Beautiful Sacrifice

  ALSO BY JAMIE MCGUIRE

  Providence (Providence Trilogy: Book One) Requiem (Providence Trilogy: Book Two) Eden (Providence Trilogy: Book Three)

  Beautiful Disaster

  Walking Disaster

  A Beautiful Wedding (A Beautiful Disaster Novella)

  Beautiful Oblivion (Maddox Brothers: Book One) Beautiful Redemption (Maddox Brothers: Book Two)

  Red Hill

  Among Monsters (A Red Hill Novella)

  Happenstance: A Novella Series Happenstance: A Novella Series (Part Two) Happenstance: A Novella Series (Part Three)

  Apolonia

  Copyright (c) 2015 by Jamie McGuire

  All rights reserved.

  Visit my website at www.jamiemcguire.com

  Cover Designer: Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations, www.okaycreations.com

  Editor and Interior Designer: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Too many people in a small room sounded a lot like the roar of a fire--the high and low inflections, the constant and familiar hum that only became louder the closer you got. In the five years that I'd waited tables for Chuck and Phaedra Niles at The Bucksaw Cafe, being around that many impatient, hungry people day after day made me want to torch the place at times. But the lunch crowd wasn't what kept me coming back. It was the comforting drone of conversation, the heat of the kitchen, and the sweet freedom from the bridges I'd burned.

  "Falyn! For fuck's sake!" Chuck said, trying not to sweat in the soup.

  He reached out his hand and stirred the broth in a deep pot. I tossed him a clean rag.

  "How is it this hot in Colorado?" he complained. "I moved here because I'm fat. Fat people don't like to be hot."

  "Then maybe you shouldn't be working over a stove for a living," I said with a smirk.

  The tray felt heavy when I lifted it in my arms but not as heavy as it used to feel. Now, I could carry it with six full plates, if necessary. I backed into the swinging double doors, bumping my butt against them.

  "You're fired," he barked. He wiped his bald head with the white cotton cloth and then tossed it to the center of the prep table.

  "I quit!" I said.

  "That's not funny!" He leaned away from the heat radiating from his station.

  Turning toward the main dining area, I paused in the doorway, seeing all twenty-two tables and twelve barstools filled with professionals, families, tourists, and locals. According to Phaedra, table thirteen even included a bestselling author and her assistant. I leaned over, compensating for the extra weight of the tray, and winked in thanks to Kirby as she opened the stand next to the table where I would set my tray.

  "Thanks, lovey," I said, pulling the first plate.

  I set it in front of Don, my first regular and the best tipper in town. He pushed up his thick glasses and settled into his seat, removing his trademark fedora. Don's khaki jacket was a bit worn, like the dress shirt and tie he wore every day. On slow afternoons, I would listen to him talk about Jesus and how much he missed his wife.

  Kirby's long dark ponytail swished as she bussed a table near the wall of windows. She held a small tub full of dirty dishes against her hip, winking at me as she passed through to the kitchen. She was gone only long enough to drop off the pile of plates and cups for Hector to wash, and then she returned to her hostess podium. Her naturally wine-stained lips turned up at the corners as a light breeze blew through the glass entrance door, propped open by a large geode, one of hundreds Chuck had collected over the years.

  Kirby greeted a group of four men who'd walked in as I attended to Don.

  "Would you cut open that steak for me, handsome?" I asked.

  Don didn't need a menu. He ordered the same meal at every visit--a house salad swimming in ranch, fried pickles, a medium-rare New York strip, and Phaedra's turtle cheesecake--and he wanted all of it at the same time.

  Don complied, tucking his tie between the buttons of his shirt, and with his shaking thin hands, he sawed into the juicy meat on his plate. He looked up and offered a quick nod.

  While he prayed over his food, I left him for just a moment to swipe the pitcher of sweet sun tea off the bar counter. When I returned and picked up his cup, I held the pitcher sideways, so plenty of ice poured out with the light-brown liquid.

  Don took a sip and let out a satisfied sigh. "As I live and breathe, Falyn. I sure love it when Phaedra makes her sun tea."

  His chin was attached to the bottom of his throat with a thin flap of loose skin, and his face and hands were dotted with liver spots. He was a widower, and he'd lost weight since Mary Ann passed.

  I offered a half smile. "I know you do. I'll check on you in a bit."

  "Because you're the best," Don called after me.

  Kirby guided the group of men to my last empty table. All but one man was covered in soot smeared with a day's worth of sweat. The clean one seemed to just be tagging along, his freshly washed hair barely long enough to hang into his eyes. The others looked pleased with their exhaustion, a hard, long shift behind them.

  Only the tourists stared at the ragged men. Locals knew exactly who they were and why they were there. The men's dusty boots and the three bright blue hard hats sitting on their laps, bearing the Department of Agriculture's emblem, made their specialty easy to guess--a hotshot crew, likely the Alpine division out of Estes Park.

  The spot fires had been particularly relentless that season, and it seemed like the Forest Service had dispatched their interagency crews from every district, some as far as Wyoming and South Dakota. Colorado Springs had been hazy for weeks. The smoke from the fires in the north had turned the afternoon sun into a glowing bright red ball of fire. We hadn't seen stars since before my last paycheck.

