Page 42 of Waitress at the Shadow Ridge Inn
There was that warmth again, seeping into my chest.
“Not sure you’ll feel that way after I tell you,” I muttered.
“Only one way to find out.”
He was so calm, so relaxed. I hated that I was going to ruin that.
I took a deep breath.Rip off the Band-Aid, Casey.
“I have a stalker,” I blurted out. “I was drugged and abducted, but things went wrong, and I ended up in the hospital. Then, he went after the people I care about. So, I ran, and I’ve been running ever since.”
I wasn’t sure how’d he’d react to me vomiting the super condensed version of my real-life horror story like that. Anger? Disbelief? Definitely surprise. Instead, I received a furrowed brow in response to my big reveal.
A furrowed brow and a veryunsurprised, “I thought it was something like that.”
I gaped at him. “Seriously?”
“You show up out of the blue in Shadow Ridge, take a job under the table, pay everything in cash, hide up here in the Muellers’ cottage, and keep everyone at a distance. No one knows anything about you, except the tiny, vague crumbs you drop when you’re cornered. We’re a small town, Casey, but we’re not stupid. Rose had you pegged as a runner from the moment you walked into the inn.”
I didn’t know what to say. I sipped my coffee and tried to process the fact that I’d been fooling myself into thinking I was fooling them.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Steve continued, “you’re not the first person to come to Shadow Ridge and decide it’s a good place to disappear.”
I glanced up at him and studied his face. He was being completely serious. I thought of Rose and John. Of CJ. Of Big Lou and Jessie. None of them were natives. No wonder I fit in at the inn so well.
Talk about a light-bulb moment. I cleared my throat. “Wow.”
He offered me a small, encouraging smile. “You’re safe here, Casey. With us. With me.”
Tears began to build in my eyes, and I blinked rapidly.
“Hey now,” he said softly, moving closer and taking my hand in his. “That wasn’t supposed to make you cry.”
“I just …” I sniffed, once again failing to find the words.
“It’s okay,” he said soothingly and gently tugged me against him.
I went willingly, laying my head on his shoulder, soaking in the warmth of his body and the feel of his arms around me. I wasn’t usually so emotional. It was him. He laid waste to my defenses and wrapped me in this bubble of safety and acceptance. I had no resistance against that.
That was when I started talking, and once I got started, I couldn’t stop. I had so much bottled up inside me, and it needed to come out.
I told him about my parents dying in a car crash on the night of my high school graduation. About dragging myself to college a few months later because that was what they would’ve wanted me to do. About meeting Angie and how we’d gone from freshman year enemies to postgraduate coworkers and roomies.
“I felt like I was finally getting the hang of being an adult. I had a nice apartment and a decent job with crazy hours. I went out occasionally, mostly as Angie’s designated driver, but sometimes, a guy from the office would ask me to dinner or an event. I wasn’t much of a partier—probably because of what had happened to my parents—but Angie was.
“‘Coerced socialization by association,’ she used to say.
“I guess it was about six months after we were hired that the cards and flowers started coming. I didn’t think too much of it at first. It seemed harmless enough, and Angie thought the idea of a secret admirer was kind of romantic.”
I paused, conscious of what a naive fool I’d been.
“What happened?” he prodded gently.
“It stopped being romantic and edged into disturbing. My admirer started leaving notes in the cards, saying things like,I can’t stop thinking about you, and,You’re mine. They’d show up taped to the door of my apartment or tucked under my windshield wiper. He was letting me know that he knew where I lived, what kind of car I drove. I felt like someone was watching me wherever I went, and soon, I didn’t want to go anywhere.”
“Did you report it?”
I nodded. “Yes, multiple times. The police agreed that it was creepy, but said it wasn’t illegal and there wasn’t anything they could do. If I knew who it was, they could have a talk with him, but I had no idea who was behind it.
