Emma Chase (6 page)

I thought about Braden every day over the months we were apart.  He was the first thing on my mind when I woke up in the morning and he was the last thing on my mind when I went to sleep at night.  I spent many sleepless nights crying.  It was pure hell.

A week before the rape, I went to see him at his family’s bar.  I knew he would be there because he helped his father manage Holt's and he worked as a bartender.  The man sure knew his way around a bar. 

He
didn’t want to speak to me, much less see me.  Olivia was fit to be tied that I’d even considered walking into their bar. 

I knew then why I went to him.  He would help me if he only knew what I was facing.  If I could just get to him and explain what was going on.  He would understand. 

He didn’t. 

That night, Braden
wanted nothing to do with me.  Sent me right back out the door.  He couldn’t forgive me.  I could see that boldly conveyed through his eyes.  I also saw the longing that had slipped through when he wasn’t strong enough to keep it hidden for one brief moment when I turned back to him one last time before walking out the door.

A week later, I went back to him seeking the same thing I
’d come to him for in the first place.

I finish freshening up and g
ive myself a once-over, straightening my tank top and checking for anything that may be exposed that shouldn’t be. 

Deep breath in—out. 

I find him in the kitchen.

Braden
is sitting on a stool at the breakfast bar while Holly makes the coffee. 

“Good morning
, traitor,” I greet her with an ‘eat shit and die’ look.

Holly peeks over her shoulder at me and smirks. 

She’ll pay.

“Good
morning, sunshine.  Sleep well?”

Now that I think about it, last night was the first time that I got a good night’s sleep in ages.

“Whatever,” I reply.

A low laugh rose from Braden's chest. 

My face crinkles. “What?” I shoot at him.

His smile
gets bigger.  Damn him.

“I have things to do, so if you don’t mind—“

His smile gets even wider.

I’m glad that he finds some amusement in this.  Douche.

Braden slides off the barstool and walks towards me.  He is now invading my space.  Him and his stupid smile.

My shoulders tense.

“I guess I gotta get home,” he says with a chuckle.

I
can feel the panic release, and I am relieved. 

I nod.

He takes my hand and has me escort him to the door.  Apparently, I don’t have a choice in the matter.

He stops at the door and faces me, my hand still in his, our bodies so close I can feel his heat radiating. 

“I’ll be back tonight to pick you up around six o’clock.  I’m taking you to dinner.”

He peers around me and into the kitchen at Holly. He gives his manly roar of a laugh.  That sound always makes me smile.  I realize that I am smiling and shake it off.

I follow his gaze over my shoulder at her and see that she is doing some silly dancing jig. We are no longer friends.

Then she sa
ys, “That sounds like a great idea.  You two go and catch up."

My mouth gape
s open.  I look up at the ceiling, saying a silent prayer to be struck down right where I stand.  What is she doing?

Braden
brings his hands up to both sides of my jaw and rubs his thumb along my jawline.

I search desperately in my head for an excuse.

My stupid mind can’t come up with anything.  Gaaahh!!

He
takes one thumb from my jaw and softly runs it across my bottom lip.

Oh…my…God!

It comes to me.

“I have plans tonight.”

He crooks an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”

I shrug
. “Yeah.”

“What kind of plans?”

Nosy.

“I'm updating my resume.  I need to get back to work.  Life must go on
, as they say.”

“Tomorrow.”

“I have plans tomorrow too,” I reply.

He smirks. “And what plans would that be?”   

The bastard smirked at me.  He isn’t giving up easily.

“Hopefully an interview?” I shrug again.

Braden let
s out a low, deep laugh. “Okay, I will bring you lunch tomorrow.  China King chicken lo mein and egg rolls.  I won’t take no for an answer.”

Shit.

“See you tomorrow.  Noonish.”

He
squeezes my hand and gives me another one of his sweet kisses on the cheek before he walks out of the door.

Double shit.

Chapter Five

Sure enough, there is a knock.  The clock reads 11:57.  I guess that constitutes noonish.

I open the door and he
holds out two bags from China King.

