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“Just let me know if you need something, hon.” With that, John moved off to attend to another customer.
There was a reason why Colleen came to this place every week instead of visiting different bars. Or simply staying home, which was really where she wanted to be. She came to The Fallen Angel because they knew her here. Nobody ever made her feel as though she had to “pay rent” by buying more than her single drink. And they left her alone, mostly.
Except for Jesse.
He wasn’t a bother. The opposite, as a matter of fact. He was...attentive wasn’t quite the word Colleen was thinking of, though he was. It was more than that. He was considerate. Accommodating. Solicitous. As with the onion rings, he seemed to know what she wanted before she’d thought of it. Unlike John, Jesse didn’t bother to ask her if she wanted her whiskey refreshed, though he filled her glass of seltzer once more without waiting to be told. The attention was just enough, and not too much.
At the end of the night, right before she pulled out her wallet to pay her check, he brought her a small dessert cup of chocolate mousse topped with a swirl of heavy whipped cream.
“On the house,” Jesse said before she could protest. “Eat it. Trust me, you’ll like it.”
It was the second time that night he’d made an assumption about what she’d like. It wasn’t a question of whether she would like it. It was that he seemed so sure of what she wanted that it became difficult for Colleen herself to be sure. She pushed the mousse away with her fingertips the way she’d earlier pushed the glass of whiskey.
“No, thanks.” She handed him a twenty. “Keep the change.”
Jesse caught up to her at the doorway. He came around the bar and tugged her by the sleeve. She yanked her arm free of his grip, which wasn’t tight or hurtful yet still forced her heart to thump-thump-thump and her throat to close.
“Sorry,” Jesse said. Colleen didn’t say a word. He let go of her immediately and took a step back. “I just wanted to say...I’m sorry. I thought you’d like the dessert. I mean, who doesn’t like chocolate? Unless...you’re not allergic are you? Shit. I’m sorry, Colleen. I didn’t think about that.”
She could’ve been out the door already, into the dark street and heading for home. She cast a wary glance around the bar, but it was getting late, and on a Thursday the crowd was thinner than it would be on the weekend. Nobody was paying attention to them. Even the businessman had long gone.
“I’m not allergic.”
“Oh. Okay.” He smiled, gaze holding hers. “You don’t like chocolate?”
“I like chocolate a lot. Who doesn’t?” Colleen drew in a small breath to keep her voice steady. “I just don’t like it when someone thinks he knows better than I do about what I want.”
It was the wrong thing to say, or maybe the right one, because at her words, Jesse’s gaze shuttered at once. His mouth thinned. He took another step back.
So did she.
Then she pushed through the door and out into the cold winter night.
* * *
“Don’t tell your mom. She’ll kill me for letting you eat that for breakfast.” Jesse pointed at the small cup of chocolate mousse he’d brought home from work last night. Hey, he’d paid for it. He wasn’t going to toss it in the trash just because his friendly gesture had been thrown back in his face, as if he’d been some kind of dick instead of a guy trying to be nice.
Laila rolled her eyes. “Duh.”
“Hey, kid, I thought we had an agreement. You don’t tell your mom when I let you stay up too late or eat crap for breakfast, and you don’t bring me any of that vegetarian business she tries to send over this way.” Jesse scrubbed at his face, bleary-eyed. The coffee couldn’t brew fast enough. Six-thirty in the morning was too damned early when he’d only gone to bed at four.
Laila kicked her feet against the rungs of her stool and licked chocolate from her spoon. “Mom says next year I can stay home by myself until it’s time for school.”
Jesse, who’d decided he couldn’t wait for the rest of the pot to fill and had begun to pour coffee into his mug, looked up. The coffeemaker hissed and spit on the hot plate until he put the carafe back. “What? Are you kidding?”
“I’ll be twelve, Dad.” The weight of tween scorn should’ve burned him worse, but Laila added such a sweet smile that Jesse was only a tiny bit stung.
“Twelve’s old enough to stay home alone?”
“Mom says if I prove to her I can get up on my own with the alarm and not need her to wake me up, sure. I got up on my own today,” Laila said proudly.
