When The Dust Settles by Mary Calmes EPUB & PDF – eBook Details
- Author: Mary Calmes
- Language: English
- Formats: PDF / EPUB
- Status: Available For Free Download
- Series: None
- Price: Free
- File Size: 1 MB
It had been a regular Tuesday night until everything went to hell.
“There, boss, take a left.”
I took the turn as directed, and the five people in the pickup truck
with me—two in the front, three in the back—yelled at the same time that it
was the house on the right.
There were a lot of lights on, and clothes and stuffed animals were strewn
all across the front lawn.
Crap.
I got out and heard the passenger-side door open, along with movement in
the back of the pickup.
“No,” I barked, whirling to stare into the interior, then took a step back so
I could see the truck bed as well before I slammed my door shut.
Five pairs of eyes, all between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two, were
pinned to me. A quarter of my staff at the restaurant had insisted they were
going with me, cajoled, and finally flat-out refused to get out of my truck
when I left to go pick up Josie Barnes. None of us should have left during the
nightly dinner rush. But the remaining staff could handle it, even if it got
stupid busy, and I appreciated them staying there and taking care of the place
that had become home for all of us, not just me.
“Everybody stays in the truck,” I ordered from where I stood in the street.
“I don’t want any of y’all gettin’ hurt.”
“But, boss, her dad and her brother are in there. We gotta go in with ya,”
Andy Tribble, one of my busboys, pleaded. “You didn’t bring no backup.”
“Kevin’ll be here in a second,” I told them. “He’s right behind us. He’ll
go in with me.”
“Yeah, but—” Shawnee Clark began to argue.
“No!” I yelled and then included them all with a wave of my hand. “Any
of y’all that gets outta this truck is fired, ya hear?”
“But I was the one who answered the phone when she called,” Danny
LaRue chimed in. “I should go in since I told her I was coming.”
I sent up a quick prayer for strength. “What were her exact words,
Danny?”
Silence.
“Time’s a wastin’.”
He coughed. “She said since you were still fishing, that—”
“Since I was still fishing,” I repeated. “Meaning that if I were there, I’d
be the one she wanted, right?”
Nothing.
“D?”
He huffed out a breath. “Yeah.”
“Well, then.”
When he looked at me, his face was scrunched up. “You shouldn’t go in
alone.”
Everyone nodded in support of his statement.
I knew why. I did. They needed me. I was the boss. The Bronc was my
place, our restaurant. I’d pulled it out of thin air into existence, and they’d all
taken refuge there with me in one form or another. I was the glue. Without
me, if anything happened to me, they would all be adrift, and while for a few
that would be a brand-new experience—some were too young to have lived
totally alone yet—for others it meant being without an anchor all over again.
So I understood that the fear was first for me, second for them, real and
tangible and in no way self-serving. None of them wanted me in danger.
“Just nobody fuckin’ move,” I growled, giving them my final words on
the subject.
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