“Come on in.  You can put it down on the bar.  I’ll get the plates.”

I am rummaging through the cabinets for plates and bowls and glasses, so I don’t hear him coming up behind me until it’s too late.  He snakes his arm around my middle and I jump. 

“Plates?  One does not need a plate when their food c
omes in a convenient little box,” he says into my hair as my back hits his front.

My body goes stiff straight.  “Braden—“

His arm gives me a tight squeeze before he releases me, walking around the bar to the food.

He reaches in the bag and hands me a set of chopsticks.
  He extends his hand out to me, grabbing mine and tugging me around the bar to the stools.  I look down at our hands, back to his eyes, then back to our hands.  His hand drops mine and goes around my waist, pulling me close.

I put my hands to his chest, pushing back, opening my mouth to tell him to release me but he speaks first.

“Let’s eat,” he orders, letting me go with one hand. The other comes up to my jaw and travels up to my face, his thumb lightly rubbing circles on the apple of my cheek before it drops.  I am certain that I am flashing my ‘deer in headlights’ expression.

Braden
turns to the counter, taking his cashew chicken, and I go for the lo mein.

He sits on the barstool and I remain standing, holding myself against the bar on the opposite end.

“Sit, Em.  I won’t bite.”

He smiles and lets out a little chuckle right before popping a piece of
cashew chicken in his mouth.

I walk over, pull a stool out, and sit next to him.

“So you’re trying to find a new job?”

I shrug and shovel some lo mein in my mouth. “Yep.”  I figure short answers would suffice.

“But you always loved
your job.  What brought this on?”

I shoot my eyes up to his
, a little stunned that he would ask me this.

“Well, you see
, rape will make you reevaluate your life and your choices,” I clip at him.

He look
s down at his food and pulls his eyebrows together. “Fair enough.”

Damn it.  Why do I do this to him every time I see him?  There was no reason for me to be a bitch to him and certainly no reason to make that stupid comment.

“Braden,” I sigh.  “I’m sorry.  You didn’t deserve that.”

He gives me a sad smile, and what comes out of his mouth next surprises me.

“I have arranged for you to interview at Holt's tonight at 6:30.  Dad is excited to see your
résumé
.  Though, from the expression on his face when I told him you were making a career move told me pretty much what I already assumed.  He’d hire you in a second.”
I am pretty sure that my jaw has hit the floor and appear absolutely ridiculous because Braden starts laughing at me.

“What
?" I shake my head. "I can’t work there.”

“Why not?  Our bar not good enough for you?” he smiles
, clearly amused.

“I love that bar,” I whisper.

What the hell is going on?  We’re sitting here eating Chinese food and discussing career moves? 

“Wait, what’
s the job?” I ask.  Maybe it’s just a few shifts bartending, which, chances are, I will totally accept.  I have a little bit of savings left but it won’t keep me going forever and I need the income.

“You are interviewing for the manager position.”

“Manager position?” I ask, still stunned that we’re even having this conversation when just a few months ago we weren’t speaking at all. 

“Manager
position,” Braden confirms with another toss of cashew chicken and an eyebrow lift.

“Why?"

“Because Pop is getting older.  He keeps saying he wants to enjoy things like retirement, spending days out on the boat, and vacations to Florida.”

“So he wants to consider me as his replacement?  He really trusts me to be able to keep the bar afloat?”

“He trusts that you will not only keep it afloat, but that you will take it to the next level.  You have plenty of experience in management and you'll bring fresh, new ideas to the table.”

“Wow!” I breath
e.

“Your interview is at 6:30,” he confirms again.

“How will Olivia handle this?” 

“Olivia already knows.  It was actually her idea that you take over for Pop.”

No freakin’ way!

We finish the rest of our lunch in silence.  I
have to process all of this.  A job at Holt's is not something I expected.  I am lost in my thoughts, which happens a lot these days, so I jump when he starts laughing. 

“What’s so funny?” I ask.

“You.  I can see the wheels turning.  You got lost in that pretty little head of yours,” Braden says, chuckling through his words.

