Page 1 of The Golden Hour

1

“No one moves to the Oregon coast to make something of their life.”

“Mmm,” I hum noncommittally, not looking up as I continue wiping the bar top with smooth, circular strokes.

Old Freddy takes a noisy sip of his beer, then wipes his upper lip with his sleeve. I focus on a smudge, well aware that he’s just warming up. It’s the second Wednesday of the month, after all, which means Fred’s social security check came today. He’ll spend the next six hours slowly drinking his weight in beer, eating onion rings and bar nuts, and some well-meaning person will drive him home. Until next month.

Sure enough, after a muted belch, he continues, “If you’re born here, you leave, and if you come here, you’re either vacationing or running from something. Ain’t that right, Mol?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Molly’s eyes rolling upward and compress my lips to stifle a smile. She was born here fifty-some years ago, never left, and owns the town’s only bar, motel, and restaurant.

“Sure thing, Fred,” she chirps, barely glancing at him from her stool where she’s reviewing the books.

“What about you, girlie?” asks Fred, his rheumy eyes squinting at me. “Don’t think you’ve told me what brought you to Solstice Bay.”

Even though Fred is harmless, the space between my shoulder blades tightens.

“Mind your business,” Molly chirps, her sharp eyes piercing Fred from above her bifocals.

I throw her a grateful look, then clear my throat for the standard answer. “I’m here because I love it. There’s no story.”

His squint grows pronounced, stubby eyelashes almost swallowed by wrinkled lids. “Sure, it’s a pretty place for the rich to spend some money, but a young, single woman such as yourself? Nothin’ for ya here, I’m sorry to say.”

“Maybe life is about more than climbing some imaginary mountain of success,” I reply, more to hear myself say it than out of a need to convince anyone.

Isn’t that why I’m here? To find out what life is all about?

This is the time of day when Fred gets melancholy. Normally it doesn’t bother me, but I’m off-kilter from reading the day’s headlines on my phone before my shift.

I look questioningly at Molly. At her discreet nod, I grab Fred’s empty glass and draw him another pint, then slide it back over the bar. His grumbled thanks is lost in the sound of the front door opening and closing.

The raucous group of men veers away from the restaurant and toward us, the bar-side of the building, peeling off jackets and beanies as they walk. Regulars, they bring with them loud chatter and the fresh tang of the sea… and the not-so-fresh tang of fish. I’m still glad to see them, because they’re the heralds of the evening crowd. From here on out, I won’t have time to think about anything but work.

Sure enough, as soon as I’ve filled their drink orders, the front door opens again. More men enter, this time carrying the scent of the only other industry in town: lumber.

Pinned between a dense forest and a turbulent Pacific, Solstice Bay is a town of under five hundred people, most of them over forty. For eight months of the year, the weather is just shy of miserable. Cold. Rainy.

And the location?

The definition of remote, and the perfect place to hide for the rest of my life.

* * *

An hour before closing, the crowd finally thins. The only group left is the fishermen, celebrating a large haul of coho salmon. I know exactly nothing about different types of salmon, and my experience with fish is limited to ordering sushi. But the men don’t require me to understand, only to act excited for them and keep their pitchers full.

Back at the bar, I pause to stretch my aching back before starting the closing routine. Come spring and summer, I’ll have help, but the winter months are by necessity run lean and mean. It’s the only way for us to stay open long enough for the tourist season to breathe vitality back into an economy on life-support.

I’m loading up a bin with used glasses for the morning kitchen staff when the front door opens with a groan of damp wood and a blast of frigid air. The cold hits my bare neck and I shiver as I turn to see who’s come in, praying it’s an earlier customer who forgot something.

It’s not.

My initial flare of irritation—I was hoping to shut down a bit early—morphs to curiosity as the newcomer drags down the hood of his coat.

Men aren’t supposed to have mouths like that.

Not the most dignified thought, but impossible to avoid. This man doesn’t belong here. He’s too chiseled. Otherworldly. He belongs on the covers of magazines, not in a backwater bar in the middle of nowhere, Oregon.

He scans the dim barroom, bright blue eyes watchful and slightly haughty. Those remarkable eyes meet mine briefly, flit away, then snap back to my face. Now they reflect surprise.

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