Halfway Hidden

But she was anything but simple. Sometimes she looked at those girls, ones with nice names like Becky and Laura, and could feel her chest contract with jealousy. She wished she could sit in the diner with her legs swinging and her nail polish chipping, flirting with the boys in the booth across from her. Like the guys from the mines, the girls aged fast—hair whitened and teeth yellowed by a mixture of poor nutrition and plump babies. But there were worse things in life than growing old alongside a man who thought the world of you. Rachel knew that from experience.

No, it wasn’t only age separating her and Jace; it was a whole gulf of experience.

Murphy leaned farther across the bar until his face was only a few inches from hers. “I’m thirty-five, so our age difference is the same.” His breath warmed her skin when he spoke.

She licked her lips, considering his words. As different as she and Jace were, there was a similarity between her and Murphy she couldn’t quite put her finger on. The same way a child knew the difference between a tiger and a striped cat without being able to say why, she could tell Murphy was one of her own kind. Maybe it was his accent, or the way he held his body, but there was something about him that reminded her of home.

That wasn’t necessarily a comforting thought.

“It doesn’t matter so much when it’s that way round.” Her voice was soft. He had to strain to hear her, moving his face closer to hers. She wasn’t sure she liked this new proximity or the way he invaded her space; the change made her heart race uncomfortably fast. It almost came as a relief when he drained the last of his beer and placed the empty bottle on the bar, throwing down a bill and wishing her a good night. The way he’d been looking at her—with a regard that seemed a little too close for comfort—was making her feel skittish and exposed, and she didn’t like it one little bit.

Chapter Two

The next evening, Rachel was down in the cellar, fixing up a new keg of Amber Ale while Buddy held the fort at the bar. When she walked back inside, she was still breathless and a little heated from manhandling the barrel. Salty perspiration beaded her upper lip.

Murphy was sitting at the bar again, this time leaning on the wooden counter and talking to Buddy. He held his broad back tense and straight, like he was hyper-aware of his surroundings, a lion ready to pounce the moment he was threatened. Rachel looked at him for a moment, studying his clothes and the way he stood. He didn’t have to open his mouth for people to know he wasn’t from around here; the cut of his top and the color of his jeans were enough to mark him out as a stranger. His pants weren’t pale and over-washed like the good ol’ boys’, and his Henley was no checkered shirt. As Buddy might say, he looked as out of place as a chicken in a church. The thought made her want to laugh.

“The keg’s changed.” She flashed a smile at Buddy. He walked slowly to the tap handles, pulling a pint glass from the shelf above and placing it beneath the spout. His pale, wrinkled hand wrapped around the wooden handle, pulling it toward him until the draft started to flow. The first glass from a new keg was always “for the bar”—a tumbler full of foam they threw away.

“Good evening.” Murphy’s deep voice took her attention away from Buddy and the taps. She glanced over at him, nodding slightly, her lips pulled back into a thin, worried line.

“I didn’t expect to see you around here again.”

He gave the barest hint of a smile. His body was still and his face wary, like Rachel was a stray dog he was trying to tame. “My business is taking longer than expected. I’ll be here a few more days.” He wrapped his fingers around his bottle and brought it to his mouth, his head tipping back as he drank.

“Something to do with the mines?” She picked up some empty glasses left on the bar and transferred them to the washer.

“What makes you think that?” He was leaning on the bar again, his grey sleeves pushed up to above his elbows. His forearms were thick and strong, defined by long tendons running down to his wrist. He seemed stronger and more powerful than the boys in Hillbrook. Despite their hard, manual work, they tended to run soft around the belly and thin in the legs.

Rachel allowed herself to smile. “It’s pretty much the only business around here.”

There was silence for a minute, a thick, cloying quiet that put Rachel’s teeth on edge. His next words did nothing to calm her feeling of unease.

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

He was looking at her with a strange expression, and the left-hand corner of his lip quirked up, elongating the scar running down to his jaw. It was more scrutiny than smile—the expression a man would have when he was concentrating too hard on something. It reminded her of the way her father used to read the sports pages on a Sunday morning.

“What gave me away?” Her airy laugh was contrived even to her own ears. It made her wince.

Murphy shrugged, his powerful shoulders dragging up the fabric of his top. “Your accent, for one. You sound a little too cultured for Bumfuck, West Virginia.” He didn’t seem to care he was insulting a whole town. “Your clothes, too. You don’t look like you bought them down at the local store.”

Glancing down at her jeans and sweater, Rachel wondered why he thought they weren’t bought around there. She hadn’t met a man yet who knew the difference between designer and low-end. “We don’t have a local store. We do, however, have a Walmart about forty miles south of here.”

Though she said it lightly, his implications were grating on her. He didn’t think she fit in. The thought scared her, made her feel exposed, like a camera shutter left open for a few seconds too long. When a shuffling to her left alerted her to another customer, she turned away from Murphy, grateful for the distraction.

“You want another drink, Eddie?” She waited for a moment until he slowly nodded his head, loosening his grip enough to let her take the glass. She placed it behind the counter, pulling a clean one from the shelf, lining it up beneath the tap. “It isn’t like you to order two in a night.” Her words made Eddie smile, his grin revealing a mouth full of tobacco-stained teeth.

He glanced sideways at Murphy before leaning in to Rachel and whispering, “We heared the outsider was back.”

Rachel bit down a smile, realizing exactly why Eddie was ordering a second drink when one was usually enough. He’d been sent over by the other men, desperate for some gossip in a town where nothing ever happened.

“He sure is.” Though she’d restrained a grin, there was still some humor in her voice. “He has business around here.”

Eddie nodded, watching as she poured the ale. His eyes never left the glass until she’d filled it right to the rim. She’d poured him enough beer to know anything less than level with the top was bound to be rejected.

“Is he staying for long?” Eddie leaned in farther still. Back at his table, the old boys were staring intently at the two of them, preparing themselves for the news Eddie would bring back. On the whole, they were worse gossips than their wives.

“I don’t know.” Rachel responded in a stage whisper, enough to make Murphy smile. She could see his amusement from the corner of her eye. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”