The Marriage Contract, Natasha Black [thriller books to read .TXT] 📗

Anderson. When she asked me to come in tonight as my first night, she told me to find Jordan, because he was the one who would be showing me the ropes and getting me started.

I came in just when I was supposed to and was taken aback by the man behind the bar. He was standing right there where Ava told me I would find Jordan, but he wasn’t at all what I was expecting. Of course, I didn’t really know what I was expecting. I was new in Astoria and hadn’t met any of the Anderson family, except for Ava.

But from the very beginning, Jordan put me at ease. I felt comfortable with him as soon as we introduced ourselves, and he made sure I felt totally ready to jump into my new position. It was perhaps a little bit intimidating to find out I was starting on one of their theme nights and to hear that these nights often got crazy busy.

Jordan made sure I felt ready and told me that I was going to do just fine. That helped me relax and even get excited for what was to come. So far, he had been right. It was a great first night. All the customers were friendly and welcoming, the tips were flowing, and I was really liking all my new coworkers.

Especially Jordan.

Throughout the night I would glance over his way and find him staring at me. It didn’t bother me. In fact, I found myself getting a little bit of a shiver from it. I was used to being stared at, and Jordan was not being at all creepy, which was more than I could say about a lot of guys. I’d had my fair share of creeps over the years, so I could sense these things.

By the end of the night, I was tired but happy. It was even more successful than I’d hoped it would be. I was looking forward to going back for another shift but was also happy that I would have most of the next day off to relax. I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

Though I got home well after two in the morning after my first shift, I was awake and ready to go by six-thirty. I was pretty sure working at the bar and keeping such late hours would eventually catch up with me and I would stop being quite as much of a morning person.

That day, I packed up my art supplies and headed for the beach. There wasn’t anybody out there except for a couple of early morning joggers as I set up my easel and dispensed little bits of paint out onto my palette.

The view of the ocean and the rocks around it was beautiful. As I captured the image on my canvas, I found a calm I didn’t know I could still achieve. It had been a long time since I’d felt anything even close to it.

I was glad to be so far away from everything.

My phone rang, and I carefully set down my paints to answer it. I smiled when I saw my best friend’s name across the screen.

“Hey, Samantha,” I said.

“How was your first day?” she asked.

“It was really great. I like the people I work with a lot, and the customers were super welcoming.”

“That’s awesome. I told you it would be good,” she said.

“How about you? How’s the family?”

“Well, Owen is walking on his own now.”

“Already?” I asked, surprised. “He just turned one! I can’t believe he’s growing up so fast.”

I was thrilled to hear about the little boy, the youngest of Samantha’s two children, hitting his milestones. I loved children and missed being around them.

“You’re telling me,” Samantha said. “So, tell me more. How is it going out there in Oregon? I still for the life of me can’t figure out why you would decide to move all the way out there.”

I laughed. “Because it’s all the way out here. It’s going really well. It’s beautiful out here, and I am really going to like working at The Hollow. I even have a boss that is not bad to look at.”

That was the understatement of the century, but I didn’t want to gush too much.

“Oh, really?” Samantha said, latching on to even the vague description. “What’s he like?”

I told her about Jordan and how he’d shown me around when I first got to the bar. “And I caught him staring at me just about all night.”

She let out a little bit of a squeal. At nearly thirty years old, she could still manage a schoolgirl squeal with the best of them. It always made me laugh.

“You should go for it!” she said.

“Go for what?” I asked, picking up my brush to start painting again.

“For him. You should just jump into it with him. Rip the bandage off.”

I scoffed. “That is not going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“I am definitely not ready for that, Samantha. Especially not with someone I work with, or I should say work for,” I said.

“You should think about it. You can’t wait around forever,” she said, sounding a little disappointed.

Samantha loved her husband, a successful New York City banker, and she adored being a mother to their two children. But there were times when it seemed like she was missing the carefree days of youth and singlehood and wanted to live vicariously through me.

Only that meant she was also trying to turn my life into a Choose Your Own Adventure, with her at the helm of all the choices. It was all with my best interests in mind, but I wasn’t ready to throw myself in quite the way she wanted me to.

After getting off the phone, I spent a while longer at the beach working on the painting. As it got later in the morning, more people started to arrive, and soon the sense of quiet and peace wasn’t quite the same. Even then, it was good to see the families coming out to enjoy picnics