Chapter 1

Plugging the last tap, Heidi massaged her lower back and scanned the bar.

Arcade machines: off. Chairs: stacked or flipped. Trash cans: emptied. Dishwashers: running. Kegs and taps: refreshed, turned off, or plugged according to the manager’s notes.

The last customer had left ten minutes prior. He’d slid a bill across the counter after watching her get halfway through the list and offered to lock the door on his way out. It had helped, knowing the door was locked, and she’d made quick work of her tasks.

Satisfied, she gave the bar one last wipe down and knocked on the manager’s office door. “Hallo?”

Silence.

Frowning, she knocked again before opening the door to peer in. The manager, John, was bent over the desk, his head resting on meaty arms and drool dangling from his lower lip.

“John?”

John snored.

“Gott in Himmel.”

Heidi slammed the door open into the filing cabinet with a loud clap . John startled awake, wiping drool from his chin. He blinked groggily at the office, the black cat clock on the wall, and finally, Heidi. “Have a good nap?”

His expression sharpened into something mean, and he rose with a stretch, pushing the rolling chair away with the back of his knees. A wide yawn cracked his jaw, and he scratched the rounded strip of belly revealed by the lift of his worn, yellowed shirt.

“You already done?”

he asked, smacking his lips.

“I am,”

she confirmed. “I followed your list exactly and restocked the women’s restroom as well.”

“With what?”

Heidi clenched a fist behind her back to calm herself. She needed this job desperately . Her travel visa expired in less than three weeks, and if she had not found a company, any company, willing to sponsor her work visa, she would have to return home where nothing but terrible memories awaited. Were that not the case, she would tell John exactly what she thought of his skills as a bar manager and potential boss. Instead, she answered in a level voice, “Supplies.”

“Like … toilet paper?”

Gott im Himmel, this man.

“And feminine products. I found them in the cleaning closet and assumed the empty basket and jar were for them.”

“Oh,”

John said. “Right. I s’pose one of the girls brought ‘em in. You’ll have to replace what you took.”

“I did not take?—”

“The bar didn’t buy ‘em.”

He shrugged and lumbered for the door. Heidi pressed against the frame as he squeezed by, holding her breath to avoid inhaling his sour pickle stench.

John wandered the bar, correcting the angle of a flipped chair, picking at a bit of gum worn into the carpet and stained black from the years, and checking every tap. Heidi bit her tongue, following silently behind. She was not sure exactly when she realized what was about to happen, only that, at some point, it had become painfully obvious.

As the Americans put it, she was getting screwed.

“You did alright,”

John said at the door, twisting the knob to unlock it. “But I can’t take a risk on someone who makes junior mistakes.”

“That gum has been there for as long as I have been alive.”

Heidi pointed at the offending stain, as much a part of the bar as the jukebox was.

“Sure, but you forgot to compost the drip trays.”

“I— what .”

Heidi blinked rapidly, too stunned to argue.

“This is an organic bar.”

John shoved the door open and gestured for her to leave. “I’m not sure how you handle these things in your country, but here in America, we’re proud of our reduce-reuse-recycle lifestyle.”

“Germany is the leading nation in bio-waste and composting!”

“Germany is the leader in a lot of things,”

he sneered, pressing a hand against her rear and pushing Heidi through the door. “Is taking a hint one of ‘em?”

“B-but—”

She grabbed the rail to keep from tripping down the steps. “I worked my shift perfectly. I followed your list perfectly. I trained as a bar manager at Oktoberfest; you will not find a better bartender!”

“No,”

he admitted, “but I’ll find a cheaper one.”

He leered at her chest. “Maybe not as sweet lookin’, but likely more amenable.”

“You … you arschloch! ”

“Don’t know what that means, Blondie,”

he said. “Don’t care. Thanks for closing the bar for me.”

And with that, he slammed the door in her face.

“You owe me for my time!”

Heidi pounded on the door. Glass rattled in the pane, and behind her furious reflection, John grinned. “I worked a full shift!”

“A trial shift,”

he laughed and walked away.

“Verpiss dich!”

Heidi kicked the door, cursing again as pain rocketed up her leg. She grabbed her foot, hopping around and spitting like a feral cat, and froze as she spotted her last customer standing on the sidewalk.

Tall, in an unbuttoned flannel over a worn band t-shirt, he watched Heidi with an amused smirk. “My German is rusty,”

he said, “but did you just tell John to ‘fuck off’?”

“I did.”

She plopped onto the top step, bending her leg over a knee and rubbing her toes. “He deserved it.”

The man laughed, throwing his head back with abandon. The gas lamps along Black Mountain’s main street caught in his nut-brown hair, painting swathes of caramel and cinnamon in the strands. “Fantastic.”

“I do not see what is fantastic about this.”

