by E V Lind
“Beth, hon?”
Beth started, realizing that Mary-Ann had been speaking to her.
“I’m sorry...?”
“Come into the kitchen. We’ll put an apron around you and I’ll show you what needs doing before the next rush comes through.”
The kitchen was in a state. Clearly the café was a popular spot for breakfast. The place buzzed with activity, with a waitress running back and forth between tables and the servery. In the kitchen, a short order cook was hard at work at the grill and another woman worked tables, loaded up trays and called the orders to the waitress for pickup.
“Where’s Lester?” the woman demanded as Mary-Ann grabbed an apron from behind the swing door and looped it around Beth’s waist.
“You tell me and we’ll both know. Beth, this is Val and over at the grill is Norris. Julie’s working out front. Guys, Beth is doing dishes for us this morning.”
“About time,” the short order cook muttered from behind the grill. “We’re running out of plates.”
It didn’t take Beth long to get the hang of things. It wasn’t like it was hard to load racks with dirty dishes and then pass them through the commercial dishwasher. While the first load washed, she tackled the pots and pans. She worked hard, with only a short break for something to eat mid-morning. By the time lunchtime rolled around her shoulders ached and her hair clung to her face in damp tendrils but there was a sense of satisfaction in what she had achieved.
“Hey, kid. Take a break,” the woman plating up and calling orders said from behind her.
“It’s okay,” Beth answered over her shoulder.
She flinched as a hand clamped on her upper arm.
“Before you fall down,” the woman added. “Besides, Lester’s just walked in. He can pick up the rest.”
“T-thanks.” Beth untied the apron she’d been wearing and shoved it in the laundry bag over by the back door. “D’you know where Mary-Ann is? I’d like to say bye.”
The woman nodded toward the dining room. “She’s in there, doing her usual thing and making everyone feel welcome.”
Beth started to leave but the woman stopped her again.
“Hey, by the way. Good job, kid. Thanks.”
She smiled and dipped her head in acknowledgement. Praise, it was a long time since she’d heard any directed her way. She’d forgotten the glow of warmth that it left inside you. But praise didn’t keep you safe and it didn’t put clothes on your back or food on the table, she reminded herself.
As soon as Beth stepped out of the kitchen, she saw that Mary-Ann was deep in conversation with a group of older women on the other side of the room. She knew she should say goodbye but stronger than her need to follow standard human protocols was her wariness around strangers. Instead, she slipped back upstairs to the apartment and grabbed her coat and things, then took the external stairs from the apartment to the road.
Riverbend appeared to be a lot busier than the sleepy town she’d seen when they’d arrived yesterday. That was both good and bad. Good, because she could move around without standing out as someone to be noticed, someone who didn’t belong. Bad, because there were more locals about who might wonder who she was and what she was doing here.
Her gut clenched on a burst of fear but she forced herself to ride the swell and tame it. At the very least, fear got you damaged. At the worst, it could get you killed. Survival. That was key. Ignoring the street to her left, which led along the riverside, she turned to the right, past the river landing and toward the road that curved up the hill and away from the bustling main street. Eventually she’d see a signpost and could make her next directional decision. Instinct told her that randomness was essential at this point. She didn’t want to be predictable because wouldn’t that just make her all the easier to find?
A cold wind blew straight through her coat and lifted her hair off her face. She grabbed at the flying strands and smoothed them back down over her cheeks. As long as no one saw anything to remember her by, she could remain just one more anonymous individual walking the countryside. Beth cast one look back to the Stop A While Café. The lure of its warmth, the delicious aromas of food—even the friendliness of the people—called her back. It would be all too easy to give in. To be absorbed into the comfort offered there even if only for one more day.
She kept putting one foot in front of the other, creating distance. She’d paid her dues. It was time to move on.
ELEVEN
Riverbend, OR, October 1941
Dear Diary,
I still can't believe Mamma accepted the job at the big house, I am so excited. I don't know why, because it doesn't appear to have improved her mood any, but I do wonder if it might mean that I get to see him more often. Mamma told me that when the weather is bad, she will be picked up in the mornings and brought back. She sniffed at the idea, as if a bit of rain would dare to harm her!
I feel as if I'm on the brink of something new and exciting. As if my life is going to change. It's been so hard since Daddy left. Mamma and I work our fingers to the bone to keep the house and to keep Aggie from harm and keep us all fed.
I know they must be missing Daddy at the farm, too, because since he left a few months ago they have been advertising for a new farm manager. I hope they don't put us out when they find one, even though I know we only got tenancy here because Daddy had the job at the farm. But now Mamma is working there it'll be all right. And I noticed that the family has taken their notice down from the mercantile window. Perhaps Jonathon is to manage the farm now he is home from college.
I miss Daddy. I wish he would come home. I know he drank, but only because Mamma always made him feel so inferior. Some whisper, behind our backs, that he didn't leave at all, but if that was so, where is he now? Wouldn't he be with his family, in his home?
