Read Cormac for Free Online

entire family at home—before she had any opportunity to pass the
platters beyond her. Well, her dad could eat this much and more. He’d eat this
as a snack.
    “Are you enjoying working here?” Nodding at
Mr. Harrison, she told him she loved it, but wasn’t sure if she was going to
continue. “And why not? I’m telling you right now, if you cooked like this
every day, there wouldn’t ever be an empty seat in this place. This is
amazing.”
    “It’s just potatoes and pork chops.” He
laughed, and she felt her face heat up. “That other woman—Martha—she said that
she’s in charge of the kitchen and that she was going to talk to Storm about
me. I think she made that mess you helped me clean up to show her that I’d done
it. I promise you that I didn’t do anything to her other than my job.”
    Mrs. Harrison laughed as she spoke. “We all
know that, even Storm does. And Martha said that to her. Right before we got
here, Martha called Stormy and told her that you had this fit, and that you had
completely messed up her kitchen. That’d you’d broken her things and that she
would not work with you again. That you needed to be fired. Stupid woman.” Mrs.
Harrison handed her a thick slice of cornbread, and Andi took it as the older
woman continued. “She has no idea that my husband and sons were here when she
left, and that Stormy knows that you had nothing to do with it. I’m thinking
that you’re going to be in charge soon. Oh, and Billy—Billy Richards—he’s the
manager of this place, also a doctor. He comes here, waits tables, to get to
know the men and women that come in to see if they need him. It’s been working
well for all of them, I think.”
    “I see.” She really didn’t, but glanced down
the long table at the man that had scared her. He was looking right back at her,
and no matter how hard she tried Andi couldn’t seem to pull her eyes from him. And
when one of his brothers spoke to him and he looked at them, Andi bowed her
head and let out a long breath.
    “He’s very handsome, isn’t he?” Andi looked
at Mrs. Harrison when she spoke low to her. “Stormy told me what happened in
the kitchen. I guess we should have expected it to happen soon.”
    “Happen? What happened?” When she only smiled
at her, Andi looked down the table at Mac again. But she saw a movement out of
the corner of her eye that had her looking at the door. Her brother. Andi stood
up when he pounded on the door.
    “I have to go.” Everyone stood as well, and
she noticed in a vague sort of way that Storm had a gun and so did the man
seated next to her. They didn’t raise them up, but they looked like they could
at a second’s notice. “I have to go now. It’s my brother, and he’s going to
come in here.”
    “Like hell he will.” When she turned to move
toward the back door, Mac was suddenly in front of her. Backing away from him
was impossible with the table behind her, and he managed to wrap her up in his
arms before she could tell him to stop. “Come on, we’ll go out the back and
Storm and Riordan will take care of him.”
    “He wants me. And he’ll stop at nothing to
get me if that’s what Dad told him to do. Jim is…he needs to do what he’s told
or he gets into trouble.” Mac only laughed. As she was led through the kitchen
to the back door, she heard the front door open and Storm talking…well, talking wasn’t the term she would have used, but yelling at Jim. “I have to go or he’ll
catch me.”
    “He’s not going to touch you. No one is.”
    He was dragging her to a car…a sleek,
expensive-looking car…and she was in the passenger side and buckled in before she
could protest. When Mac got in on the other side, he started the car and turned
to back out. But he only stared at her.
    “I’d like to kiss you right now.”
    “Me?” He nodded, his arm still on the back of
her seat, his other hand on the steering wheel. “Do you think that it’ll make
my brother go away or