Page 76 of Waitress at the Shadow Ridge Inn
The place was quiet—the calm before the storm of senior citizens that would be descending soon. I felt a small pang of regret that I wouldn’t be the one serving them. Most of them were a hoot.
Max and Michelle weren’t around, but I hadn’t expected them to be. It was a weekday, and they were both in school. Shannon was in the dining room with a woman I’d never seen before, and she was showing her how to do a proper place setting.
Shannon’s eyes widened when she saw me. “Casey!”
She dropped the silverware with a clang and came over as if to hug me, then stopped short. I wasn’t a hugger—but today, I’d make an exception.
“It’s okay, Shannon.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. It wasn’t horrible.
“I heard what happened. God, you must have been terrified. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“That’s all anyone’s talking about, you know. Shadow Ridge hasn’t seen this much excitement in a long time.”
The woman beside her shifted, her gaze hooded but curious.
“Oh, this is Brianna, by the way,” Shannon said, turning to the other woman. “She’s our new waitress. Today’s her first day.”
For as much as I’d been bugging Rose to hire someone, this was a bittersweet moment for me. Being replaced came with a twinge of melancholy even if it was what I’d wanted.
I looked around at the tables that had been moved to accommodate the seniors, the buffet tables, the stacks of extra linen napkins, the rolling carts with plates, glasses, and silverware, waiting for the guests, and remembered my first day at the inn.
“Trial by fire, huh? That’s how I started too.”
“Brianna,” Shannon said, “this is the Casey you’ve been hearing so much about.”
By the way her eyes widened, Brianna must have gotten an earful.
“Nice to meet you,” she replied.
I turned back to Shannon. “Is Rose still in the bar?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?”
I laughed at that. Having taken quite a few walks in the woods around the cottage, I could say definitively that they did. “Thanks. I’ll see you around, okay?”
“That means you’re planning on coming back, right?” she called out as I was walking away.
I didn’t answer. While I was planning on coming back to Shadow Ridge, I had no intention of waitressing again. But if the last few days had taught me anything, it was that I wasn’t particularly good at predicting what was going to happen. Maybe I should have asked Jessie while I was at her place.
I found Rose in the lounge at the table closest to the bar. Papers covered the surface, her ever-present glass of bourbon within reach. She was scribbling with a pencil, muttering, erasing, and then writing again.
“Bad time?” I asked.
Rose looked up, then shot to her feet and gave me a fervent hug—another first. “Casey, I’m so glad to see you! Deputy Dan was in earlier and filled us in. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said for what felt like the hundredth time that day.
She stepped away and pinned me with a disapproving glance. “I’m not happy with you, you know. You should have told us you were in trouble.”
“I didn’t think I was,” I said honestly, which was mostly true—at least until very recently. “I never meant to bring any of that to Shadow Ridge.”
