Dirt: A Sexy Small Town Romance (Copperwood Book 1) (2 page)

Jack dropped the buckets and brushed the back of his hand across his creased forehead. “I have to head out early tonight. Nancy decided she wants to head to the city tonight instead of tomorrow morning. Mind locking up?”

Jack and Nancy made one trip a month down to the city to visit Nancy’s mom in the nursing home. It was only a three hour drive, but they liked to make it a mini vacation. Jack claimed that for each trip to the city, he didn’t have to make an excuse why they didn’t take any real vacation. Nancy claimed that the visit wasn’t the important part, it was just getting Jack away from his business. Besides, it wasn’t as though her mother recognized her anymore.

“Sure, want me to make the deposit too?”

“Naw, just lock it up in the safe.” Jack picked up the empty buckets. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Mya.”

“I know.”

“I just don’t want you going to the bank in the middle of the night.”

The nearby reservation recently expelled several residents who had tenuous claims to reservation benefits
and
were also known addicts. Unfortunately, they landed in the town and the town council couldn’t just kick them out. Copperwood didn’t have enough of a police force much less the jail space to house them, and there wasn’t a bus to give them a ticket to ride out of town. The town would eventually figure it out once May arrived, but that was a few months off yet.

“Kirstin is coming in late. She said she had an appointment.” Jack switched on the colored beer lights before walking back to his office. “I’ll let you know before I go.”

“I know.” Kirstin was the other bartender at Pick’s and one of my few female friends. I met her when she first moved into a town at the grocery store. At first, I thought she was going to be one of those mean girls. The ones I used to avoid when I was in high school. Thankfully, my first impression of her was wrong. And ever since my dad took a permanent hiatus from life, she was one of the few people I allowed into the house. If I was honest with myself, I’d have to admit she was my only female friend. Everyone else had a catalog of slights and hurts from high school I’d be hard pressed to forgive them for.

I watched Jack’s retreating back. I started working for him as soon as I turned twenty–one and in those six short years, he aged. His back was more stooped and his steps weren’t as solid — the soles of his shoes shuffled across the floor. I didn’t know exactly how old Jack and Nancy were, but Nancy’s mom was over eighty, so I figured he must be close to sixty.

Sadly, my own father looked and acted older than Jack and he was only in his fifties.

2

Shane

T
he rental car vibrated as only a rental car could. Driven hard by drivers who don’t care about the vehicle meant the cars had a very short life. My fingers tightened around the steering wheel and I stared at the closed door of the house where I parked my car in the driveway.

A small house, no larger than any other house on the block, meant no one would ask questions. Of course, the paint wasn’t peeling and the gutters appeared clean. Even the screens on the door and windows were clean. It was the only clue for an astute observer.

But most observers weren’t astute. They weren’t paid a lot of money to see the details and ferret out what those details might mean.

Closing my eyes, I pressed my head back against the headrest, ignoring for the moment the number of unclean heads that had previously done the same and the likely lack of thorough cleaning provided by the rental agency.

Put my hand on the keys. Turn the ignition off. Pull the keys out. Open the car door. Get out. Walk to the house. Unlock the door with the key the lawyer gave me earlier that day when I first got into town. When stated like that, it didn’t seem so difficult. A child could do it. But I couldn’t. The house might be clean, but it was filled with dirt. Dirt I dug up years ago. Dirt I continued to dig up because like a child with a healing scab, I couldn’t leave well enough alone.

I breathed in the artificial scent in the car from the rudimentary cleaning.

One step at a time. One step at a time and I would be able to walk away from everything. I would never have to come back here. Never have to be reminded of what I didn’t do.

One step and when I took the last step, I would reward myself with getting drunk at a bar and calling the one cab to drive me back to the motel, away from the source of all of my problems. But by that time, my only problem would be whether or not I had a hangover the next morning.

My hand found the keys on their own volition and the vibrations ceased. Two steps done. Only five more to go. Six if I included driving to a bar.

3

Mya

“P
ayday! You know what that means?” Kirstin, stepped behind the bar and immediately started helping customers.