My ears still echo with the sounds of the last fight that Mamma and Daddy had. It was late when they started. Daddy had been drinking again, I could hear it in the way he spoke and in the way he stumbled around downstairs. I was too afraid to go down but the yelling and fighting stopped all of a sudden. There was a thud and then later I heard the back door open and close. I fell asleep after that and in the morning, Mamma told me that Daddy had left and that I had better work a darn sight harder than I normally do because she was depending on me.
He must have been mad at her because he took her carpet. The one thing that was her pride and joy—the last thing she had left of her mamma and daddy. If he wanted to hurt her, he certainly knew exactly how to do it.
It's been hard these past months. Mamma is so angry all the time and, at times, quite cruel—worse than she ever used to be, for sure. I hope that now she has a steady income from the big house that she will be happier and that maybe, just maybe, I will see more of Mr. Jonathon Jones.
TWELVE
Dust motes danced on the frail beams of light that streaked through the gaps in the barn but Ryan was oblivious to their beauty as he bent over the old tractor that had failed him this morning. These things were supposed to keep going forever, dammit. Not crap out before you even got into a field.
He’d finally isolated the problem and growled in disgust as he eyed the part that had shredded itself. The local dealership should be able to courier one out to him this afternoon with any luck but he may as well drive back into Riverbend to pick it up because, what the hell, it wasn’t as if he had anything more pressing to attend to. While he’d been at his specialist’s appointment yesterday, his men had handled everything to do with the dairy herd and what needed doing around the farm. Just like they had the whole time he’d been deployed, so it wasn’t like he was really needed here.
Besides, something was telling him to check on his mom, something that itched at the back of his brain and that wouldn’t let go. He still didn’t trust the woman they’d picked up yesterday. Not one inch. It wouldn’t hurt to put in an appearance and rattle her cage a bit more, if she was still hanging around anyway. And, if she’d gone, all the better. But
somehow the thought of not knowing where Beth might be didn’t sit right with him either. Dammit.
Ryan’s foul mood kicked up a few notches as he headed into Riverbend. The pickup ate up the miles on the country road and he tried to relax and relish the fact that while everything else mechanical on the farm seemed to have gone to hell in a hand basket during his last tour, at least this baby still ran smooth. God, it felt good to be independent again. His mom had taken great care of him since he’d been back but there was a vast difference between mothering and smothering and he’d had quite enough of the latter. Especially of her telling him to get back out and circulate.
He didn’t want to circulate. He wanted to dwell on his failures—to remember his buddies and how he’d let them down. It was his punishment for having outlived them all.
Teflon Jones they’d called him. Trouble just didn’t seem to stick with him. Fat lot of good that had done his patrol. When he’d been discharged and sent home they told him to celebrate life, for the sake of his fallen comrades if not for himself. But what the fuck was there to celebrate about coming home a failure and a cripple?
You should have listened, a voice rustled at the back of his mind. But he hadn’t listened, had he? The whole idea that someone he’d trusted—hell, someone he’d thought he loved—could have fooled him so bad still sat like a leaden yoke on his shoulders. He should have known better. Fuck, as a soldier he was trained to know better. Yeah, he should have listened, but he hadn’t and now he carried the ghosts of his unit on his back every day as a reminder of that fact.
He was about three miles out of Riverbend when he saw a familiar figure walking on the other side of the road. Beth? What was she doing out here? Grateful for the distraction from his thoughts, Ryan let his suspicions about her kick into overdrive. Did his mom even know she’d left? He caught a glimpse of Beth’s pale face as he drove by, saw how she tucked her shoulders round, as if to make herself smaller, more invisible—as if she was hiding something. Once he got around the next bend he pulled over to the side of the road and yanked his phone from his pocket. He dialed the café.
His mother had barely begun to speak before he cut her off.
“Beth’s out on the main road west. Did you know that?”
“She isn’t in the kitchen?”
He rolled his eyes. “No, Ma. I just passed her on the road.”
“She didn’t say goodbye but I’m sure she had her reasons.”
“Doesn’t that bother you, ‘cause it sure as hell bothers me. I’m going to stop her.”
“Ryan, are you sure you know what you’re doing? If the girl wants to leave, let her leave.”
“I’ll call you back.”
He disconnected the call, threw his phone down on the seat beside him then executed a U-turn and headed back up the road, his eyes scanning for Beth as he did so. But she wasn’t there. There’d been no other traffic on the road, so she couldn’t have picked up a ride. Which meant she was hiding. The very fact she was told him his instincts were spot on and that she was up to no good.
There! A faint movement behind the shrubs clustered on the roadside. He pulled over and leaped out the cab, swearing under his breath as the action jarred his bad leg. The pain did nothing to improve his mood.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded as he closed in on her, his hand snaking out to catch her by the shoulder.
She turned her head sharply. Her hair whipped him across the face and her tiny fists pushed at his chest. It didn’t take much to subdue her. He spun her around, tucking her back against his chest, and his arms crossed over hers. She managed to land one good kick against his bad leg, enough to make him lose his balance and to send them both tumbling to the dirt.
