“C’mon, Jay, you can take a break for a few hours,” Carter urged.
“Maybe tomorrow night,” he suggested.
“It has to be tonight,” his friend insisted.
“Why?”
“Because it’s our first anniversary.”
Though he was aware of the significance of the date and knew his friend was referring to the business, he couldn’t resist joking, “So where are my flowers?”
“The shop was out of yellow roses,” Carter bantered back. “And I know they’re your favorite.”
“Tell me you at least got a card.”
“Mere words cannot express my feelings,” his friend said.
Jay snorted.
“But I’ll buy you a beer after paintball tonight,” Carter offered. “And we’ll toast to year one.”
“And account ledgers written entirely in black ink,” Jay added, sitting back in his chair.
He believed in working hard and playing hard, and he considered himself lucky that there was a fair amount of overlap between work and play for the CEO of Adventure Village, Haven’s family friendly recreational playground.
When he’d bought his first property—two acres of dry, dusty terrain that included an old abandoned shoe factory—several of the townsfolk had scratched their heads as they tried to figure out why he would throw his money away. Few people gave him credit for having a plan; even fewer believed he might have a viable one, especially when he acquired the undeveloped parcel directly behind the old factory.
He didn’t talk about his project except with those who’d been chosen to work on the development. Because Jay knew that the best way to create buzz about what he was doing was to say nothing. The less people knew, the more they tended to speculate—and then share their speculation with friends and neighbors, who passed it on to other friends and neighbors.
When Adventure Village opened, he’d hoped all the doubters and naysayers and everyone else would understand that the land he’d purchased was an investment—not just in Jason’s future, but that of the whole town. As one of only three cities in all of Nevada where gambling was illegal, Haven saw a steady exodus of residents to the casinos in neighboring areas on evenings and weekends. And who could blame them when there was no action in their hometown?
But now the residents of Haven had another option. And not only were fewer people heading out of town on weekends, there were more people heading to Haven from other places.
Jay understood that part of the draw, at least in the beginning, was the newness and novelty of his facility. In a state where most people came to fritter away their money at the tables or in the bordellos, a facility that offered a variety of wholesome physical activities for all ages was an anomaly—and week after week, that anomaly was adding to his status as one of the wealthiest men in Haven.
And that was definitely cause for celebration.
“What’s the plan?”
“Assassins,” Carter immediately replied, proving that he’d already given the matter some thought. Or maybe it was just that Assassins was always his game of choice whenever they geared up and took to the field.
“Who’s in?”
“Kevin, Matt, Nat, Hayley, me and you.”
Jay looked at the papers on his desk again.
“You started this business because you wanted to have fun,” his friend reminded him.
“Yeah,” he admitted. “But I didn’t realize that fun could be so much work.”
“And that’s why you need a break.”
“Why can’t that break be tomorrow night?” he wondered.
“Because after the game, Kev wants to head over to Diggers’ to put his moves on the hot new bartender, and she doesn’t work Saturdays.”
“Kev has no moves,” Jay noted. “And what he thinks is hot is usually only lukewarm.”
“You’re right about the moves,” his friend agreed. “But his description of the bartender was actually ‘sizzling.’”
“Now you have my attention.”
Carter grinned.
Jay decided the unpaid and undocumented invoices would still be there tomorrow.
* * *
Alyssa loved her job at Westmount High School. Teaching was her pride and her passion, and helping young minds understand scientific laws and mathematic formulas was incredibly fulfilling. But despite a full timetable and the prep and marking to be completed outside of regular school hours, when she walked out of her classroom at the end of the day, she found that she had a lot of free time on her hands.
So she’d looked for opportunities to meet people and get involved in the community. She joined a book club, but the required readings and once-a-month meetings did little to fill her empty nights. She tried a pottery class but had more luck throwing her misshapen vessels into the trash than throwing clay on the wheel. She tried to teach herself to knit but got the needles hopelessly tangled—not just in the wool she’d bought for her project, but in the sweater she’d been wearing. As a result, she’d filled most of her empty hours through the long winter binge-watching Netflix.
Then one day, when she was picking up a few groceries at The Trading Post, she overheard Frieda Zimmerman (whose husband was the local mechanic and tow truck operator) tell Thomas Mann (the owner of Mann’s Theater) that her niece Erika had run off to Vegas to be a dancer. Alyssa hadn’t been paying too much attention to their conversation, but her attention was snagged when Mr. Mann commented that Diggers’ was going to be short a bartender. Because that was a job Alyssa had some experience with, having worked part-time at a campus bar while she was in college.
Her parents had acknowledged the value of their youngest daughter gaining some work experience and contributing to the cost of her education, but they hadn’t approved of the late hours or the work environment. It was the first time Alyssa hadn’t backed down in the face of their opposition, and although the job had been physically demanding, she’d enjoyed the work—and the chance to forget about her studies and everything else for a while.
Even on Friday nights, Diggers’ didn’t draw a crowd comparable to a college bar in Irvine, but Alyssa was eager for something—anything—to fill some empty hours. Duke Hawkins had been wary about hiring a schoolteacher to tend his bar, but as she was the only applicant with any actual experience, he’d agreed to give her a chance. In only a few short weeks, she’d earned regular shifts on Tuesday and Friday nights.
Sunday through Thursday, there was only one bartender on duty, but on weekends, there were two scheduled with overlapping shifts. Alyssa worked from seven until midnight and Skylar Gilmore came in at eight and stayed until closing. Sky was a couple years younger than Alyssa, but she’d been working part-time at the bar since she was of age and was now a master of the subtle flirtation that kept customers coming back without expecting anything more from the woman who filled their glasses.
Everyone in town knew Sky as the youngest daughter of David Gilmore, owner and operator of the Circle G—reputedly the biggest and most prosperous cattle ranch in Nevada. Few people knew that she was working toward her master’s degree in psychology. She was also open and warm and funny, and she knew everything there was to know about Diggers’ regular customers—and most of the less regular patrons, too.
Sky was the third of four kids. Her older