It would make his mornings a lot less groggy, that was for sure. But it would also mean a lot less time with his daughter. Jesse frowned. “So...she’s going to stop dropping you off on the way to work?”
“Dad,” Laila said, exasperated. “Pay attention! Yes, that’s what I mean!”
“But not until next year.”
“Yeah, when I’m in sixth grade.” Laila finished the last of the mousse and dumped the container in the garbage, then rinsed the spoon before putting it in the dishwasher. That was a trick her mother had taught her, that was for sure.
“Let’s worry about it when you’re in the sixth grade, then, okay?” Jesse yawned and finished pouring his coffee.
He added sugar and cream from the fridge, peering inside with an internal sigh. Empty. He needed to get to the store in the worst way, something he could easily do after dropping Laila at school, if he could stay awake long enough.
“Can I watch The Little Mermaid again?”
Jesse put the cream back in the fridge and yawned again until his jaw popped. Plopping his kid in front of cartoons was definitely a no-no according to her mother, who didn’t even have cable television or the internet at home. But it would buy him another hour of sleep and a shower before they had to leave for school.
“Dad?”
“Yeah. Sure. Go ahead.” Too much planning to do on less than three hours of sleep. He could mainline this coffee and it still wouldn’t wake him up enough.
He ended up snoozing on the couch while Laila watched the movie, waking only in time to get her out the door. No shower first, so he pulled a knit cap over the mess of his hair and headed out into the world looking like, as his kid said, a hobo.
The drive to school was both eternal and too short. It took forever because he was tired and wanted to get back home so he could slide back into bed and get a few hours’ sleep before he had to get up again. But it was not long enough, because it was time with his daughter, who filled it with stories about school and her friends and her thoughts on life. Always entertaining, usually surprising.
“And that,” she told him as she opened the car door, “is why me and her aren’t friends anymore.”
“She and I,” Jesse corrected automatically. He hadn’t really followed the story of Laila and her no-longer-best friend Maddy, but understood enough to realize that whatever had gone down had been the fifth-grade equivalent of World War III. “And listen, she’s your friend. Can’t you work it out?”
Laila gave him a heavy sigh and paused, the backpack he couldn’t believe she was strong enough to carry still on her lap. “Dad, you don’t get it. She took my favorite pen! And lied about it!”
It was the lie that had made the crime unforgivable. He could see that. Still... “People make mistakes, kiddo.”
“If she lies about a pen, what else would she lie to me about?”
She was too smart for him, the best of both her parents multiplied by ten. “True. But that doesn’t mean you can’t forgive her.”
“I can forgive her,” Laila said darkly, her brow furrowed. “That doesn’t mean she can still be my friend.”
With that, she got out of the car. Ignoring the impatient moms in minivans behind him who barely stopped to let their kids roll out before they sped off to Pilates or hot yoga or whatever the hell they were in such a rush to get to, Jesse watched her until she got through the school doors. Then he gave each of the scowling minivan moms a cheery salute, using all his fingers when he really wanted to use only one.
He still needed food. An egg sandwich and another tall coffee tried to woo him into the local 7-Eleven, but he reminded himself of his credit card bill, due next week, and the upcoming tuition bill for Laila, due sometime next month. The rattle under his car’s dashboard helped remind him, too, that his baby had just over a hundred thousand miles on her, and she had to last him another year or so before he could think about replacing her.
It was going to get better, he reminded himself. Private school for his kid was important to her future, and sacrificing for her was worth it. At home, a few more hours of sleep and a shower put some lightness into the day. So did the dogs in the shelter where he volunteered. Playing with them never failed to brighten his outlook. His time there finished, Jesse headed back to his car, pausing to look at the gray sky. It looked like snow. Smelled like it, too. He was looking forward to a good winter storm. Which meant he definitely had to get something in his fridge.
He didn’t usually shop at this market, but this place was conveniently close to the Angel. Armed with his reusable bags from the trunk, the list he kept updated on his phone and the small accordion file of coupons he collected from the bar’s Sunday paper every week, Jesse grabbed a cart and hit the aisles.
