Page 10 of Priceless (Return to Culloden Moor #7)
CHAPTER TEN
T he staff of Jocko’s Public House had been acting odd since they’d opened that morning. A bit too cheerful. Sometimes nervous. As if they had a large private party booked but no preparations to keep them busy.
Jacob had to tell Dougie to stop whistlin’ more than a dozen times. It wasn’t that it bothered him, but customers didn’t appreciate the solemn dirges that seemed to be the bulk of his playlist that day.
Later in the afternoon, he caught Vonnie coming down the hall from the loo and stepped in her path. “Has Dougie been to a funeral that I didn’t know about?”
Her eyes popped more than usual, then she looked away and shrugged. “Maybe he’s been watchin’ sad movies. Ye’ll have to ask him—wait, no. Dinnae ask him. Might bring him down even more. Just… I’ll go put on some nice céilidh music, shall I?”
Jacob nodded, though she hurried off without waiting for an answer. Too suspicious by half.
He used the loo himself, and when he came out again, the place was silent as the grave.
No customers at the moment. And not only had Vonnie failed to turn on dancing music, she’d turned off the low background tunes altogether.
In the bar itself, it seemed all his employees had decided to take a break together and settled themselves at the tables, including those who were expected for the evening shift.
Cooks, barkeeps, and waitstaff. Thirteen in all.
On the door, Vonnie hung the special sign they used when the pub had been let for a private party. But there was no private party. The hard knock of the bolt turning in the door finally did the trick, however, and Jacob realized they’d planned something on their own.
“’Tisn’t my birthday, ye ken.”
Vonnie turned to smile at him. “We ken it. Do ye see a cake anywhere?”
He shook his head and looked at the others. Brandon, the lad who washed the dishes and bussed tables, had been with them for half a year. He was the only one who suddenly couldn’t look him in the eye. The others stared him down no problem.
Dougie seemed upset, but he had nothing to say.
Jacob glanced at the clock on the distant wall.
It was a tiny, rusted thing that hung in the shadows and kept his customers from keeping close track of time.
Three o’clock, if his eyes could be trusted.
The next hour was the slowest of the day, so he wouldn’t be losing too much custom by barring the door for a wee while.
He reckoned he knew what this was about. He’d been riding them all fairly hard for two weeks, and they’d reached their limit. If he didn’t sit still and take his lumps, he might lose some very fine people who were now family to him.
Instead of presuming to know their complaints and trying to stop the show, he pulled out a chair, sat, then folded his arms and let them do their worst. When they looked among themselves for a brave soul to speak first, he gave them a wee nudge.
“Go on, then. I’m listenin’.”
Five feet from him, Vonnie heaved a heavy sigh as she pulled out a chair, turned it, then sat facing him with her arms resting on the back. “We ken what’s goin’ on, Jacob.”
Jacob? They never called him Jacob. So, he reckoned they must think his conduct of late was more than insulting. But that wasn’t what she’d said. Hadn’t said they had a bone to pick with him. She’d said they knew what was going on , which stole the smile from his lips.
How could any of them know?
No one had access to his phone. No one had access to his computer, except for Vonnie and Lars, who had to do the ordering if he wasn’t able or wasn’t in town.
Jacob narrowed his eyes. “Have ye been on my computer?”
“Auch, lordie,” groaned Mary, one of the waitresses. “I’m goin’ to boak.”
His hand shot up. “Wait! There’s nothing on my computer—I mean to say I’m not hiding anything. I don’t have… porn …on my computer, arright?” He was shouting by the end.
“Jacob,” Vonnie began again, but couldn’t complete whatever she wanted to say.
“Jinks, Vonnie. What is it ye think ye know?”
“Ye’ve been a prick,” Dougie shouted, as if he’d been practicing his line for a while now and was anxious to have his part done.