  I greeted the men with a polite expression. "What are we drinking?"

  "You sure got pretty hair," one of the men said.

  I lowered my chin and cocked an eyebrow.

  "Shut the fuck up and order, Zeke. We'll probably get called back out soon."

  "Damn, Taylor," Zeke said. His frown was then targeted in my direction. "Get him some food, will ya? He gets cranky when he's hungry."

  "I can do that," I said, annoyed with them already.

  Taylor glanced up at me, and for just a moment, I was captured by a pair of warm brown irises. In less than a second, I found something familiar behind his eyes. Then he blinked and returned to his menu.

&
nbsp; Although usually cute, mostly charming, and always with a respectable amount of muscles, men who blew through our town with a dusting of ash on their boots were only to be admired from afar. No self-respecting local girl would be caught dating one of those fascinating, brave tanned young men for two reasons. They were seasonal, and they would leave you behind, pregnant or heartbroken. I'd seen it so many times, and not just with the hotshot crews, but with the airmen passing through, too. To the young men my father referred to as vagrants, the Springs was a buffet of young girls just desperate enough to be fooled into loving someone they knew wouldn't stay.

  I wasn't one of them even if, according to my parents, I was the most educated whore in Colorado Springs.

  "Let's start with drinks." I kept my tone pleasant and my mind on the decent tip the hotshots would usually leave on the table.

  "What do you want, Trex?" Zeke asked the clean one.

  Trex looked at me from under his damp tendrils, all emotion absent from his eyes. "Just a water."

  Zeke put down his menu. "Me, too."

  Taylor glanced up at me again, the white of his eyes practically glowing against the dirt on his face. The warm brown in his irises matched the buzzed hair on his head. Although his eyes were kind, the skin on both of his arms was crowded with various tattoos, and he looked like he'd been through enough to earn every one of them.

  "Do you have sweet tea?" Taylor asked.

  "Yes. Sun tea. Is that okay?"

  He nodded before expectantly watching the man in front of him. "What do you want, Dalton?"

  Dalton sulked. "They don't have Cherry Coke." He looked up at me. "Why doesn't anyone in the whole goddamn state of Colorado have Cherry Coke?"

  Taylor crossed his arms over the table, the muscles of his forearms sliding and tightening under his ink-covered skin. "I've accepted it. You should just accept it, man."

  "I can make you one," I said.

  Dalton tossed his menu on the table. "Just bring me a water," he grumbled. "It's not the same."

  I took their menus and leaned in toward Dalton's face. "You're right. Mine is better."

  As I withdrew, I heard a couple of them giggling like boys.

  One of them said, "Whoa."

  I stopped at Don's table on the way back to the drink station. "You all right?"

  Don hummed, "Yes," while chewing on his steak. He was nearly finished. His other plates, all but the cheesecake, had been scraped clean.

  I patted his bony shoulder and then made my way around the bar. I filled two plastic cups with ice water and one with sweet sun tea, and then I began making Dalton's Cherry Coke.

  Phaedra pushed through the double doors and frowned at the sight of a family standing near Kirby's podium. "There's a wait?" she asked. She dried her hands on the dishtowel she had tied around her waist as an apron.

  Phaedra had been born and raised in Colorado Springs. She and Chuck had met at a concert. She was a full-fledged hippie, and he tried to be one. They would sit in on peace rallies and protest wars, and they were now the owners of the most popular downtown cafe. Urbanspoon had listed The Bucksaw Cafe as its number one pick for lunch, but Phaedra would take it personally when she noticed waiting customers.

  "We can't have great service and no wait. Busy is good," I said, mixing my special cherry syrup into the Coke.

  Phaedra's salt-and-pepper long hair was parted in the middle and pulled back into a wiry bun, and her wrinkled olive skin weighed down her eyes. She was a wisp of a woman, but it wouldn't take long to learn she could be a bear if you crossed her. She preached peace and butterflies, but she'd put up with exactly zero shit.

  Phaedra looked down as she said, "We won't be busy for long if we piss people off." She rushed off to the front door, apologizing to the waiting family and assuring a table soon.

  Table twenty had just signed their check. Phaedra rushed over to thank them and bussed their table, quickly scrubbing it. Then she motioned for Kirby to seat the family.

  I loaded up the drinks on a tray and then carried them across the room. The crew was still looking at the menu. I inwardly grumbled. That meant they hadn't decided.

  "Do you need a minute?" I asked, giving each man his drink.

  "I said a water," Dalton said, holding up his Cherry Coke with a frown.

  "Just try it. If you don't like it, I'll bring you a water."

  He took a sip and then another. His eyes popped open. "She wasn't kidding, Taylor. It's better than the real stuff."

  Taylor looked up at me. "I'll have one, too, then."

  "You got it. Lunch?"

  "We're all having the spicy turkey panini," Taylor said.

  "All of you?" I asked, dubious.

  "All of us," Taylor said, handing me the laminated long sheet.

  "Okay then. I'll be back with your Cherry Coke," I said before leaving them to check on my other tables.

