Page 50 of Devoured By the Forbidden Mountain Man

Case leaned on the bar. “The owner nearly moved two high-tops. I survived heroically.”

Her smile came easily.

I took my laptop to a corner table rather than follow her through work she understood better than I did. I had North Fork calls to return, a batch of mileage records Annette expected before she retired, and enough ordinary business to keep me occupied while Georgia solved the scheduling problem.

That was what I told myself, anyway.

I still looked up often.

Georgia spent almost two hours working with the owner and Case, but the scene never became another version of yesterday. The service lanes remained where she had put them. Nobody tried to resurrect the complicated cocktail garnish or block the kitchen pass.

The problem today was people: prep staff, entertainment, the afternoon vendor, and a group helping with decorations were all scheduled to arrive through the same rear entrance within thirty minutes of one another. Georgia spread the schedule across the end of the bar and worked through it with the owner, moving one group earlier, another later, and assigning a specific person to meet the delivery instead of leaving the job to whoever happened to be closest.

She listened more than she spoke.

That was one of the things I had started noticing about her management style. Georgia was direct, but she didn’t need to dominate a room to control it. She asked Case what the bar needed. She asked the kitchen lead which prep workers actually needed access first. She let the owner explain why he had scheduled the entertainment when he did before pointing out that they would be carrying equipment through the same hallway the cooks were using.

People listened because she made sense, and watching her made something restless move through me again, this time with nothing to do with the shower. The woman had lost the job she loved three days ago. She should have looked displaced here, but she didn’t.

Near noon, Case brought two plates to my table and set one down in front of me.

“Lunch,” he said. “I’m acting preemptively because Georgia can apparently organize a sixty-person service plan while forgetting she owns a stomach.”

“She ate breakfast,” I said, and Case’s expression turned approving.

“I knew I liked you for a reason.”

Georgia joined us before either of us could continue.

“I can hear you conspiring about me.”

Case slid her plate into place. “Then I don’t have to repeat myself.”

She sat and looked at the food. “Fine. I accept the intervention.”

He returned to the bar, leaving us with sandwiches, a cup of soup to share, and two glasses of water.

Georgia ate while still reading the schedule, then forced herself to put the clipboard facedown.

“I’m becoming exactly the person I used to lecture.”

I moved the clipboard a little farther from her plate. “You ate before anyone had to physically remove this, so I’d call that progress.”

Georgia gave me a look, then smiled. “I may need to revise my standards.”

She stole one of the crackers from my plate.

Before she could eat it, her phone vibrated against the table.

Georgia froze.

The screen showed Meredith’s name.

The restaurant sounds continued around us—silverware, low conversation, the squeak of the kitchen door—but Georgia’s attention narrowed entirely to the message.

She read it once, then again.

When she turned the phone toward me, her fingers were tight around the case.