The music was still as loud, the hands were still as gropey, and the looks at her breasts were still as leery, but two weeks later Charlie found she could get through her shift at The Silver Palace with a smile.

Okay, maybe not a smile, but at least without a grimace.

Things were finally, finally looking up. Yes, she was still exhausted. Yes, she was still working almost a hundred hours a week between all her various jobs. But she had been able to make this month’s payment for Dad’s treatment center, even with the added costs from his fall and Mama staying with him what ended up being three nights rather than two.

Charlie had gotten into a pattern, so cleaning was something she could do almost remotely. All she had to do was show up and her body took over. The vacuum didn’t care if she was eighty percent asleep as she used it. And Mack had been pleased with her work, or at least at the amount of money he was saving, so he’d offered her more hours.

Most importantly, she’d had seven different tutoring jobs in the last two weeks—four with Ethan and three with other families. It was going so well it almost made her giddy. Already she could see a true change in Ethan. His attitude toward reading and his own abilities had completely shifted. The kid was so smart. At first, she’d helped him develop the different codes and patterns to use to replace sight words for reading. Now his brain could visualize an image rather than the letters that were so confusing to him.

Once he’d understood the concept, Ethan had run with it. The last time they’d met two days ago, he’d written an entire short book by himself with his different codes and patterns.

Maybe nobody else could read it, but the important thing was, Ethan could. In essence it was a sort of hieroglyphics, patterns and shapes on paper forming a method of written communication easier for his brain to understand.

Admittedly, they were still a long way off from him being able to read regular books at grade level, but it was a start. And it was an educational method—at least the part about writing their own books—that Charlie had developed for her master’s thesis. She’d studied the tie between educational ownership/confidence and reading ability, the concept that a child was more likely to want to read something they’d written and developed themselves. Once they had, their confidence would improve, and therefore their reading ability would also.

What she’d explored in theory in her master’s thesis was now being proven correct in practice.

It was the most wonderful feeling in the world.

“You’ve got really pretty titties. You should be a dancer.” A drunken voice pulled her out of her thoughts.

All Charlie had to do was not kill anybody and everything would be all right. A frat boy was resting his chin on his arms at the bar. She hoped the bouncer checked his ID at the door because he barely looked twenty-one. “Well, sweetheart, somebody has to serve the drinks. What can I get you?”

The kid’s gaze didn’t move from her breasts. “DVR.”

Double vodka Red Bull. Great. Do stupid things faster.

She made the beverage before moving to the station printer, which was spitting out another drink order from a waitress. It was a Tuesday night and shouldn’t be this busy, but April, the third bartender, hadn’t shown up for her shift again. Heather had, but two of her three kids were sick, and she’d spent half the night on the phone with the babysitter.

Busy was good, it meant more tips, but so busy you couldn’t get orders out meant watching those tips disappear. It was frustrating for everyone on all levels.

“Charlie, I’m going to have to leave,” Heather said around ten. “Both my kids are throwing up and the babysitter refuses to stay. I’ve called everyone I know, including my miserable ex. Nobody is available.”

They were pouring drinks as they talked. Charlie knew Heather wasn’t faking. Like her, Heather would never leave when it was so busy. There was too much potential for making tips.

“Mack is going to kill me. I told him I could come in, and now he’s going to get a ton of complaints.”

“It’s not your fault. April is the one who didn’t show up for her shift. I’m sure she’s already fired.” Which wasn’t going to help them now.

Heather looked over at Charlie, tears in her eyes. “You’re never going to be able to handle this on your own. Plus, Rocco has a VIP group in the back. Nobody’s supposed to go in there, but it will need to be cleaned at the end of the night. They prepaid for everything.”

Charlie slid a beer to a guy at the end of the bar without even looking at him. “I know you wouldn’t leave me if you had any other choice. Not to mention it’s not some national crisis if people need to wait a few extra minutes for some drinks. Your kids are more important. They need their mom.”

It was clear Heather was thankful Charlie understood. And she did. But an hour later, Charlie was wishing she was the one vomiting so she wouldn’t have to deal with all the angry customers, waitresses, and dancers. Everyone was pissed, and it was all directed at Charlie.

She only had two goddamn hands.

“Excuse me, I was supposed to talk to someone named Charlie about possibly tending bar here. Mack said Tuesday was a good night to come by.” The voice of the tall, slender woman at the end of the bar was so quiet Charlie almost didn’t hear her when she walked by. She totally didn’t have time for this.

“Normally it would be, but not tonight. Sorry.” Charlie spared a glance from the tray of drinks she was preparing.

Something desperate flew through the woman’s big gray eyes before she blinked it away. “I understand. Thanks for your time,” the woman said just as quietly as she had the first time. She turned away.

Charlie rubbed an exhausted hand across her forehead. Damn it, she understood that look. Hell, if she was going to turn someone away who had it in their eyes.

“Hey!” she called out to the woman, who turned back with something akin to fear in her eyes. “You ever bartended before?”

The woman shook her head no.

Great. Damn Mack for not vetting potential employees before sending them to her.

“Can you start tonight?” Charlie asked. “Like right now?”

The woman nodded. Charlie reached into a cabinet underneath the register and pulled out one of the obnoxious Silver Palace mesh tank tops. She threw it at the woman.

“Put this on. We’ll keep you on simple stuff tonight.” She could at least pour beer and make easy cocktails. “What’s your name?”

“Jordan Reiss.”

Somebody behind Charlie started clamoring for another drink, but she held up a finger for them to wait. She recognized the name right away.

“I thought you were in prison.”

Something passed through those gray eyes again. “I’m out as of last week. Does this mean I’m not hired?”

Jordan had gone to prison for manslaughter when she was eighteen. She’d fallen asleep behind the wheel and killed a woman and her baby. Not just any though, Becky and Micah Mackay, family of Zac, Oak Creek legend and Finn’s best friend.

Six years later Jordan was just now getting paroled. Everybody in a three-county radius knew who she was. And they knew her sentencing had been so harsh—even though she’d had no prior arrests, nor had she ever been in any trouble with the law before—because of her father, Michael Reiss.

The man who had swindled half of Oak Creek out of their retirement accounts, then skipped town.

“I’m not going to steal from you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Jordan said. “I just need a job. I’m sorry for anything my dad did to you or your family. I had no part in that.”

It was obviously a line she was used to repeating.

She might be the only woman from Oak Creek more hated than Charlie.

“Your dad didn’t get anything from my family. We had our own financial advisors.” Not that they’d done much good. Look at Charlie now.

Understanding dawned in Jordan’s eyes. “You’re Charlotte Devereux.”

“Charlie. Go get changed. We’ve got work to do.”