She pointed at the door and the dark, perfectly closed-down bar behind her. “That man just swindled me out of a full shift’s pay.”

“Yeah, he does that.”

“‘He does that’?”

she mocked. “Is this behavior so well known that the local drunks are aware, and yet nobody does anything?”

His smile fled, and he crossed his arms. “Not a drunk.”

“No, just another concerned citizen unwilling to help.”

“Hey now?—”

“No, thank you.”

She rose, pinching her lips to hide a wince. Had she broken her toe? The door frame was solid oak, and twenty years of Deutscher Fu?ball training had powered that kick.

“Just bruised,”

the man said.

Heidi halted on the bottommost step. “Come again?”

“Your toe.”

He pointed at her foot. “It’s gonna have a nasty bruise.”

“Oh.”

“And I’m not a drunk,”

he added, the words tinged with bitterness.

“No, you tipped me five dollars for a ginger ale you did not drink.”

Descending to the sidewalk, Heidi kept a wide berth as she walked around him. “Thank you, and Guten Abend.”

She felt his eyes on her back as she trudged up the road, but refused to grant him a glance back. Her motel was a twelve-minute walk away, eight if she caught the lights and kept up a quick pace. Just off the downtown, it was a cheap roadside lodging tucked between an elementary school and a tractor supply store. It was not the worst place she had slept since buying the cheapest plane ticket out of Munich, far from the best, truly, but it would be the last bed she slept in for a good long while if she did not find a job.

Ninety days. How was it this hard to find someone willing to sponsor a visa when she had been trying non-stop for ninety days?

“Politics,”

the man said. Heidi tripped over her own feet, and he caught her by the elbow, his grip firm but gentle.

“Come again?”

He opened his mouth, eyes dancing over her face, then closed it as he thought better of whatever he was going to say. She jerked her arm away and stepped into the street, stopping halfway as he said, “Finding a job in a small mountain town can be hard, ‘specially for foreigners. It’s all politics.”

“Of course.”

Heidi dropped her head back. What was it about men desiring the sound of their own voices? Because mein Gott was Heidi tired of his. “This must be the world-famous American xenophobia I have heard so much about.”

She spun as she spoke, leveling her words straight at him with all the bitterness she could muster.

But he was not looking at her. His attention had strayed over her shoulder, dark eyes wide. Heidi followed his gaze, only to be blinded by the high beams of a truck barreling down the road. It swerved across the lanes, tires bouncing off the curb and sending it careening straight toward her. Her stomach turned to lead. All she could do was brace herself for the impact.

A heavy weight barreled into her side, and she landed hard in grass, damp soaking the back of her legs and arms. Stars burst in her eyes; the breath knocked from her lungs.

“Are you alright?”

The man braced the back of her head with a hand, his arm banded around her lower back, almost as if she’d been caught…or carried? “Miss?”

“Ja,”

she wheezed. “I am fine.”

“Are you sure?”

He searched her face, eyes dropping to her mouth and settling somewhere near her ear. His weight lessened, but not his hold. If anything, the arm around her back squeezed tighter, pressing Heidi against the firm plane of his chest as the dark pools of his eyes shallowed out. He held her there, posture alarmingly still. Not a breath, not a beat of his heart?—

That is insane. Why would I feel the beat of his heart? The thought jarred Heidi from her daze, and awareness flooded her body everywhere they touched. Legs tangled, her stomach flush against his hip. His flannel draped over her arms like a cape, cocooning her in a pine and bergamot musk.

She cleared her throat, wriggling her hips, and the moment snapped.

As quickly as he’d caught—or carried?—her, the stranger was on his feet and out of arm’s reach, leaving Heidi lying in the damp grass. “May I walk you home?”

“Come again.”

“Home or to your hotel,”

he said. “Please don’t tell me you’re sleeping in a tent under the freeway.”

“Ew.”

She scrambled to her feet, wavering as the blood rushed from her head. He reached out, and she was half afraid he would catch her in his arms again. Not that it was terrible. The opposite, really, but she did not know the man and had not made a habit of rolling around with strangers in the grass. In the middle of town, no less. “No, thank you.”

“I’d really feel better if you let me walk you home.”

“I am not concerned with how you feel.”

She tightened her ponytail, sweeping the long length over her shoulder.

“Then what are you concerned with?”

He stepped closer, voice taking on a low, pleasing tone. Heidi stilled, her body angling toward him. “You must need something.”

The world vanished. Streetlights dimming and sound muting until everything was encompassed by him. Tall, broad-shouldered.

Clearly fit from how hard his body felt pressed against hers. His hair, thick and dark, fell in the soft waves of an overgrown haircut, curling against the collar of his flannel.

Heat flooded her chest, dripping down her arms. How would it feel to lie tangled with him again? Skin to skin, her warmth and softness against his hard, chilled?

—