Amber asked Brooklyn. Brooklyn exhaled and tossed her purse and the small leather briefcase onto the bar. She pushed her long brown hair behind her shoulder and shook her head. “I don’t get it. I’ve done everything by the book. The Filling Station has been open for the better part of a year and business is booming. It’s been an asset to this community, which I’m always looking out for, so why can’t this guy Finnian Cartwright just show up at the damn meeting? I mean, come on. Who the hell is this guy anyway?” she asked. Amber placed a club soda with lime down in front of her boss. Brooklyn gave her a small smile in appreciation. She was a good employee. All her employees were, and they were all local. When she got to Repose, Texas, after taking a wrong turn off the highway, she never expected to find it as her final destination after a long, hard journey of soul-searching and commitment to making a new life, a better life than she’d had for the past twenty-seven years. She took a sip from her drink and glanced around the bar.