I look down at my plate, my brows draw together.  “I’m just trying to process all of this
.  My life has been shit the past few months."

“Baby.”

I slice my eyes back to his.  He is grinning back at me.

“Go talk to Pop.  This will be good for you and
for him.”

I decide in that moment that I need some water.  I drop my chopsticks, take a sip of my water
and drain the glass.

I am being an idiot.  Why do I always make things harder than they have to be?  A great gig is being offered to me.  “All right,” I agree.  “Let Jim know that I’ll be there at 6:30 sharp.”

“Hmmm."

"
’Hmmm’ what?"

Braden shrug
s a shoulder.  "Nothing.  Just thinking how easy that was."

I snatch a piece of cashew chicken off his plate, chew, swallow, and smile an all-too-bright kind of smile. 

He shakes his head, chuckling, and mutters, “Smartass.”

Braden leans over and kisses me on the forehead before standing up and chucking one last piece of chicken into his mouth.  He rounds the bar with his trash, throwing it away.

“
I’ll be back tomorrow around noonish with lunch.  Let me know how your interview. Goes.”

I give him another nod and he
is gone.

*****

Holt's is one of two bars in Polk County.  It is certainly the busiest one seeing as it is the only one in Tryon.  Tryon is a small town, and when I say small, I mean it’s pretty small.  It has one long main strip, which starts with an art gallery and ends with a coffee shop called The Ugly Mug.  There is a bank off to itself on the opposite side of the street and a post office nearing the end.  There are residential areas that lead off the main strip with apartments and small single-family homes.  It is small, quiet, and heavily populated with a mix of homegrown and Yankees.  Yankees, or anyone who is from destinations pointing north of the Carolinas, love to settle here in our town.  Many of them buy businesses, build houses, and impose their "Yankee" values.  They’ve built up the surrounding counties, adding Walmarts, Starbucks locations, and strip malls.  I am glad that the folks of Tryon are fighting the sprawl every step of the way. 

I like it just the way it is. 

It is all surrounded by foothills, which are nestled into the Blue Ridge Mountains that are filled with tall trees.  Some of the hills are covered in kudzu.

Our town is ordinary yet charming, and if you weren’t paying attention as you drove through, you’d miss it.

Holt's is about half a mile off the main strip.

I park at the front of the building and
see several cars and pickup trucks.  You see a lot of pickup trucks in these parts, considering there are a lot of good ole boys.  It is just after six in the evening. Happy hour is definitely in full swing.

I walk through the door and head to the bar.  There are wood floors except for green carpeting where the ten pool tables are, a long U-shaped bar at the end surrounded by barstools, several flat screen TVs lined up over the bar playing different sporting events, tables and chairs scattered though out, a cluster of eight high-tops with barstools, and eight dartboards lining the wall where the high-tops stand.

It is fair to say that it is a busy evening.

There is a handsome guy manning the bar at one end, and Jim is at the other, chatting it up with a group of men who are planted in their stools and drinking beers.

All eyes come to me while I approach.

“Emma!” Jim calls with a big smile on his kind face.

Jim Holt is in his late fifties, but you’d never know it if you didn’t know him.  You would think that he is maybe in his late forties if you didn't know him because he took such good care of himself.  That and good genes.  He has dark hair sprinkled with gray, his dark eyes are always smiling, and for an older gentleman, he is still in pretty good shape.  He is tall like his sons, about six four or five.

“Hi, Jim,” I call back and am greeted by the men sitting at the bar in front of him.

I slide on the stool next to one of the men, putting my wristlet on the bar.

“Glad you came in, sweetheart,” Jim says, and we smile at each other.

“I am too,” I reply.  My eyes move to the gentlemen next to me.  “How you boys doing tonight?”

“Got no complaints, darlin’,” one answers. 

“Especially now that you’re here, babe,” another chimes in.

“Behave,” Jim tells them, raising an eyebrow and folding his arms over his broad chest.

“Yeah, yeah,” one grumbles.

