Page 18 of Shadow Strike
8.For Regan: Don’t tell me you’re fine when you’re not.
She looked at it for a moment.Reread it.
She went back to cutting lemons with a little more vehemence than before.
He’d brought a security system.She found this out when she emerged from the back and found him on a ladder, installing a camera mount above the front entrance.
“What are you doing?”she asked.
“Got the back and side entrances done while you were on the phone with the distributor,” he said without looking down.
Their first patron was pulling in.“How long will this take?”
“Just finishing up.System’s top of the line.Motion sensors, alerts to your phone, hundred-foot perimeter on the parking lot.”He came down the ladder.“I’ll show you the app when we have a minute.”
She thought about the cost, then about the note under the back door, and decided this was not the time to argue.“Fine.”
He almost smiled.She was starting to recognize that—the not-quite version of it that happened when she said something that amused him.
“Lunch rush is starting,” she said.“Ladder away.”
“Yes, boss.”
She hesitated, startled by the flutter in her chest.
She’d walked in with the idea that having a man like CB in the bar would mean managing him, navigating around him, explaining herself constantly.That he would hover.That his size and his competence would take up more space than there was room for.
As the place filled up and he covered the bar, talked to patrons like they were old friends, and kept an eye on everything, he didn’t hover.He greeted every person who came through the door.Knew some of them already by name, since he’d grown up not far from here.He moved efficiently and always with purpose, easy with the regulars, watchful with the new faces.
George Maunder came in, took his corner booth, and had his beer in front of him before he’d finished settling.CB had clocked him from across the room, cross-referenced him against the list Regan had downloaded into him that morning, and acted.He hadn’t asked Regan.He hadn’t needed to.
Dale Hutchins came in at twelve-fifteen, loud as advertised, and CB handled him with the patient ease of a man who had dealt with considerably more difficult personalities in considerably more dangerous situations.
“You new?”Dale asked, squinting at him.
“Started today.”
“Regan finally hired some help?”Dale looked around until he found her.“Good!She works too hard.I’ve always said so.”
“She does,” CB agreed, with a pleasantness that somehow made Regan feel like she was being managed, though he wasn’t looking at her.
She wiped down a table that didn’t need wiping.
She found herself actually enjoying the lunch service for the first time in longer than she could remember.Talking to customers without the low current of dread underneath everything.Laughing at something Patrice said about her crossword.Letting herself be present in her own bar instead of scanning every face that came through the door for threat.
This is what it used to feel like.
She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it.
Even several motorcycle riding customers came in, had a beer and a burger and headed out.None were Outlaws, and they tipped well, interacting with CB when he asked about their bikes.They were more than happy to talk about their babies.
CB’s calm had a quality she couldn’t name until the lunch rush was over.She was standing at the bar with nothing immediately requiring her attention, watching him clean up tables.
Structural, she thought.That was the word for it.It wasn’t sexy on the surface, but it was to her underneath.His calmness and confidence felt like a new foundation under her feet.Solid, strong, reliable.She’d been breathing differently the whole morning and hadn’t noticed until now.
“You seem like yourself today,” Lucy said, appearing at her elbow in the post-rush lull.“After everything that happened last night, it’s good to see.”
“I got some sleep.”
