Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 133531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 534(@250wpm)___ 445(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 534(@250wpm)___ 445(@300wpm)
The intensity of her loneliness matched his. She had wanted their relationship every bit as much as he had. She had cared for him. She still did. That was one of the worst things he faced each time he touched her mind—knowing she was well on her way to developing strong feelings for him. It hadn’t been all about the intense chemistry. Their bond had been emotional.
Whitney may have influenced them sexually, but he hadn’t created the emotional connection between them. They’d begun to build a foundation. Part of that had been because Gideon’s wounds had prevented him from acting on his desire for her. He had also been very aware of her fear of trusting anyone, and he’d wanted to take it slow with her so she knew he was someone she could count on. Just thinking how he’d let Rory down disgusted him.
Gideon caught the image of faces staring at him. Eyes. Some laughing. Overbright. Streaked red. Others starkly depressed and sorrowful. Flushed faces. Mouths forming smiles. Frowns. Calling out. Heads turned toward one another or toward the front of the bar looking at Rory or another bartender.
The bar was down more than one bartender, and Rory was extremely busy. She was thinking of her customers and each order, keeping them separately in her head, coming up with the most efficient way to make several drinks at once. Prioritizing them. A waitress leaned over the bar and called out more orders. Rory didn’t lose her calm or patience but became even more focused, adding them into her list of drinks to make.
Rory lined up glasses and began pouring syrups and alcohol. Gideon was amazed at how fast her mind worked. She was like a computer, generating recipes and implementing them like a machine on autopilot. Drinks that were the same were done almost as if she were simply making one drink for a single person. If other drinks had ingredients she was using, she poured those.
She had eighteen drinks made in a matter of minutes and sent out to the waitress and customers, then was on to drinks made in blenders. While those drinks were in three different blenders, she was shaking two others. All the while, she was carrying on a conversation with a couple of different people sitting at the bar.
Gideon found the way Rory’s mind worked interesting. She filed away the things the customers said to her as if they were in categories. Things about families. Facts about weather or history or the city. Personal information. Flirting. If they were a repeat customer. Everything said to her was compiled and arranged unconsciously for her use. She responded instinctively, without thought, as she worked.
Gideon tried to feel around her for any threats. While Rory worked, she wasn’t thinking in terms of threats, especially now. Her boss was very upset that she’d turned in her two-weeks’ notice, and a part of her felt guilty for leaving him when she knew he needed her. She was an excellent bartender, and the place was very popular and growing even more so.
Gideon didn’t believe the bar, her friends or anyone else needed Rory as much as he did. He was drowning. He hadn’t known how much until she had come into his life. He’d known things were bad with him. They’d gotten so much worse since he’d been shot. She’d filled all those lonely places and given him laughter. Someone to share life with. Someone to make his life worth living, because he hadn’t been doing a very good job of it.
He felt the moment Mack and Paul found their way to Rory’s section of the bar. It hadn’t been easy to make their way through the dense crowd. With only a couple of bartenders, the customers had realized fairly quickly that she was extremely fast at making drinks for them. Gideon already knew there was no way Paul was going to be successful at reading Rory. She was moving too fast, and they could stand between those customers seated on the barstools for only so long. Others would want to order drinks and expect Mack and Paul to move out of the way once they’d been served.
Mack ordered for both men, engaging with Rory, his voice low, the noise of the crowd nearly swallowing the sound. Gideon should have told him that wouldn’t work to buy them more time with her. She had acute hearing, just as Gideon did.
Paul leaned into the bar, his gaze moving over Rory, hands reaching, palms outward, looking as if he were trying to get to the napkin dispenser. Rory bent slightly toward him as she pushed the napkins closer. At the same time, she gave an icy beer to a man behind him.
Gideon felt Paul’s frustration as he tried to read beneath the surface in the very short time he could before they had to move. She had already stepped back to make the drinks Mack had ordered.