Jim grin
s at me. “So, the good news is, the job's yours if you want it.”

“We haven’t exactly had an interview yet,” I point out.

“Don’t need one, sweetheart.  I know all about your management skills, and I have to say, I’ve been wanting to get you in here for a while.  Just never brought it up before.  Figured it was a conflict of interest,” he returns.

Hmmm—I guess he drives home a good point there.

“I am confident in your ability to run this place.  I’ve heard from your former employer that you really raised the bar, so to speak.”

I
don’t know how to take this.

“Emma
, I play golf with Charlie and he informed me a couple of weeks ago that his best General Manager just quit on him.”

I look down at my hands on the bar.  Jim covers my hands with his and angles his head down to read my expression.

“I couldn’t go back.  Since the incident, my head hasn’t been right.  I couldn’t ask Charlie to hold my job for me any longer. “

He pats my hands and slowly moves his back across the bar.

“No need to explain.  If you accept my offer, you can start next Friday,” he says with a nod and grin.  “I’m getting to be an old man now.  I need to spend my last days on the golf course, maybe take some vacations and acquire a hobby, do a little reading.”

I smile at him.  I really d
o love this man.  I’ve always considered him family.  He once told me that he hadn’t seen his son this happy since before their mother’s death and since I was the one who put it there, I was part of the Holt crew.

“If you’re sure.”

He nods.

“I’ll be here next Friday.”

Jim slaps his hands on the bar and hollers, “Hot damn!” 

I giggle.  “How about you let me buy a round of beers for the boys here before I leave?”

“Appreciate that, darlin’,” one responds.

“The new boss lady is hot,” another pipes in.

“Hot?  Smokin’,” adds another.

“I’ll take care of these boys. What can I get for you?  You drinkin’ tonight?”

“No thanks, but if you’ve got sweet tea, I’ll take it.”

“If I’ve got sweet tea,” Jim huff
s.  “Who do you think you’re talkin’ to?”

He g
ets a glass, dunks it in ice, and goes to the other end of the bar where the coffee and tea station is set up.  He brings it back, tosses a lemon wedge in it, dunks a straw in, drops a bar napkin in front of me, and sets my sweet tea on it.  He takes three frosty beer mugs and hits the tap.

When we are all set up with our drinks, I lift my glass and toast, “Here’s to you fellas.”

I get several smiles, winks, and mugs pointed at me.

After I suck back my sweet tea, which by the way is the king of all sweet teas, I hop off my stool, bid farewell to the guys, grab my wristlet, and walk to the door when Olivia comes skipping over to me.

She is a bouncy girl.  She smiles a lot, laughs a lot, gives a lot of sass, which the customers love, and she changes her hair—a lot.  Today she’s highlighted her hair with blue.

This girl
stands out in a crowd.  She is the center of attention no matter where she goes.  Within minutes of walking into a party, she is surrounded and making every one laugh with one of her wild stories of a day in the life of Olivia.

She
is always so animated, and it doesn’t help that she is covered in tattoos and changes her hair color frequently.  She is a free spirit, and she doesn’t adhere to the rules of society.  It’s not like the girl is a law breaker—she just doesn’t see how the world could have so many limits.  Similar to her brother Braden, she tells it like it is.  She is seriously the female version of her brother in so many ways, minus the macho man, bossy alpha male mentality. 

Olivia
is all girl.

She
is easy to love.  In the months when we didn’t speak, I still loved and missed her.  I was pissed, but you don’t get over losing a friendship with this chick.  You don’t find too many females like her.

Since my release from the hospital, we’ve talked almost every day.  I accepted her apology and we put the pieces of our friendship back together over wine and chocolate about a week or so after I was released from the hospital.  She would visit me at the apartment, bearing gifts of chocolate and wine.   She texted me daily with one of her bar stories or Braden or Tristan stories. 

Her other brother Jake isn’t as cool in her eyes because he is without drama, which makes him boring to her, but he is her hero.  He is a fireman, and he is just as hot as the other brothers, only he has two dimples.  Two!  Sinfully sweet little dimples.

