at her.
“Maria, the previous owner’s sister, took it over three years ago. Since then, their chowder has been voted Best of Rhode Island each year, their fried clams for the last two, and their lobster roll last year.”

“
I guess it’s been a long time.”

“
I’ll take you there sometime this week. Maria wants to expand her menu but there’s no way to do that in the tiny kitchen. Without a dining room and being on the shore, she’s limited by the weather. She wants to be open year round and has looked into expanding but the town won’t give them the necessary permits. Moving them into Ray’s kitchen would be a boon to business.” He squeezed her hand. “I go there a lot in the summer, Sam. I’m friends with the Coelho family. Maria’s son, Jake, has become one of my closest friends. I haven’t gone to them with any definite plans. It’s just a possibility at this point, something to think about.”

“
I’m confused. Why not just hire Maria as our cook?”

He shook his head.
“She’s not going to leave her family’s business. It would be like two businesses sharing the same space. More like The Seafood Shack brought to you by Ray’s. We could rent out the kitchen and our service to them. It would take time for the staff to get used to filling out two tickets, one for drinks and one for food, but it can be done.”

His enthusiasm was contagious. She could almost see it.
“That’s perfect. The food was always an afterthought for my father. I can’t imagine that would get anyone’s nose out of joint. I’d really like to try her food first, but I think you might be on to something.” She stretched, letting some of the tension go. A little of the weight that had settled on her shoulders along with ownership of the bar lightened.

“
There’s more, Sam. Maria isn’t going to partner with us with the condition of the bar as it is.”

“
The kitchen?”

“
The kitchen, the dining room, the tables, chairs, serving ware, parking lot. All of it. There’s more to it than just opening the doors and telling them to have at it. We’ll need to make upgrades to almost everything.”

“
Everything? Why not just hire an actual chef and create a new menu?”

“
We might search for months or longer to find someone as talented as Maria. Her food brings with it a dedicated customer base and credibility we’d have to work up to.”

She grabbed his pen and clicked it a few times before looking back up at him.
“It’s going to be hard. If we change everything you mentioned, how will it even be the same place? Will we have to change the name, too?”

“
It’s not going to be easy, but I think we can modernize Ray’s without losing the essence of what your father started thirty-five years ago.”

She pushed through the papers on the table until she found the one from the middle of the night.
“How are we going to afford any changes when this is our financial situation?” She didn’t like the way his eyes avoided hers. He had money, lots of it, to see the bar through the changes. “No. I’m not going to let you do that.”

“
Do what? Save my business?”

“
No. Save mine. You can’t throw your money around to make this happen. It’s not right.”

“
That makes no sense. We have to put money into the business if we’re going to improve our situation.”

“
Then I’ll go to the bank to get a loan for my half.”

“
You can’t.”

She needed to move. A little hard thinking and maybe she
’d figure this out without using Lee’s money. “Why can’t I?”

“
Well, you can but you’re not going to be successful. Banks are all about making good bets and, as of right now, Ray’s is not a good bet.”

“
What are you suggesting I do?”

“
Stop pacing and listen to me. I’m not talking about a major renovation. Here.” He pulled out another piece of paper, this one a small pencil drawing. “This is what I came up with on my own. Maria and her family might have more requests and you might have things you want to do. This is just a basic run down. Painting, removing some of the outdated artwork, outdoor signage, these are things you can’t argue with. They need to be changed.”

“
You drew this?”

He gave a short shrug.
“It’s not perfect but you get the idea.”

She did. She could see the coastal theme carried out in a classy, upscale way that brought in the bar
’s New England roots. They could do this. Not chintzy or tacky but simple and tasteful. It was exactly the type of place she could see herself owning, and she had an idea about how to get the money to make it all happen.

****

The house was smaller than she remembered. Lee’s Jeep idled at the curb for a few minutes as she looked over every detail. Forty minutes was all she had to revisit the house she grew up in before she had to be back at the bar. It was just long enough. One push of her thumb and the Jeep shut off. She felt every step as she made her way across the uneven concrete path.