Moira Rogers: Crux

“Yeah, he called me this morning.” She lifted a heavy-looking paper sack. “I brought some things. Can I come in?”

“Of course. But you didn’t need to bring me anything. Really, Nick, it’s enough that you let me stay here last night.”

“Oh, it isn’t much.” Nick dropped the sack on the counter and started to unload it. “Just a few staples. Did you sleep well?”

Mackenzie’s eyes darted guiltily to the couch and back. “I did. It’s a beautiful apartment. But I told Jackson I’d find someplace else to stay tonight, so you really don’t have to—” She watched helplessly as Nick pulled milk out of the bag and set it in the fridge. “I can’t pay you enough to stay here.”

Nick wrinkled her nose and straightened her red tank top. “Don’t worry about that. The place is just sitting here, empty.”

It was the same easy, casual way Jackson had offered help, and it was too good to be true. “Nick, I’m serious. You’ve already done so much.”

The short woman heaved a sigh and pulled a bag of coffee out of the grocery sack. She seemed pensive as she rinsed the carafe from the coffee maker. “Okay, fair enough. How about if I don’t pay you? You can work for tips and stay here, keep an eye on the place.”

Mackenzie finally asked the one question she’d been wondering since Jackson had taken an interest in her welfare the night before. “Why?”

Nick leaned against the cabinets and tapped manicured nails on the countertop. “Honestly? You seem like you need help. If I have the means to provide it but choose not to, what does that say about me?” She pulled a charm-style keychain from her pocket and held it out. On the ring was a single key. “Let me do this. That way, I won’t feel like a complete drain on society.”

The simple honesty of the statement soothed Mackenzie’s suspicions like nothing else had. She walked into the kitchen and accepted the key. “Okay. I’ll work for tips and keep an eye on the place.” It was more than she’d been paying for the cheap hotel, but not nearly as much as she should have paid. Nick had to have known the bulk of Mackenzie’s income came from tips, anyway, and losing her hourly wage wouldn’t make much of a difference.

“All right, then.” Nick opened a cabinet and pulled out two oversized mugs. “Want a café au lait?”

“Sure.” Mackenzie retrieved the milk from the fridge, noting that Nick had also brought vegetables, fruit and cheese. “Is Jackson an investigator or something? He’s pretty good at following people without getting noticed.” She tried to sound subtle, but had a feeling she’d failed.

Nick’s grin confirmed her suspicions. “Yeah, he’s a private investigator. He and his partner, Alec, spend a lot of time at the bar. Jackson was close to the lady who owned it before me.” She bit her lip, suddenly looking contrite. “I’m sorry I had him follow you, but I didn’t really believe you when you said you had a place to stay. It was wrong of me, but I was worried.”

“It was a little startling.” As if the sheer panic that had gripped her the night before could be considered “a little” anything. “He was a perfect gentleman, though, once he stopped stalking me in the shadows and all.”

“He usually is.” Nick eyed Mackenzie shrewdly. “Quite the looker too, hmm?”

Mackenzie felt the corner of her mouth quirk up, and was almost surprised she could still smile. It was real, not one of the fake ones she plastered on while working. “You seem to have a lot of lookers hanging out in your bar.”

Nick hooted as she filled a small pan with milk and set it on the range over gentle heat. “That’s an understatement. My bar is chock-full of hot men, that’s what it is. I should start advertising that way.”

“The women would never leave.” Mackenzie relaxed more and found herself praying the car she’d abandoned outside of Memphis held the key to how Marcus had been tracking her. Maybe the nightmare would be over for a while. She could catch her breath and try to make sense of the shambles of her life.

More than that, Mackenzie wondered if this was the kind of place she could stay. It was easy to imagine being friends with Nick, working at the bar, maybe even finding a place where she could get a job giving dance lessons again. And maybe get to know Jackson…

Nick filled two of the mugs half full of coffee and slowly added the heated milk. “Mahalia’s could be the first official New Orleans meat market. Wouldn’t my father just love that?”

Mackenzie reached out for the mug that Nick proffered. “Your father doesn’t like you owning a bar?” Mackenzie’s father had paid for her to go to bartending school, reasoning that anyone with a fine arts degree in dance should have something to fall back on. Her parents hadn’t been wild about her career choice, but they’d been supportive.

Nick snorted and shook her head. “He thinks I should be heading museum committees in Manhattan and looking for the perfect society husband, not running a watering hole in the French Quarter.”

“That must be rough.” She said it because she wasn’t sure what else to say. Growing up in suburban South Dakota had hardly prepared her to discuss the foibles of high society, which was obviously where Nick had come from. Somehow Mackenzie doubted that the way her adoptive parents had spoiled her growing up would be considered ostentatious by a woman whose destiny had included museum committees.

Nick just waved a hand as she carried her mug to the small round table in the middle of the bright yellow kitchen. “It isn’t rough, and if I ever say it is, smack me. When you’ve had everything you’ve ever wanted, whining about your life is just bratty.”

“Hey, it’s still hard. My parents weren’t exactly thrilled when their daughter decided she wanted to study dance instead of engineering like her father. But they still helped me find the money to do it.” And somewhere in the apartment she’d abandoned was a picture of her parents at her graduation, her mother already frail from the cancer that would kill her two months later but beaming with so much pride.

Nick’s mouth curved into a slight frown. “They’re not around anymore?”

“No. They were older when they adopted me. My dad was almost forty-five already. My mom was younger, but when she got sick the stress was horrible on both of them…” Mackenzie let her voice trail off and shrugged one shoulder. “She got to see me graduate, though. Then she made my dad pay for bartending school so I’d have a way to eat while I tried to make a living dancing. And my dad came to every dance audition I had until the day he died.”

“They sound wonderful.”

“They were.” And the thought of how desperately she could have used her mother’s unwavering affection and her father’s pragmatic good sense over the past month was going to reduce her to tears if she didn’t change the subject. “I was really lucky. Even when they didn’t agree with me, they always supported me.”

“Who needs parental support when you have a bar full good-looking men?” Nick proved herself plenty intuitive with a swift subject change. “Speaking of… What did you think of Jackson? Besides being blown over by his keen investigative skills, that is?”

“He was nice.” She dropped into the chair across from Nick and tucked her feet under her. “Like I said, a perfect gentleman. Don’t meet a lot of those these days.”

Nick nodded too casually and played with the end of her ponytail. “I try not to keep them around if they don’t have any manners. But Jackson’s a good egg. His partner is too, though not nearly as…affable.” She sipped her coffee. “I let them run up a huge tab at the bar. That way, whenever I need something, they have to pony up ’cause they owe me. It’s Machiavellian, isn’t it?”