Close to Heaven by Pamela Clare

Author:Pamela Clare [Clare, Pamela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-9987491-3-6
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Knockers was busy from the moment Joe unlocked the front entrance. People who’d been cooped up in their own homes wanted to get out, hear the news, talk with friends they hadn’t seen for the past few days. But it was surreal to go through the workday without Rain. She had always been the heart of this place. He tried to pretend that nothing was wrong, that nothing had happened.

But he wasn’t fooling anyone.

Joe knew the moment the staff got word that Rain had quit. Marcia quit speaking to him. Cheyenne openly glared at him. Libby told him she was too busy to talk when he came in to discuss art options for the labels of the new brew.

“Just pick whatever,” she said, her voice cold.

Shit.

Hank reappeared just after noon, asked Marcia for a whiskey. He shook his head when he saw Joe. “What’s wrong with you, Joe? Rain is a special woman. I thought you were smarter than that.”

So now he was being lectured by Hank?

But it was Bear who was the last straw. He came in just before the lunch rush, asking for Rain, clearly hoping for a hot meal.

“She quit, Bear,” Cheyenne said with no tact. “She won’t be coming in again.”

The tears in the big man’s eyes felt like an indictment.

Joe threw the towel he’d been holding onto the bar. “See to it that Bear gets a good meal on the house. I’ll be in my office.”

He stomped to the back, sat at his desk, checked his email. Lots of messages, but nothing from Rain.

It was just after the lunch rush when Rico appeared in Joe’s doorway, hairnet on his beard, chef’s knife in one hand, sharpening rod in the other. He scraped the blade slowly over the steel, his gaze meeting Joe’s, his lips pressed into a thin, angry line. “Well, you really blew it, didn’t you?”

Not Rico, too.

Steel scraped steel.

“Come in, shut the door, and say your piece.”

Rico nudged the door shut with his shoe. “Rain quit because of you.”

Joe had had it. “I didn’t want her to quit. It would be bad for business. Whatever goes on between Rain and me is no one’s business.”

“Don’t give me that.” Rico slid the blade over the steel once more, the sound grating on Joe’s nerves. “I’ve worked alongside the two of you almost since the beginning. That girl has been crazy in love with you for twenty years, and you’re too damned stupid to see it.”

“What?” Had everyone gone insane?

“You’re in love with her, too.” Rico’s words hit Joe in the face.

He stammered out the first thing that came to him. “I’m her employer—or I was. She quit because of her own stubborn pride because I wouldn’t sleep with her.”

Joe couldn’t believe he’d just told Rico this.

Rico passed the blade over the steel again. “That wasn’t pride. She quit so that you’d have the freedom to choose.”

Joe’s pulse throbbed in his ears. “What? What are you saying?”

Rico rolled his eyes. “She chose you over her job, and what did you do? You let her walk away.

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