And there she was.
The woman from the bar. Colleen, last name unknown. Today, as usual, her pale hair was pulled back at the base of her neck in a sleek bun. She wore a tailored black wool coat that came to her knees, a hint of crimson liner at the throat and sleeves, and below it a pair of black-stockinged legs and librarian pumps with a strap across the top of her foot that, no kidding, left his throat a little dry. She carried a paper cup of coffee in one hand and pushed her cart, one of the little ones, with the other.
She wasn’t watching where she was going. It was easy enough for him to let his cart bump hers, gently enough not to even slop her coffee. It was easy, but stupid, Jesse thought at the last second as she turned, frowning. Now he’d pissed her off.
Again.
“Sorry,” she said, though it was clear she knew it was his fault. “Oh. It’s you.”
“It’s me. Jesse,” he added.
“I know your name. You work at The Fallen Angel.” She inched her cart, containing a carton of eggs and a loaf of rye bread, away from his.
“And you’re Colleen.”
“Yes.” She could’ve pulled her cart away and stalked off down the aisle without looking at him again, but instead she cleared her throat. “So...you shop here?”
Jesse looked at his own cart, empty at the moment. “Nah. I just come in, push a cart around for exercise. Beats the gym fees.”
It had been a gamble, just as bumping her cart had been, but this time she laughed. Her face lit up. A man could fall in love with a woman who laughed like that.
“That was a stupid question. Sorry.” Colleen sipped her coffee, her large gray eyes meeting his over the rim of the cup without sliding away.
Those eyes. Shit. He was a goner.
For weeks he’d been getting to know her little by little. At first she was only another customer, but over time he’d begun to notice the things about her that stood out. The quiet way she sat by herself, never engaging anyone in more than the barest of conversations. Sometimes she read a book. Sometimes she toyed with her phone while she ate some pub food, usually onion rings but sometimes fries. Once or twice, she ordered a basket of fish and chips.
The glass of whiskey she ordered every week without fail, but never drank.
But although they’d had their share of casual interactions, had she ever looked at him until right now? Really looked, as if she actually saw him? She had, fleetingly, last night, and it was obvious she hadn’t cared much for what she’d seen. Now she was looking at him again, her gray gaze pinning him, and he found himself struggling a little for words.
“My father used to say there are no stupid questions,” she continued as though there hadn’t been a minute of painfully awkward silence between them. “Just stupid people.”
“I was being a jerk. Trying to be funny. I’m an idiot.”
She laughed again, not as loud, but the sound was as lovely the second time as it had been the first. That laugh dug into him, between his ribs. Into the tender places beneath.
“I need to get going. I’ll be late for work.” She lifted her coffee cup his way in something like a salute. “See you...?”
“Next Thursday,” Jesse said, and found himself wishing it were tomorrow instead of next week.
Chapter Two
Colleen pressed her fingers deep into the sore spot just below her ear. An old injury flared up whenever she got tense, which had been happening a lot recently. Of late, circumstances had required her have more to do with Steve than usual. No matter how she tried to never let her ex-husband get under her skin, he was still an expert at it. Probably always would be.
As if Mondays weren’t hard enough, this morning it had been a series of texts about repairs that needed to be done on the house they still shared in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. When their marriage ended, she’d been desperate enough to walk away with next to nothing just to be rid of him. If she’d been able to afford to buy him out, she’d have done it. But the only other option had been letting the place go altogether, and she didn’t want to give up the ocean. Not even to be entirely rid of Steve.
Still, although they’d kept the condo and shared responsibilities for it, somehow it had become Colleen’s job to oversee them and Steve’s to criticize. Not that she was surprised. Despite Steve’s constant protests to the contrary, it had been that way throughout their marriage.
She didn’t have time for him today. Work was kicking her ass. It was her job to keep everything running smoothly and act as a liaison between the small mom-and-pop operation being consumed by the company she worked for, QuidProQuotient. Usually Colleen enjoyed working with smaller companies, helping them to make the transitions. Despite how ravenous QPQ had become over the past few years, Colleen believed in the company’s mission statement.
