Page 54 of Waitress at the Shadow Ridge Inn
“Yeah, nice.”
He growled and rolled us so that he was on top, then grinned wickedly down at me. “Let’s see howniceyou think this is …”
What he did … well, it wasn’tnice. It was fantastic.
20
The inn was already hoppingwhen I arrived for my shift. From the moment I walked through the door and tied my apron around my waist, it was all hands on deck. Max and Lou were rock stars in the kitchen. Shannon and I had our hands full with the dining room and lounge. John was helping CJ behind the bar, and Michelle had been relegated to dish duty.
Even with the slick, new dishwasher, plates had to be scraped and rinsed before they could be loaded. We were putting the thing through its paces tonight. Within seconds of finishing, it was emptied, reloaded, and running again.
Jessie ended up going home earlyagain, and Rose was close to popping a blood vessel.
“I don’t know how we’re going to do this without you,” Shannon said as we passed each other, me with a loaded bus tray going into the kitchen and her with a tray of dinners coming out.
“No luck on the hiring front?” I asked, knowing full well there wasn’t.
The work was hard, the hours were long, and the base pay was shit. Don’t get me wrong; the locals were good tippers, and I did enjoy the job, but it wasn’t something I would have considered had I not been running low on cash and looking to work under the table.
Rose claimed she couldn’t afford to up the wage or hire enough people to distribute the load fairly, which I found hard to believe, given the success of the inn. Then again, as a CPA, I’d seen plenty of successful businesses go under due to poor management and bad financial decisions, and while I liked Rose and John, I thought they were more suited to the social aspects of owning the place than the business ones. In my former life, I might’ve been able to help with that.
It was much,much later when I reset the last of the tables in the dining room and sank down onto a chair. Technically, my shift had ended more than two hours earlier, yet here I was. I couldn’t, in good conscience, leave when there was still so much to do, especially when I was planning on leaving in a week.
Five minutes. I just needed five minutes off my feet before I made another pass through the lounge and called it a night.
Shannon sank down beside me, looking every bit as tired as I felt. Here I was, complaining, and she’d put in a full day as a pregnant mom with three kids before her waitressing shift even started. At least when I left here, I had no one to think about besides myself.
“Hell of a night, huh?” she commented.
“You can say that again.”
“Phenomenal tips though.”
Another wave of shame rose up within me. Shannon needed her tips to put presents under the tree. I used mine for gas and snack money, which was why I felt no qualms in occasionally padding her pockets with extra bills when she wasn’t looking.
I closed my eyes and stretched my head from side to side. The tendons between my neck and shoulders were tight from hefting trays and bus bins for the last ten hours.
“Did Rose talk to you?”
“About changing my mind? Yes. Repeatedly.”
“She doesn’t want to lose you, Case. None of us do.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. It’s always been a temporary thing. I’ve been up front about that.”
“I know. Still sucks. But that’s not why Rose was looking for you. Someone was in earlier today, asking about you.”
“Oh? Who?”
“I don’t know. Some guy. Rose said he wasn’t a local.”
The tiny hairs on the back of my neck lifted, and my skin prickled. We got lots of out-of-towners on the weekends, and many of them were repeats. Sometimes, people wanted to say hello, particularly sweet, older customers. They felt compelled to sing my praises to Rose for something as simple as ensuring their coffee was fresh and piping hot or giving them extra breadsticks when I saw them slip a few into their quilted Vera Bradley bags. I hoped that was the case here.
“What did he look like?” I asked, silently praying Shannon would describe a senior citizen, knowing she wouldn’t. My guardian angel was awake and alert and sounding the alarm.
“Fortyish, dark hair, dark eyes. Polished. Handsome in an intense kind of way, according to Rose. Sound like anyone you know?”
“Not really.” Inside my chest, my heart was pounding, and all traces of exhaustion had vanished.
