Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 126823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
“I guess I’ll be okay with that.” Vaughn studied the room. “Who are the five in the corner booth? I don’t recognize them.”
“The new crew to rehabilitate the trails in Yosemite. They’ll leave straight from here and head up. The crew chief said they’ve been hired for the summer.”
“Climbers?”
Shabina laughed. “How ever did you guess?” There were three men and two women on the trail rehabilitation crew. It was a never-ending job to keep the popular trails open and in good condition.
“And the three smart-looking newbies with Sean Watson?” Vaughn didn’t bother to hide his dislike of Sean.
Sean was one of four local men who came into the café, ate the food and then often complained loudly that it was terrible and refused to pay. He harassed Shabina often at the café and at the Grill, a local restaurant where live music was played and Shabina and her friends went to dance.
“Fish and Wildlife interns. He’s mentoring them or something. If I go near their booth, they harass me. The one with the sandy-colored hair is named Deacon, and he can’t resist making childish kissy noises. Naturally, Sean encourages him. He’s asked me out three times already.”
“We should have banned Sean from ever coming back here. I know he was one of those who graffitied the crap out of the café. He did it with his little band of friends, Jason Briggs, Bale Landry and Edward Fenton. We should have banned them all.”
Shabina privately agreed with him. The four men were a menace, and they’d taken a strong dislike to her. They believed she didn’t belong in the United States, despite the fact that she’d been born there and her father was American. She did have the Saudi Arabian features of her mother. She didn’t care what set their prejudices off; they didn’t like her and went out of their way to make her as uncomfortable as possible.
“So far, they haven’t managed to get under my skin,” she said truthfully. When a woman had been tortured and abused, verbal harassment with taunts and insults about her cooking skills wasn’t going to make her fall apart. “My philosophy is to kill them with kindness.”
“The twins?” Vaughn nodded to the two women sitting at one of the prime tables beside the window where one could get a good view of the sun rising.
“They were here last year. That’s Felicity Garner in the red and Eve in the purple. They lost their sister, Freda, who made them triplets. She died of dehydration with her husband, Emilio, and her daughter, Crystal, last year in Yosemite. There was a big investigation.”
“I remember that,” Vaughn said, dropping his voice. “That was so sad, Shabina. You spent a lot of time with them. I see Raine is here with Vienna. How is she doing?”
Shabina sighed. Although Raine didn’t show it, she knew her friend was in pain. “I think she’s going to need quite a lot more rehab.”
“She has her leg thanks to all of you,” Vaughn pointed out. He flicked a towel at her. “You’d better make your rounds before the next wave of customers comes in. I see Jason Briggs is sitting in a corner with Bruce Akins instead of with his friends, Bale and Edward. That’s new.”
“Not so much. Jason agreed to work at the Brewery with Bruce. Bruce wants someone to come in as a partner, and Jason wants to stay in Knightly permanently, so they’re working together.”
“Does Bruce seriously want to be partners with a man who treats women the way Jason does?” Vaughn sounded shocked.
Shabina gave a little shake of her head. They were in the kitchen looking out through the half wall at their customers, but she was taking no chances of being overheard. Vaughn was a huge asset to her. She had been around men who were seriously deranged, and she knew Scorpion was a sadistic psychopath who wanted the reputation of someone in history such as Vlad the Impaler, who had murdered over eighty thousand people. She thought he was well on his way to trying to match the number of tortures and murders of the historical figures he admired so much.
Bale, Edward and Sean could get ugly. They would threaten and even get into fistfights, but they weren’t the type to pull out a gun and shoot someone. Still, they could make Vaughn’s life a living hell. They certainly did their best to make hers that way. She wasn’t the only one either. Zahra was raised in a small village in Azerbaijan. Any woman who appeared to be or was from a different country was looked down on and treated with disrespect by the men. That was why it was a little shocking to see Bruce, who had always crushed on Zahra, with Jason, who was good friends with Bale, Edward and Sean.