The Rebel Read Online Free Page A

an enterprise that was going under.
    He’d met a lot of managers just like her over the years.
    Failure was everywhere around the White CapsBed & Breakfast. From what he’d seen outside, in the kitchen and through one quick look into the dining room, the place was a ball gown with sweat stains, a once beautiful mansion on the long fade into a junk pile.
    And the business was taking this woman down with it.
    How old was she? Early thirties? She probably looked older than she was and he tried to imagine what was under the long bangs and sensible glasses, the loose white waitstaff shirt and standard-issue black pants.
    She’d probably been full of hope when she’d bought the old ark and he imagined that optimism had lasted only until it became clear that servicing rich weekenders was a thankless job, a low-praise zone in the extreme. And then the first fix-it bill had probably come for a boiler or a roof or major piece of equipment, giving her a sense of how much old charm cost.
    As if on cue, a wheeze came out of the walk-in. The noise was followed by something close to a cough, like there was a little old man dying in the compressor.
    He watched while she closed her eyes as if deliberately ignoring the sounds.
    If Nate was a betting man, he’d guess in one year White Caps would either be under new management or condemned by the state.
    Her eyes flipped open. “So. The phone?”
    She was definitely a fighter, though. Tough as nails, maybe even prepared to go down with the ship, although where that trip would take her he couldn’t imagine. More debt? Less sleep?
    Or maybe she was just tending the pile of wood for her husband. Nate eyed her ring finger and didn’t see anything on it.
    â€œHello? Nate? Or whatever you call yourself. Use the phone or move out. It’s closing time.”
    â€œOkay. Thanks,” he said, turning around and heading in the direction she’d pointed to earlier that evening. He walked into a darkened office and frowned when his feet made a sloppy noise, as if there were water on the floor.
    He hit the light switch.
    Good Lord, the place was soaked. He looked up at the ceiling, seeing a gaping hole that exposed pipes old enough to have been laid by God Himself.
    Shaking his head, he reached for the phone, thinking he’d be lucky to get a dial tone. When he did, he punched in his buddy Spike’s cell phone number. He and Spike had been friends since they’d gone through the Culinary Institute of America as classmates and they’d decided to buy a restaurant together. Their business interest was behind Nate’s trip. After four months of searching, they couldn’t seem to find what they wanted in their price range in Manhattan so they were looking at other cities. Spike had found a placefor them to consider in Montreal, but Nate wasn’t getting his hopes up. He didn’t think the situation was going to be any better over the border in Canada.
    He absolutely believed they could make it as owners. Between his skills at the stove and Spike’s masterful work with pastries and breads, they had the fundamentals covered. But money was growing tight. Because Nate was living off the savings he was going to put toward their down payment, he was thinking it might be time to get a job for the summer and suspend the search at least until the fall. By then, new prospects would surely be on the market.
    When he hung up with Spike, he looked toward the woman waiting in the doorway.
    â€œWhat happened to your cook?” he asked.
    â€œHe quit tonight.”
    Nate nodded, thinking that was the way of the kitchen world. You never got tenure as a chef but the trade-off was you didn’t have to give notice.
    She began to tap her foot impatiently, but he wasn’t in a hurry. Taking a look around he saw a desk, a computer, a couple of chairs, some closet doors. There was nothing particularly interesting about the room until he got to the