Backing through the swinging doors, I pulled out my notepad and a stubby pencil. A group had taken the table in the corner. As I walked toward them, light bounced through the window, nearly blinding me. I looked outside to find a shiny silver Jaguar was parked by the curb. I surveyed the group more closely and didn’t recognize a single face. That wasn’t a surprise since people in Bexby didn’t drive luxury cars. All three of them were busy on their mobile phones. When I reached the table, they barely looked at me.
“Pints all around. Hell, pints for the bar to celebrate the win,” one said, still busily dashing out a text on the screen.
There was no point writing that down. Even I couldn’t screw up delivering pints on the house. I’d been right that the group wasn’t from around here. They obviously had money if they were buying rounds, even if there were only a few other souls in the place. That money might buy beer and fancy cars, but it hadn’t done them any good in the common sense department. “Might keep the celebrating down,” I advised, tucking the notepad back in my pocket. “Most folks around here are wallowing.”
“What did they expect going up against the…” the man stopped as he finally glanced up at me.
“Kerrigan! What the hell?” He lounged back and hit his friend on the shoulder. “I thought you were in New York for the summer or France or some shit?”
My head tilted, and I shook my head, but before I could point out his mistake, his friend jumped in.
“Yeah, why are you working in a shitbox like this place? Daddy cut you off?”
“I’m sorry I’ve never met you. I’m not…” I was so taken back by having the pub insulted that I couldn’t remember the name he’d used. I mean, Hare & Hound was, as he put it, a shitbox, but I didn’t need some entitled wankers coming in and pointing it out. “My name is Kate, actually.”
“No fucking way.” He stared at me before looking around the pub like he expected a camera crew to jump out. “You serious? Kathy?”
“Kate, and I am.” I pushed a strand of hair off my sweaty forehead with my pencil. “What else can I bring you?”
But he wasn’t listening. His hand stretched out and snapped a picture of me with his phone’s camera.
“I didn’t say you could do that,” I said quietly as my blood went cold.
“It’s cool.” He dismissed my concern like it was his right to do so. “ Just no one is going to believe that we met Kerrigan Belmond’s twin or doppelganger in...where the fuck are we?”
“West Bexby.” I resisted the urge to pluck the phone from his overprivileged fingers and smash it. Instead, I tucked my pencil behind my ear. “I’ll grab those pints.”
I circled around and left before they could take any more photos. My heart began to pound. My fingers splayed over the worn oak of the bar to steady myself. Instead of ducking behind it to the taps, I continued on to the kitchen. My vision swam along the edges. By the time I’d pushed through the swinging doors, I couldn’t breathe. Suddenly I no longer felt the oppressive heat; I was cold like I’d been plunged into an icy river. The world blurred around me, water closing in overhead and pressing down. I tottered forward, reaching for the wall, but I was too far. My fingers closed over empty air as I stopped breathing.
Chapter Two
I wasn’t close enough to the wall to catch myself. I was falling, losing control, and for a second, I wanted the panic to win. I wanted it to overwhelm me and wash me away. My knees gave way, surrendering, just as Eliza’s arm dipped around me and hauled me upright.
“Whoa, maybe you should sit down,” she said.
I shook my head. “I’m fine.”
“Is it the heat or another panic attack?” she asked.
“The heat,” I lied. I didn’t have an explanation for the panic attacks. They came out of nowhere and rendered me nearly helpless. So far, I’d managed to keep myself from having one in front of customers, but Eliza had witnessed plenty of them.
“Let me get you some water,” she coaxed.
“No,” I said quickly as the drowning sensation roared inside me again. “I’m fine. I should get back to the assholes at table four.”
“Did they say something to you?” Eliza asked, her eyes turning to steely flint.
“No. They just thought I was some friend of theirs. They were rude about it, like they couldn’t believe she would work here.”
“Lovely,” she sneered. “I’ll take care of them. Did they order?”
I was suddenly thankful I hadn’t gotten their food order yet, because I had a feeling Eliza would have dumped it on their heads. She didn’t take well to rude men. Regulars knew to toe the line around her.
“Just a round for the house. No food. They were busy taking my picture to show Kerrigan someone or another. Some rich bitch, I’m sure, ” I muttered. My breathing had finally returned to normal, and the pressure had faded entirely. At least the attacks, while inexplicable, ended as suddenly as they started. Unfortunately, I almost always wound up with a migraine after.
“Kerrigan?” Eliza replied. “Like Kerrigan Belmond?”
I pressed a palm to my forehead as the first throb hit. “Yeah. I think that’s it. Do you know her?”
“Do I know Kerrigan Belmond?” She laughed at the question, staring at me like I was playing a prank on her.
I shook my head to let her know I had no idea why she found this amusing. “Who is she?”
“Socialite. Family is worth a fortune.”
“What do they do?” I asked. No wonder the guys had acted like idiots. I couldn’t imagine a socialite working at the Hare & Hound. I couldn’t even imagine a socialite in West Bexby.
“The internet or railroads or something.” She sighed as if to say it didn’t matter how they’d gotten rich, only that they were.
Her sigh mirrored my own feelings. It wasn’t fair that some people had everything while I was gambling on lottery tickets to pay my electricity bill.
“I can deal with them,” I promised her.
“You let me know if they step over the line again, though?”
I nodded as I backed out of the kitchen and turned toward the bar. The guys were probably too busy spewing their celebration all over their social media accounts to care about me, but I studiously avoided looking their way. I was reaching for the first glass when Sheila dropped a fifty-pound note on the worn wooden counter.
“Those boys left, said to give you this,” she told me. “They also said sorry about the picture.” Sheila waited for me to explain myself.
“Thanks,” I grabbed the money and shoved it in my pocket instead.
Sheila huffed away. I had no idea what annoyed her more: that I hadn’t explained what had happened or that I’d been rewarded with a massive tip for doing absolutely nothing. All I knew what that having my photograph taken was a small price to pay for an easy fifty pounds. I dashed in the back to give it to Eliza.
“Nice!” She pushed it back toward me after I explained what happened. “Keep it for a rainy day.”
“Okay,” I said, deciding to slip it into her pocket when she wasn’t looking. There was no way I would let her cover my share of rent while I kept this, but I knew better than to try to argue with her.