Jacob inhaled deeply, nodding as he did so. “I have. And I’m sorry for it. My mind… I’ve been distracted. Not payin’ attention?—”
“Because of the droogs,” Vonnie finished for him.
Drugs? A giant bubble of laughter rose and burst from him all at a go. “Drugs?” He grinned. “Ye think I’ve taken up drugs, at my age?”
Dougie scowled. “What has age got to do with it?”
Jacob shook his head. “Ye reckon I’d ruin my life now? ”
Vonnie shrugged. “Ye never ken. Old people get…” She gestured to his body in general. “Pains, in all sorts of places.”
He swallowed the insult, but it came back up again. “I’m nay old!”
The entire staff winced at the volume. Mary put her hands over her ears.
Trenton held out his hands as if he were presenting Jacob with a giant platter covered with proof. “Ye started it. Ye said, at my age .”
“My age? I’m not yet sixty, laddie. Not old, but old enough…” Implying that he was old enough to kick Trenton’s arse and every other arse in the room if need be.
“Right, then,” Vonnie said, in her sweetest voice, which was also her scariest voice. “We’ll all calm doon now and have a quiet chat, aye?”
Everyone nodded, just as their customers always nodded when she adopted that tone.
There was a sign just inside the door that read, “By entering this establishment, ye implicitly accept the fact that the staff might need to toss ye oot on yer arse VIA YER EAR.” And in the corner of that sign was a photograph of Vonnie, who had bright pink hair at the time it was taken.
The look on her face was a mix of fury and glee as she held tight to the ear of a ginger man whose face wasn’t in the frame. But everyone in town knew it was Milty Lang who’d nearly lost his hearing in that ear, when he’d tried to resist.
Milty hadn’t been back since.
The lass had no respect for that part of the human anatomy, and she knew that grabbing a man’s, or a woman’s ear could make them compliant as a child.
And it was her ear-snatching skills that kept the locals in line, even when they were blind drunk.
In fact, the mirror behind the bar hadn’t been broken for two full years.
Not many “non-tourist” pubs in Inverness could boast the same. Maybe a hundred in the whole of Scotland.
“We’ll start at the beginning, then, shall we?” Vonnie resumed her naturally brash voice and the rest of the room relaxed. “Ye’ve been an arse. Ye’ve made us clean like…like ye might be sellin’ the place?—"
“Is that it?” Trenton interrupted. “Gamblin’? Have ye lost the pub playin’—”
“He’s a shite gambler,” Vonnie interrupted. “He’d know better. But…it would explain the temper?—”
“Temper?” Jacob took another deep breath to keep from jumping out of his chair and shaking them all silly. “I’ve never shown a temper!”
The eye rolls proved him a liar.
He closed his own eyes and prayed for patience. If they thought they could bully him into spilling his guts, they thought wrong. “I apologize if?—”
“If?”
“I apologize for my short temper. It willnae happen again.”
Vonnie’s eyes narrowed. “And why is that? How do ye know?”
If he wasn’t careful, she’d trick everything out of him. “Because I will be more mindful.”
They all looked doubtful, but Jacob knew he wouldn’t need to be testy anymore. On Thursday, he’d be happy as a dog with two tails. But his well-meaning team had their own theories, and shouted them out.
“Because he’s already sold the pub!”
“I havenae sold the pub?—”
“Maybe we can save it with one of those Go Fund Me pages.”
“It worked in that movie ? —”
“Maybe he’s goin’ to start therapy!”
“Aye! Anger management, is it?”
“Nay. He’s happy now that his horse has come in.”
“I’m not gamblin’!” His arse came out of the chair, no stopping it. “I’m in love, damn ye!”
When the staff found their tongues again, all he heard were variations on the eff word. He shook his head and headed for the stairs, then thought better of it and marched for the door. Before stepping outside, he paused.
“The first one to invoke Widow Woodbrey’s name loses their job.” He then struck out for the islands once again—a place where he could pace and snort and curse with no one to pester him.