The Holt kids are all close in age—Braden is thirty-five, Tristan is thirty-two, Jake is twenty-nine, and Olivia is twenty-eight.  In fact, Olivia and Jake are only ten months apart.  I’m taking it that as soon as Mom was ready, she and Jim didn’t want to waste any time.

“Hey, girl!” she squeals as she barrels into me, hugging and bouncing. 

Like I said, she
is bouncy.

“
You and I are going to be seeing a lot of each other.  You let me know what you need and I got it, girl.  We’re going to be the sexiest bar in town.  With your brains and my hot ass, we’ll murder the competition,” she giggles.

I
can’t help smiling at this girl.  If she isn’t full of shit, she is hilarious.  She has a habit of “murdering” things. 

Every time we went out to eat
, she “murders” some fajitas, “murders” some steak, “murders” a bottle of wine. And I don’t even want to talk about the Great Pancake Murder that she and I committed once at two in the morning after a late night of drinking and dancing.  We were cleaning up pancakes for days.  Picking it out of our clothes, our hair, and I even found some in my purse the next day.  Pancake murders were brutal.

“Brains and beauty.  We’ll put them all out of business by Christmas.”

She drapes her arm around my shoulders.  “This is going to be sweet!”

I don’t know about sweet.  Nothing with Olivia
goes down sweet.  She does, however, keep things exciting.

We walk over to the bar
, where there is a big, strong, very handsome what has to be part-Latino man manning the fort.

She lean
s over and thumps her hand on the bar to get his attention.  “Yo, Juice!”

Juice? 

“Yeah, Livvie?  I gotta bar full of orders.  Whatcha need, baby doll?”

H
e flips bottles of liquor up and into the tin mixer. 

He slam
s a bottle down, wedges a glass in, and shakes it up in the air as he spins around to give us his full attention.

Holy
shit, he’s beautiful.  What is it with this place and beautiful people?

Juice is just over six foot, with dark brown hair styled in a very short Mohawk with olive-toned skin, a strong jaw, and high cheek bones.  His smile is what instantly attracts me to him,
with his bright pearly white teeth.  He doesn’t have dimples like the Holt boys, but he doesn't need them.  His is lean but built, not bulky.

Oh my.

“Meet your new manager.  She’s here to keep your ass in check.”

“Is she now?”
His smile gets bigger, showing even more teeth.

“Uunhuuu!  Don’t you even think about it.  She’s not your type, slut.”

“Oh come on, Livvie.  She’s hot,” Juice responds with a pout and another amazingly sexy smile. 

I cock an eyebrow at Olivia. “Livvie?”

She rolls her eyes and shifts her gaze to the ceiling.  “He’s called me Livvie since we slept together a couple of years ago.  I guess he feels that gave him a free pass.  No matter how often I threaten to castrate him and feed his balls to the neighborhood cats, he still calls me that God-awful name.”

I giggle, extending my hand to him.

“Nice to meet you—Juice, is it?”

He playfully looks me up and down, takes my hand, and kisses my knuckles. “Juice it is.”

“Any story behind that name, Juice?”

“Sure is
, sugar.  I could tell you, but then I’d have to sleep with you.”  He drops my hand and gives me a sly wink.

I shoot my eyebrows up at Olivia.  “Well, I guess since I'll be your boss that would be a conflict of interest.”  I jabbed my elbow into her side.  “I’m sure that if I get
Livvie
here all liquored up, she’ll give me alllll the dirty details.”

Juice’s head
falls back and he booms out a laugh.  “Don’t believe anything she says, sugar.  Unless she tells you I’m hung and can rock three orgasms out of you in the first five minutes”—he pauses—“because, well, that part is true.”

He winks at Olivia and heads down the bar to talk to a scantily clad blond girl who found a seat at the end of the bar
. She shoves her chest up in his direction. 

Male bartenders—easily motivated by a little tits and ass.  No matter how skanky it is.

Olivia and I both laugh and give each other one last hug before I leave.

I think I’m going to enjoy working here.