I slipped behind her, carrying two drafts in each hand. “More work for no more tips?”

Kirstin made petite look giant. Not only was she short, but really, the only way to describe her was pixie–like. Except she was a pixie with a ‘don’t mess with me or I’ll break you’ attitude, which just attracted more men to her.

As far as I could tell, she hadn’t taken anyone, male or female, up on any offers. Kirstin moved into town less than a year ago and I never asked what brought her to Copperwood. I figured if she landed here, it had to be something not good and something she didn’t want to share.

“Another?” Mike waved an empty brown bottle at me.

I counted back the number of times he waved a bottle at me. This would be his fifth, but Mike was always good about getting rides home. Usually with Alene. I looked around the bar for her. I hadn’t remembered making any girly cocktails, so she wasn’t around, but maybe Kirstin took care of it.

Since Mike was sleeping with her, I expected her to be hanging around. Maybe Mike got smart and walked away from her. Then again, maybe I got lucky and the fumes from dying her hair finally killed her. Alene was the quintessential mean girl in high school and nothing had changed in the years since we graduated. I never understood why she hated me as much as she did. She dated my best friend and he never even looked at me twice when she was in the room. It wasn’t like I was ever any kind of competition to her.

Kirstin handed me a beer with a nod to Mike. I grabbed the bottle with a shake of my head and smirk. “Just ‘cause he waves at me doesn’t mean you can’t make the delivery.”

Kirstin shrugged her shoulders and moved down the bar to refill a pitcher of beer for a group sitting at a table.

I set the beer in front of Mike. Worst case scenario, I’d give him a ride home. It wouldn’t be the first time and I doubted it would be the last. We never hooked up, he was definitely more of a brother. We’d tried it once, but it was so awkward and uncomfortable neither one of us ever spoke about it again.

The night was relatively busy. It always was on payday. Men and women had cash in their pockets and it would burn a hole in their pockets if they didn’t spend it. The stack of boxes filled with the empties grew with each passing hour. Kirstin moved between the bar and tables when she wasn’t behind the bar, and I moved along the length of the bar. The system worked for us and we fell into naturally after working so many shifts together.

Jack had peeked around the corner of the back hallway and waved goodbye over an hour ago. Kirstin watched his retreat then immediately turned the volume up on the music. Jack wanted his customers to be able to talk and refused to admit they wanted to hear the music over the drone of mundane conversation.

I was almost sure he knew we turned it up when he wasn’t there, but he never actually said anything to us. As long as we kept it at a manageable level while he was around, we maintained a nice equilibrium.

The customers continued to order beers. And we still had another four hours before one o’clock and last call.

A quick inventory of the coolers told me we’d have to bring up a few more cases. For whatever reason bottles were better sellers than drafts, probably because what we had on tap wasn’t considered a decent beer by anyone’s standards. Jack promised me a spot if I ever got around to brewing a keg, but I put my home brewing hobby aside when my job financed most of our bills. I made another lap down the length of the bar, replacing empties with new bottles and collecting the tips left from the last round.

“Well, if it isn’t sweet little Mya Sidony.”

I knew that voice. I hadn’t heard it in almost ten years. I never expected to hear it again and now the body it belonged to was standing at my bar. Well, not
my
bar, but close enough. Any other night, I would have walked back into Jack’s office and told him I was going home. But Jack wasn’t here and I couldn’t just leave Kirstin alone to close up. Shit.

“Shane, shit. Never thought I’d see you back in this shithole of a town.” Mike spoke the words I wanted to.

I found a clean glass needing another run through the cleaning procedure. Soap. Sanitizer. Rinse. It needed several rounds with the cleaner.

“Yeah, well I sorta had to come back.”

“I heard. Sorry.” Mike didn’t sound very sorry. It was just a word he tacked on because society told him to do it. Shane’s dad wasn’t a bad guy, it was just that once Shane left we never saw much of him. He even stopped coming to neighborhood barbeques. And then the jobs dried up and the barbeques became less frequent.

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t like my mom would make the trip back to settle things.”

