Page 39 of Be My Baby
The man nodded and pointed. “Everything’s there, ready to go. Just plug ’er in and it’ll take a few hours to cool down enough to use.”
Max’s brow furrowed as he looked around the area the man pointed to. “No instructions?”
The man laughed. “Nah, mate. Just plug and play. Call the boss when you want it picked up.”
Max nodded. He’d already organised with the supplier the date he wanted it removed. Maybe this fellow was new and didn’t know how the hire contract worked.
“All good. Thanks.”
The man nodded and climbed back into his ute. Max watched as he headed back out onto the road, then shook his head.
Simon laughed from behind him and went around the side to unwind the long cord. “He reminds me of Ryan at that age.”
Max laughed. “True.”
“You want me to plug this in and check it’s working okay before we actually need it?”
“Good idea.” He motioned to the heavy-duty outdoor power point that sat near the back door they’d come through, protected from the elements by the large overhanging verandah roof. “Use that one. Unless you want to be hanging it through a window.”
Simon nodded. “I’ll sort this out. You go back inside and play handsome bartender.”
Max didn’t bother answering him and stepped inside the kitchen proper. He smiled at Selena, the chef who’d been with him for as long as he’d been running the Cow, as Miles set a load into the commercial dishwasher.
Selena ran a tight kitchen. That was one reason Max adored her. He didn’t have to stress about his kitchen staff if he was busy out front. Selena had it all under control and everyone worked efficiently and happily together and knew what she said, went.
Max ran his hand over the ancient wooden doorframe around the entrance to the bar. “A well-oiled machine,” he murmured.
He stood there in the doorway and looked around at everything he’d worked so hard for over the last ten years. So much had happened in this space. So much good, as well as some significant bad.
He moved to pick up the glass he’d used earlier, to place it in the sink behind him, when his wedding ring caught in a shaft of sunlight through the overhead skylight. He turned his hand, his eye running over the inscription running the entire circumference of the themed gold ring.
Lucy had been a massive fantasy fan. And when they’d made her favourite books into a series of movies, she’d been beside herself. She’d insisted on the rings for their wedding rings, and Max had been more than happy to indulge anything she’d wanted.
He turned his hand in the sunlight and sighed. He’d adored the happy little pixie. She’d made anywhere she went happier, just by being there.
Waif-like, with huge pale blue eyes and wild red curls that sat in a halo around her head, Lucy hadn’t been traditionally pretty, but she had a presence that lit up a room. It didn’t matter if you were in the foulest mood known to man, she’d had a way about her that diffused any bad mood.
And when she’d told him her diagnosis, he couldn’t let her go through it alone.
*
Seven years ago
Max looked upfrom beneath the bar, where he was stacking new bottles of liquor from the open box beside him. That sixth sense that told him someone was there had him looking up, straight at Lucy Jones.
“Luce! Hey. What are you doing here so early?”
He glanced at the clock on the wall to his right—only ten in the morning—then back at Millie’s best friend. Usually they were inseparable. He glanced around.
Nope. No Millie.
No Ryan, either.
He ground down the disappointment that Millie wasn’t with her, then shook his head at himself at his own stupidity. He looked back at her as she slid up onto the stool carefully, her slight frame seeming to curve in on itself as she sat. Her innate cheerfulness and vivacity was dimmed somehow… diminished.
Concern furrowed his brow. “Luce? What’s wrong?”
She looked up from her concentration on her hands resting in front of her on the bar. Chills doused his spine at the deadness in her eyes.