Kate snorted, or maybe wheezed. “Great. Put it on my tombstone. Kate Appleton. Went to hell in a hops basket.”
“So you’re not feeling any better?”
“I’d give that a no.”
He started the truck. “Let’ cC;Ldiv›s get a move on, then.”
“Gently, and unlock my window control, could you?”
They started down the road, Kate with her head out the window and hair rippling in the breeze. And Matt feeling really bad she was so sick but thinking how great she looked with her hair wild, blowing all around her face.
KATE NEVER thought she’d be so grateful to work for a man who’d bought a kitschy, not to mention mostly dilapidated, motel.
“Are you doing okay in there?” Matt called through the bathroom door in the manager’s tiny apartment.
Kate was still toweling her hair from the long and chilly shower she’d taken. “Better.”
“I’m glad I had the utilities turned back on this week. Sorry there wasn’t much hot water.”
“It was perfect.”
Actually, it had taken a while before she’d felt safe to go near the shower. First had come the belching with enough gusto to win a frat boys’ contest. From her side of the bathroom door, she’d heard Matt saying that he’d be taking off for a while. Kate had figured he’d been engaging in chivalry or self-preservation. Either way, he’d missed the worst of the episode.
“I’ve brought you some stuff I thought you might be able to use,” he called.
She opened the bathroom door enough to reach out her arm and grab a plastic sack. “Thanks. That was really nice of you.”
Though, again, it still could have been self-preservation. Keene’s Harbor remained over an hour away, and her stomach still sounded demonically possessed. Kate riffled through the bag. Antihistamines, as promised, plus antacids.
So much for Matt Culhane ever being tempted by her again, she thought. She was gross-inside and outside. Arms wrapped around her bloated midsection, she regarded her spotty reflection in the bathroom mirror. This was what she wanted, right? Not to have to worry about any hot and messy sexual entanglement that took place outside the privacy of her imagination. Now that she faced that reality, the answer came back an edgy maybe not.
“Can I bring you anything else?” Matt called.
“No, thanks.”
After antacids, what was left?
MATT BELIEVED in choosing his moments and in letting others choose theirs. When Kate decided to stick on her bug glasses and pretend to sleep most of the way back to Keene’s Harbor, he’d respected that choice.
“Hey,” he said when she finally stirred.
“Hi.”
“Feeling any better?”
“Yes.”
“Are you up to having a conversation longer than one syllable?”
“No,” Kate said.
“All the same, can I ask you something? Did that happen to you the last time you drank beer?”
She didn’t answer immediately. “Kind of, I think. I mean, I sort of recalled discomfort, but it wasn’t this bad.”
“In that case, I’m sorry. I never would have asked you to try it if I’d known this was what happened to you.”
“My fault. Even with that vague memory, I shouldn’t have risked it, except…”
“Except what?”
“Except I also did it because
“Nice?”
She sighed. “Yes, nice. You deserve that.”
“So do you, Kate.”
“I know, but it’s been so long. It’s like I can hardly recognize it. That long without nice in your life… and I don’t mean that I was abused or anything… it was just the absence of nice. But, anyway, you forget how it feels.”
He didn’t know where she’d been, other than geographically, before she’d landed in Keene’s Harbor. All he knew was that he liked it when she was happy.
“Okay,” he said. “So, nice it is. And I’m moving you to the taproom on Monday. I need to have you someplace where you can keep an eye on Jerry when I’m not there. You were right. He takes off, and I don’t know what he’s up to. And Laila’s going to be out a minimum of this next week with her ankle sprain.”
“I can do that,” she said.
TEN
Early Monday morning, Kate pulled into Depot Brewing’s parking lot. She was exactly on time for the training session Matt wanted to get in before the rest of the staff arrived. Matt, however, was not. With not a heck of a lot else to do, Kate exited her Jeep and meandered toward the building’s front entry. She smiled down at the mosaic of Chuck and allowed herself a moment of yearning for Stella. She missed her dog every single day.
Pushing doggie thoughts from her mind f missed, she glanced into the Depot’s interior through the narrow window to the right of the front door. The large potted tree in the entry lay on its side. Kate moved closer and peered into the lobby. Opposite the tree, the low table that usually held brochures had been upended. She could have bought one tipped thing as an accident, but not both.
Running on sheer instinct, she pulled on the door’s large bronze handle. The door swung outward. And because she was terminally curious, she stepped inside.
“Hello?” She paused to bring the tree upright. “Anyone here?”
Apparently not. She set the table on its feet, scooped up the brochures and replaced them. She also picked up a bit of string or something that the cleaning person must have missed. She tucked that into the front pocket of her khakis, along with a crumpled cocktail napkin. If she was going to tidy up, she might as well do it properly.
As she left the entry, Kate was greeted by a stale beer aroma she’d last smelled in Bagger’s Tavern. Except unlike Bagger’s, this place was all clean slate, wood, and ceramic tile. There was no obnoxiously absorbent carpet to be found.
Kate followed her nose to the taproom.
“This is
Every table and chair had been flipped. Beer was running, but with no pitcher or pilsner glass to catch the brew. She sprinted behind the bar and realized that not only had the taps been left running but every keg had been shot full of holes. A note had been spray painted on the mirror behind the bar in giant red letters:
One foot hit where the rubber mats should have been, but weren’t. Momentum carried her forward. The wet floor brought her feet out from beneath her. And then she went down. Hard.