“How long are you here for?” Mike raised his hand up in the air. “Hey, Mya, how ‘bout a brew for our boy here?”

I couldn’t continue to ignore them. Hell, it wasn’t as if they both didn’t know I was listening to their conversation. I reached into the cooler and pulled out the first bottle my hand found. I popped the top and set it down on the bar in front of Shane. I couldn’t put it off talking with him any longer and looked up at the face of the man who disappointed me more than anyone else. Even my dad.

Shane hadn’t changed much over the years. No, that wasn’t really true. Shane Crawford had managed to grow even hotter. In high school he was always hot, but now he had the benefit of a few more years. Ten years. He was a few years older than me, two classes higher in school.

Shane wasn’t even thirty yet, but he had the air of a grown up. He might have left Copperwood a boy when he was one of the few who went off to college, but he sure as hell came back a man.

I wanted to run my fingers through his thick dark blonde hair and press my lips against his. I wanted his fingers to dig into my hips and pull me close against him. He might be wearing the clothing of a college boy, but he was still the boy who skirted trouble by staying one–step ahead of the adults in Copperwood. And always with a smile and a bit of laughter. He dragged me along behind him during his exploits and I tagged along willingly. If you hung around him long enough, eventually he’d let you in on one of his jokes, and it felt as if you had been invited to the biggest most exclusive party ever.

I shook my head, shaking the thoughts out of my brain and walked away. What the hell was wrong with me? Why was I thinking about making out with Shane Crawford? I hadn’t thought about him like that since he let me down in the most humiliatingly gentle way possible when we were in school.

I was his friend. I’d always be his friend. Shane Crawford would never see me as more than the pig–tailed girl with the grass stains on her knees. I’d forever be his dad’s friend’s daughter and forever off–limits.

“What? Not gonna stay and chat?” I hated Mike. He knew I had a crush on Shane. He also knew Shane had no interest in me. Hell, he’d been the one to comfort me when Shane first left. He knew, better than anyone else, how abandoned I felt. But then Mike lost his best friend too, he felt just as lost as I did when Shane left town.

I glanced over my shoulder. “Someone has to give you a reason to spend your money, Mike.”

The rest of the night alternated between creeping along at an unbearable pace and racing closer to closing time depending on the depth of customers waiting at the bar. As long as I had something to do, I didn’t have to think about Shane and my fantasies ceased invading my thoughts.

Of course, it didn’t help that I wanted Shane to invade more than my fantasies. I wanted him to completely occupy me. Even now, ten years later, my body still ached with what might have been and what I would never know.

But more than just time had passed since Shane drove out of Cottonwood. We changed beyond our ages. Shane Crawford and I were completely different people now. He left the town and only came back when the last link was gone. I stayed, permanently tethered to my link, who didn’t have a massive heart attack in his future because he had a daughter to keep him somewhat healthy.

“So, you leaving after the memorial service?”

“I’m leaving on Sunday.”

“You aren’t going to stay for the funeral?”

“He stopped being my dad when I left town. I hadn’t talked to him in years.”

“Yeah, but dude, he’s your dad.”

I glanced over at Shane from the pitchers I filled with the watered down brew for Kirstin to deliver. Mike wasn’t wrong. No matter what happened between Shane and his dad, he should stay for the funeral at least. But it wasn’t as if Shane cared about what I or anyone else expected from him. He never had before.

“I came back because someone had to claim the property in the house and even if most of it was his, some was Mimi and Poppi’s and I couldn’t leave their pictures and memories for the estate sale.” Shane lifted the bottle of beer to his lips and drank from it. When he set the bottle back on the bar, it was empty.

I reached into the cooler and replaced the beer. He didn’t ask. He didn’t need to. As a bartender I knew his tone well. It was the ‘I just need to get drunk tonight because drunk is the only way I can manage to make it to the morning’ tone. I had used that tone. Mike had used that tone when the mine laid him off. Hell, even Alene had used that tone, usually when she couldn’t find some cheap knock–off resembling the hottest fashion trend, but never quite reaching its lofty goal. Maybe somethings hadn’t changed.