Come Monday Read Free

breathe as they stood spellbound, motionless for one long moment.
    He recovered first, clearing his throat and stepping away. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning then.”
    She nodded, relieved—and oddly disappointed—to be granted so quick a reprieve.
    She turned toward the exit, ready to beat a hasty retreat.
    “Oh and Keira,” he said as she reached to open the door. She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Don’t be late.” His words were spoken lightly, but she sensed a darker, more thrilling underlying meaning. The words or I’ll punish you hovered unspoken between them.
    She held his gaze, nodded once and left.
    * * * * *
    “You’re late,” Tristan called out from behind the bar.
    13
    Mari Carr
    “So fire me,” she yelled back, glad there were at least some perks to working in the family business. She and her siblings could give each other hell for anything and everything at work, but all of them would still be employed in the morning.
    “I was starting to worry about you, Kiki,” her father said as he bustled out of the kitchen with a loaded tray in his hands. He gave her a quick buss on the cheek as he passed and she struggled not to roll her eyes at the pet nickname. She’d broken her siblings of using the annoying name years ago through sheer brute force and now they only used it in the midst of an argument because they knew how much the silly name irritated her.
    “I’m sorry, Pop. Traffic was terrible. What are you doing carrying that heavy tray?” The doctor had issued a serious warning to her father regarding his high blood pressure in his last checkup and, as a result, she was determined to see him working less and resting more. The only reason she’d gotten him to the doctor at all was because he’d had a couple of dizzy spells. It had scared her to death so she’d sicced Teagan, her younger sister on him. Pop couldn’t resist Teagan’s puppy dog eyes or sweet, baby girl pleading.
    To make matters worse, his high cholesterol was giving his off-the-charts blood pressure a run for its money, so the doctor had prescribed medication and a vacation.
    Unfortunately, telling Patrick Collins to relax was sort of like trying to convince the Pope to convert to Scientology.
    “It’s not heavy.”
    She fought back a groan of frustration. Damn man would work himself into an early grave. That thought, as always, scared the hell out of her and she dashed toward the stairs that led to their home above the restaurant. “Let me go throw on my uniform and I’ll take over.”
    “Take your time. I’ve got things in hand here. The real dinner rush is only just starting,” Pop answered, placing food in front of a couple of regulars before coming over to her with the empty tray in his hands.
    14
    Come Monday
    “You’re not supposed to be doing any lifting. Hell, you aren’t supposed to be working at all. I thought we agreed that you’d take a couple of weeks off.”
    “Now don’t you go lecturing me, Kiki. I’m older and wiser than you. That doctor is a flake, trying to get me to spend my hard-earned money on a bunch of useless pills.” This argument was tedious in its redundancy. Patrick Collins was king of the conspiracy theorists, sure everyone from lawyers to doctors to pharmacists were secret government agents dead-set on taking his money.
    He tapped his chest as he spoke and Keira sighed. “Who knows what this body can do? Me, that’s who. This ticker has plenty more mileage on it.” Keira gave in, only because she was anxious to continue the fight in her uniform so at least she could be waiting on the tables and cutting down on some of her father’s workload.
    “Fine, Pop. You win for now. Let me go change and I’ll help you.” As she climbed the stairs to the family’s living quarters, she ran into Sean, her youngest brother, at the door. She loved all her siblings dearly but if forced to decide, she had to admit to a special fondness for the eighteen-year-old Sean. Perhaps it was