  The dozens of voices in the packed cafe bounced off the windows and came straight back to the bar where I was mixing another Cherry Coke. Kirby rounded the counter, her shoes squeaking against the orange-and-white tiled floor. Phaedra was fond of random--fun portraits, trinkets, and off-color signs. They were all eclectic, like Phaedra.

  "You're welcome," Kirby said, tucking her shirt into her skirt.

  "For the tray stand? I already said thank you."

  "I'm referring to the gaggle of hot firemen I seated in your section."

  Kirby was barely nineteen, baby fat still plumping her cheeks. She'd been dating Gunnar Mott since her sophomore year of high school, so she took extreme pleasure in trying to fix me up with every halfway decent-looking man with a job who walked through the door.

  "No," I said simply. "I'm not interested in any of them, so don't even try your matchmaking crap. And they're hotshots, not firemen."

  "Is there a difference?"

  "Yes, a big one. For starters, they fight wildfires. They hike for miles with huge packs and equipment; they're on the job seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day; they travel to wherever the fire is; and they saw through fallen timber and dig fire lines."

  Kirby stared at me, unimpressed.

  "Do not say anything to them. I mean it," I warned.

  "Why not? All four of them are cute. That makes your odds fairly fantastic."

  "Because you suck at it. You don't even care if they're my type. You just set me up with guys, so you can date them vicariously. Remember the last time you tried to set me up with someone? I was stuck with that slimy tourist for an entire evening."

  "He was so sexy," she said, fantasizing in front of God and everyone.

  "He was boring. All he talked about was himself and the gym ... and himself."

  Kirby ignored my resistance. "You're twenty-four. There is nothing wrong with putting up with an hour of boring conversation to experience three hours of amazing sex."

  "Ew. Ew, no. Stop." I wrinkled my nose and shook my head, involuntarily imagining dirty talk that included the words repetitions and protein. I put Taylor's cup on a tray.

  "Falyn, you're up!" Chuck called from the kitchen.

  I swung by the food window, tray in hand, seeing that table thirteen's order was sitting on the shelf cut out of the wall separating the bar from the kitchen. The heat lamps above warmed my hands as I grabbed each plate and placed them on the tray, and then I rushed the food to the table. The author and her assistant barely noticed as I placed the beef and feta cheese salad and chicken club on the table.

  "Does everything look all right?" I asked.

  The author nodded her head, barely taking a breath while she chatted away. I carried the final Cherry Coke to the hotshot crew, but as I walked away, one of them grabbed my wrist. I looked over my shoulder, glaring at the man with the offending hand.

  Taylor winced at my reaction. "A straw?" He loosened his grip. "Please?" he asked.

  I slowly pulled one from my apron and handed it to him. Then I spun around and checked on the rest of my tables, one after another.

  D
on finished off his cheesecake and left a twenty on the table, as he always did, and the author left twice that. The hotshot crew's signed receipt was merely rounded up to the next dollar.

  I tried not to wad it up and stomp it into the ground. "Dicks," I said under my breath.

  The rest of the afternoon was nonstop, not unlike any other afternoon since the Urbanspoon app had decided to put The Bucksaw Cafe on the foodie map. As the hours passed, I served more firefighters and hotshot crews, and they all left decent tips, as did the rest of my tables, but I couldn't shake the bitterness for Taylor, Zeke, Dalton, and Trex.

  Fifty-one cents. I should hunt them down and throw the change at them.

  The streetlights shone down on those walking past the diner to the two-story country-western bar four buildings down. Young women, most barely twenty-one, trotted along in groups, wearing short skirts and tall boots, as they enjoyed the summer night air--not that August had the corner on skin-baring clothes. Most locals would shed their layers for anything over forty degrees.

  I flipped the sign on the door, so the word Closed faced the sidewalk, but I leaped back when a face loomed over me from the other side. It was Taylor, the hotshot crew guy and piss-poor tipper. Before my brain had time to stop my expression, I narrowed my eyes and sneered.

  Taylor held out his hands, his voice muffled from the glass. "I know. Hey, I'm sorry. I was going to leave cash, but we were called out, and I forgot. I should have known better than to come into town while we were on call, but I was sick of the food at the hotel."

  I barely recognized him without the seven layers of grime. Wearing clean clothes, he could have been mistaken for someone I might actually find attractive.

  "Don't worry about it," I said, turning for the kitchen.

  Taylor pounded on the glass. "Hey! Lady!"

  Deliberately slow, I faced him, craning my neck. "Lady?" I nearly spit the word.

  Taylor lowered his hands and then shoved them in his pockets. "Just open the door, so I can tip you. You're making me feel bad."

  "You should!" I spun around in a huff to see Phaedra, Chuck, and Kirby behind me, all far too amused with the situation. "A little help here?"

  They all shared the same smug expression, and I rolled my eyes, facing Taylor once again.

  "I appreciate the gesture, but we're closed," I said.

  "Then I'll tip you double when I come back."

  I dismissively shook my head. "Whatever."

  "Maybe I could, uh ... take you out to dinner? Kill two birds with one stone."