Page 12 of Deathmarch

Allie scrolled on her phone and ignored them.

“Is she back for another bicycle?” Zoey, Brittany’s second-in-command, asked, and that set them off.

Allie gritted her teeth.Embarrassment cannot kill a person. It can’t. That’s a scientific fact.

“Hey, Allie!”Dakota, the third wannabe celebutante, called over. “Are you looking for the town dump?”

Are you looking for another football player to blow under the bleachers?Allie could have asked, but she didn’t.

While the daughter of the president of the golf club could bully her in public, Allie’s role was to be silent. If she responded with something equally nasty, it’d get back to the Historical Society by morning, and she would lose her gig, the current version of being sent to the principal’s office and getting detention.

Brittany added, “Need directions?”

They all laughed way too hard at that, drunk, or at least tipsy. Probably coming from a party, the kind Allie would never have been invited to ten years ago, or now.

The women were still laughing and whispering whenKennan Finnegan strode into the pub, because what Allie needed at that moment was another Finnegan.

He was freshly home from the Marines, according to his mother. He looked it, with an out-of-place tan at the end of winter, crew-cut hair, built shoulders, and mess-with-me-at-your-own-risk gaze.

“Kennan!” Brittany flashed her homecoming queen smile. “Is Harper going to be here tonight?”

“Not that I know of.”

Zoey and Dakota immediately surrounded him, touching at every chance, just about throwing panties at Kennan.

He disengaged without showing the slightest interest, scanned the room until he found Allie, then he strode straight over. He let the disapproval show in his eyes as he checked out her boots.

“Allie.”

“Kennan.” She tilted her head and smiled sweetly. “Did your mother call you in to make sure I don’t steal the saltshakers?”

She was normally better at biting her tongue, but she was cold and tired and hungry. She was entitled to a moment of crankiness.

The right corner of his mouth twitched. “Sally can’t come in because of the snow. I’m going to help out. But, yes, I was advised that you were here.” He paused. “What did Harper say?”

“Told me to put my dinner on his tab.”

Kennan watched her as if sensing a faint whiff of bullshit, but then he nodded. And then he walked away from her with the sure stride of a soldier on a mission, disappearing through the swinging doors of the kitchen.

Okay, then. Finnegans encountered. No permanent damage suffered.

Not that she could put them from her mind. Kennan was back in a minute with Allie’s food and water. “Enjoy your meal. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thanks.”

Allie dug in and watched as he brought out a much larger order, all wrapped up and bagged.

“Who’s driving?” he asked the waiting women who’d been whispering at the entrance.

“Me.” Brittany stepped forward with a seductive smile, stopping close enough to Kennan to be kissed, for which Kennan showed zero inclination.

He held the food out to the side, out of Brittany’s reach. “Are you saying there’s nobody sober out there waiting in the car?”

“Just me and my girls.” Britany pushed her boobs out. “Want to come with us?”

Kennan walked away and stashed their order behind the bar. “You can have the food when your Uber gets here.”

The smile slid off Brittany’s face real fast. “That’s a two-hundred-dollar order. People are waiting for that.”