It's been years since June Bell shared a stolen moment with her girlhood crush, Kase McCasker. It's been just as long since Kase's father nixed the sale of the McCasker farm to expand the grounds of the Bell's grand hotel. Now that Kase is back home...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I left Kase and his ridiculous offer in the dust last night. Literally.
I sped away from his house with shaking hands and a racing heart, in utter disbelief that I still matter at all to him—and more, that he would offer up his family's land to have more of me.
He was the last thought before I drifted off to sleep and the first when I woke at dawn. Without a doubt, the night was filled more with tortured thoughts of Kase than restful sleep. I tossed and turned for an hour, but in the end, all I could do was get up and throw myself into another busy day and try to put him out of my mind.
The valley shimmers under a perfect cloudless day as I set up my station on the veranda. Guests are already scattered across the lawn and milling around the hotel sitting areas. Couples, families, and staff make every day a nonstop event. Today, I'm grateful for the distractions more than ever. If I spend one more minute mentally replaying Kase's indecent touches, I'm going to lose my damn mind.
I spot a young couple in my section eyeing the menu and walk over to them. "Can I get you two anything?"
The woman smiles. "Can I have a glass of chardonnay?"
"A Tuckerman's for me," her male counterpart says as he sits back and drapes an arm around her shoulder.
The princess-cut diamond on her left hand winks in the sunlight. Judging from their apparent bliss, I'd be willing to bet they're newlyweds. Maybe even honeymooners. An unexpected pang of resentment hits me, but I force a smile.
"No problem. I'll be right back with those."
I spin and head inside to Eve's. Our bartender, Julie, is posted behind the little bar that services the veranda waitstaff and guests inside the hotel.
She waves as I approach. "Hey, girl."
"Hey," I say. "Chardonnay and a Tuckerman's, please."
She cocks her head, and her blond braid whips over her shoulder. "How about, 'Hey, how are you doing, Julie?' And then I'll say, 'Wiped out. I had to close down Mackie's last night.'"
I smile weakly. "Sorry. I'm a little out of it this morning."
"Tell me about it. You seem a million miles away."
"I didn't sleep great," I say. It's not a lie, but I have no interest in elaborating on how Kase McCasker has hijacked my brain and most of my body over the last twenty-four hours. "How are you doing?"
She reaches for a wine glass on the rack above the bar. "Wiped out. I had to close down Mackie's last night."
I laugh. "That sucks. Was it packed?"
"Wall to wall. The tourists are driving people to drink. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them. I'm working double shifts all week."
Unless helping my father run the hotel counts, I'm one of the few people in Falls Edge who works only one job. Julie is like most, serving drinks to the hotel guests by day and getting the locals drunk at the town's hole-in-the-wall bar by night. I don't envy her, but we all do what we must to get by in this little town. And Fourth-of-July-weekend tips get most of us by.