Enfold, embrace and embark on new adventures.
There wasn’t much embracing going on right now. Matt Lolly, the former owner and president of Lolly and Pop Computers, had agreed to sell his family business more than six months ago, but had not yet let go of the reins.
She thought about the conversation they’d had earlier that day since Mr. Lolly was...malingering. “I understand,” Colleen murmured, keeping her voice and expression neutral. “But believe me, Mr. Lolly, you are going to be leaving your grandchildren a legacy. Perhaps not the actual shop itself, but with the money you’ll be able to put aside for them...”
“I started that shop with my own dad, and then worked in it with my sons.” Mr. Lolly gave her a fierce look. “Money can’t replace any of that.”
Since he’d sold the company because both his sons had gone to find other jobs, and none of the grandchildren seemed interested in taking it over, his rationale wasn’t quite on point. But Colleen knew what he meant. She’d spent a lot of hours with her own dad in his workshop. Money could never buy back those hours.
“Mr. Lolly, I understand your reluctance.”
He gave her a stern stare. “I don’t think you really do. You’re going to buy my shop and turn it into some kind of fast-food restaurant type of place. My customers expect a certain level of service—”
“Your customers,” Colleen interjected, “are all buying their computers online or down at the Apple store, and taking them there to be fixed.”
Silence.
Mr. Lolly cleared his throat. Colleen expected to feel bad about the way she’d snapped, but the fact was, she’d been working with this guy for months, and he was still fighting her every inch of the way. She understood his reasons. She’d done her share of not letting go of things that no longer served her. But she no longer cared.
“You’ve signed a contract,” she told him. “You’ve been paid all but the final amount. Mr. Lolly, it’s time you signed off on the rest of the agreement. Okay? I have a check right here for the final payment. You could go on a nice, long vacation. Or put this money into a retirement fund. Or send your grandkids to college. But if you don’t sign, I’m going to have to declare this agreement void, and you’ll have to pay us back what you’ve already accepted.”
He looked startled at that. “But I’ve—”
“Sign off,” she told him gently and handed him a pen. All QPQ needed was his final signature releasing QPQ to take over the daily operations, including the hiring and firing of the current employees.
“You said they’d keep their jobs,” he said finally. “It’s just the two of them.”
“Or that they’d get a nice severance. And they will.” Her company actually had no desire to keep Lolly and Pop Computers in business. She’d been instructed to buy out the company for its inventory and real estate, a prime location on the main street of a small town. What QPQ’s owner decided to do with all of that, Colleen didn’t know. Also didn’t care.
Mr. Lolly sighed. Then sighed again. He hung his head, but if he thought puppy eyes were going to gain him any sympathy from her... Colleen put on a smile. She pushed the pen across the desk to him.
“Please sign, Mr. Lolly.”
He did, but with a resentful look she took as an affront, even though she didn’t react to it. At the doorway, the check still clutched in his hand, he turned to her. “It just seems like a very cold way to do business, that’s all.”
He didn’t give her time to respond, and even if he had, what might she have said? Colleen wasn’t the one who’d pursued the sale or even closed the deal. It was her job to see difficult acquisitions through to the end, that was all. And she was good at it. Over the years, she’d sold her soul to the devil for the ability to support herself.
With the plunging temperatures outside and bad weather in the forecast, all she really wanted to do tonight was put the day behind her, take a hot bath, get into a bed made up with fresh sheets and go to sleep. Her sleep last night had been interrupted again by bad dreams about losing her dad. About waking up in bed next to Steve, their divorce being the dream instead.
But it was Thursday, she reminded herself as she poured another cup of coffee from the office communal pot. Thursday meant The Fallen Angel and her ritual.
“Colleen.” It was Mark, looking dapper as usual in a three-piece suit complete with pocket watch. “You took care of Lolly?”
She nodded. “Yes. He signed, took the check. I passed everything along to Jonas.”
Jonas would take care of the final settlement with the Lolly and Pop Computers employees.
Mark grinned and poured himself a cup of coffee. Then he made a face.
