She finished doing two beers on tap, slamming the lever back in place when she had filled both frosty mugs. Shamrock’s had great beer. It was one thing she could say about the bar. They used a lot of local vendors, something her dad had done from the day he opened the place a few decades ago. Small-business owners here in Amesport tried to support each other whenever possible.
After quickly delivering the drinks, she went to snatch the plate Ned had almost broken, looking down at the sad state of the daily special. The Reuben sandwich looked soggy instead of nicely browned on both sides, and the onion rings were overcooked.
Dad has to get rid of Ned before his crappy cooking runs him out of business.
Problem was, her dad was distracted, his brain too full of worry about other things to be bothered with hiring another employee.
Kristin would have done the cooking, but that would leave Ned to handle the bar, and that wasn’t happening. He’d drink more than the customers.
Fighting the unsanitary urge to straighten up the food items on the plate so they at least looked better, Kristin delivered the food to one of the tables. Ned had been cooking badly for months. Today, since Shamrock’s had a lot of business, she hoped his food tasted better than it looked.
Please order dessert.
She smiled at the middle-aged gentleman as she gave him his food, hoping he’d be hungry enough to try the daily special dessert.
Since Kristin had made it herself, using some of her best friend Mara’s incredible products, she knew the wild-blueberry cheesecake was good. It was her mom’s recipe, and she’d been making it for years.
Glancing up at the clock, Kristin noticed it was only five p.m.
Four more hours!
She was already dragging, having put in a full day at Dr. Sarah Sinclair’s office as a medical assistant. The time between now and closing seemed like an eternity.
She was tired.
Her feet were killing her.
She was stuck with a grouchy burger slinger until the dinner hour ended.
And, for once, Shamrock’s was actually slammed with customers. It was a Friday night, and the whole weekend would be busy since Amesport was hosting a local art festival. Main Street was closed to traffic, and artists and vendors would be setting up their booths to showcase their art early in the morning.
Apparently, all of the artists decided to show up early.
Getting the locale for the event was an attempt to keep the tourists coming, even though summer was long over in the Maine coastal town. Luckily, it was looking like the snow would hold off, so it might be chilly, but the festival should be a success. The town had a backup plan to set up at the Amesport Youth Center if the weather was bad, but it had been an unseasonably warm fall and early winter.
Amesport really needed some off-season winter events because so much of the town counted on summer tourism. Grady Sinclair, one of several of the billionaire Sinclairs who had settled in Amesport, was doing everything he could to help his wife, Emily, liven up the slow seasons.
“Order up!”
Kristin flinched as the plates hit the steel counter. Jesus! She should be used to Ned’s crotchety, loud voice and his preference to try to break the plates rather than get them to the customers, but she still startled with every noisy, disruptive bellow the man let out before he whacked the food down. Probably because his declaration was shouted loud enough to hear next door, and she was right in front of him at the bar.
It wasn’t like he had to shout. She was only five feet away from the mean-tempered cook.
Be patient. Be patient. Be patient.
She tried to rein in her redheaded Irish temper, just like her father did. Her mother was nearly a saint in Kristin’s eyes, and she knew she was much more like her dad: slow to anger, but when she finally reached her melting point, she went off like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
At the moment, with the place so busy and her body so weary, Ned was pushing her closer and closer to Independence Day.
“You don’t need to call out the order so loud,” Kristin told the ornery cook as she lifted up the plates and balanced them on her arm.
Ned looked up and glared at her. “Yes, I do. It’s the only way I can get through the night. Hate this job. In Boston, at least I had some pretty waitresses in short skirts to look at. Don’t have that here in this miserable bar.”
Kristin gaped at him, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. What in the hell could she say to that? Her temper flared, not really because he was insinuating that she was nothing to look at, but because her father had given Ned a chance, even though he had very few references.
No doubt, the obstinate jerk had been fired from previous jobs for his drinking problems. Her dad had trusted that Ned would straighten himself out.
He hadn’t.
Kristin knew he’d already been arrested for drunk driving in Amesport, and it was obvious he had no desire to quit drinking.
Studying him from a medical perspective, he had the red nose and bloodshot eyes of a longtime alcoholic, that bleary-eyed stare of a man who couldn’t get on the wagon.