Marrying a Beast

Part 2

Levi

I hate coming to town. Those are the first thoughts in my mind as I sit at a table in the back of Duncan's bar, staring at the papers in front of me. The noise, the people, the inadequateness of the whole place drives me slowly and irrevocably insane. I'd rather be home alone at the manor, listening to the quiet ticking of the grandfather clock in the living room.

Ironically, I wasn't always this antisocial. One could never say I was very outgoing but being in town didn't use to bother me this much. All that changed after my parents died seven years ago, leaving me in control of their assets. And those assets basically encompassed the whole of Rogersville in some fashion or other. Kill joy; I'm everybody's boss.

I had chosen to stop in Duncan's for dinner after a grueling day of meetings, knowing he'd let me sit in the back corner, and I'd mostly be left alone. At least the food was typically decent, and I was too hungry to drive forty-five minutes back home to eat. I had barely been seated a minute when a young woman came rushing in through the door and headed straight for the waitress section behind the bar.

I thought she had sense when she left here years ago, I thought as I recognized her. Guess I was wrong since she's back. I remembered Makenna Garland from school, even though she was only a freshman when I had been a senior. She had been a cheerleader, and a very popular girl at school, despite her somewhat checkered past.

The joys of living in a small town-everybody knows your skeletons. Makenna had also struck me as one of the few people in Rogersville who understood the value of education and open-mindedness, even back then. My parents had dragged me to every football game, even after I had graduated, so I had watched her perform her little cheers every week. She had never seemed to truly fit in with the cheer squad, no matter how plastered on her smile had been.

My introspection was brought to an abrupt end when Makenna started walking toward my table, notepad and pen in hand. Her auburn hair was swept away from her face, making her blue eyes look larger than normal. I could tell the moment she realized who I was; it was like her entire face shifted from exhausted to curious.

"Hi, welcome to Duncan's. I'm Makenna and I'll be taking care of you tonight," she said, a warm smile on her face. "You're Levi, right? We went to school together a long time ago, but I doubt you'd remember me. You drive that Camero I saw out front, don't you? I remember it from school and thinking it was an incredible car." Her face flushed, and she seemed downright embarrassed to be rambling about something like high school or my classic car.

"Right," I answered gruffly, matching my tone to my appearance-dark. "I want water and the grilled steak, medium well, with the house salad and rolls, not that cardboard being passed as cornbread."

She looked at me blankly for a moment, but soon scribbled my order on her pad. She tried to offer me a weak smile again, but soon gave up and walked away. As Makenna left, I caught a glimpse of myself in mirror on the wall. My jaw was clenched, my lips pursed, and my dark brown eyes were hard as granite. I ran a hand along my whiskered cheek to the back of my neck, feeling the start of a headache behind my eyes.

What I wouldn't give to sell everything in this town, and move back to England like my grandfather, I thought in vain. My grandfather, who I greatly resembled with his dark brown hair and tan complexion, had come here during the war, married my grandmother, basically helped Rogersville become the town it is today, and then returned to his country of birth before I was born.

I had visited England often, sometimes staying entire summers, reading thick volumes under the shade of the trees in his orchard. His estate in the English countryside was my retreat, and I often foolishly pined to live there until I died. Unfortunately for me, the only way I'd be able to escape Rogersville, would be to find a third party to buy everything from me, and people like that were hard to find.