“Let me go, let me go!” her voice became frantic and tiny teeth embedded themselves in his forearm.
“Shit!” he cursed, tightening his hold on her, forcing her struggles to subside. “Stop it. Stop fighting me.”
“Never,” he heard her whisper and felt her muscles, such as they were, bunch beneath him.
Even through the bulk of her coat, she felt as fragile as a tiny bird. And about as feeble with it—except for those teeth, he thought ruefully. Nothing wrong with those babies.
“Just fucking settle down,” he growled. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
She muttered something and struggled a little more fiercely.
“What did you just say?”
She muttered again under her breath.
“Clearer!” he demanded.
“That’s what they all say,” she said with a bleakness in her voice that struck him like a chilled finger down his spine.
All? He grabbed her chin with one strong hand and turned her face toward him. The discolored lines on her cheek blazed an angry red against her pale skin. Had someone done this to her deliberately? Was that why she was so edgy and withdrawn? He’d known something was off the moment he’d laid eyes on her but he’d assumed it was because she was up to something—not hiding from something, or someone. Could his instincts have been off track? His gut had never let him down before—it was not listening to it, that had.
“I’m going to let you go in a second or two, and then you’re going to answer some questions,” he said.
“I don’t have to answer to you for anything,” she responded sullenly, twisting her jaw out of his hold and elbowing him in the gut.
“You’ll have to try harder than that, babe,” he challenged, even though her bony joint had made its mark.
“Don’t call me that!”
But the tension eased out of her and she went limp in his arms. He loosened his hold. The second he did, she was up on her feet and running. He struggled after her, taking advantage of the moment she hit uneven ground and stumbled. Ryan caught her around her waist.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he grunted as he dodged her swinging arm, then snatched it and pulled her back against him.
“Let me go, dammit. I don’t owe you anything!”
Her voice was raw and husky and the sound of it did weird things to him, not to mention the sensation of her struggling against his groin. It had been too long since he’d held a willing woman in his arms. Too damn long. And there was no way this woman was willing even if his intentions toward her had headed in that direction. Which they absolutely didn’t, despite the stirring deep in his groin.
“Look, stop wriggling for fuck’s sake. Answer me. Why did you leave without saying goodbye to my mother? Y’know, the woman who fed you and gave you clothes and a bed to sleep in?” he demanded.
“She was busy. I didn’t want to disturb her.”
“Sure, you didn’t,” he responded, his voice as cold as the wind that was growing in strength around them. He released her. “Turn out your pockets.”
“What?”
Beth tried to take a step away but something in his expression must have warned her not to run again.
“Turn them out,” he repeated. “Or maybe you’d rather I called the cops.”
Fear streaked across her face, making her eyes grow wide and even her lips paled as the color leeched completely out of her.
“I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Then you won’t mind obliging me, will you?”
She pulled out the pockets of the shabby coat she wore. They were empty but that didn’t surprise him.
“Your jeans, too,” he directed. “Or I’ll do it myself. Don’t test me on this, Beth.”
“What kind of pervert are you?” she protested.
“The kind you don’t want to mess with,” he answered grimly.
Beth unbuttoned her coat and shoved her hands into the front pockets of her jeans, pulling out the lining and showing him they were empty. A heavy rain drop landed on the ground between them, soon followed by several more.
“Where have you hidden it?” Ryan persisted.
“Hidden what? I haven’t hidden anything.”
That look of fear was still on her fac
e. She was lying.
“Whatever it is that you stole from my mother.”
“I didn’t steal anything. Let me go. I’ve paid Mary-Ann back, I don’t owe anyone anything. Least of all, you.”
Beth’s voice broke on that last word but it did nothing to soften his stance. He’d interrogated harder nuts to crack than her.
“If you’re as innocent as you claim, why were you hiding behind the bush back there?” He caught her arm and gave her a little shake to emphasize his question.
“I wasn’t hiding.”
“You’re lying. I know you are. Now where’s the money?”
As if to emphasize his statement, the skies lit with a burst of lightning, followed seconds later by a booming roll of thunder.
“What money?” she demanded.
“Every time my mother shelters a broken bird like you, they help themselves to her cash register on their way out and she lets them. I’m not standing for that anymore now that I’m back. Hand it over.”
She met his angry stare for about two seconds before averting her gaze. The raindrops that had begun intermittently, picked up in regularity.
“I didn’t take any money,” she insisted, her voice so quiet he barely heard it.
“Prove it. Come back to the café with me and we’ll check the register.”
She remained silent a little longer and then she lifted her chin. “And then will you leave me alone?”
“Or call the cops.”
It wasn’t his imagination. Her skin, already pale, became translucent and her breath now came in tiny huffs as if she was struggling for each one. It could be the cold air that swirled around them, or the fact that she was getting wetter than a drowned rat in the increasingly heavy downpour, but he doubted it. He could almost smell the fear that rolled off her now. Interesting, he thought.
“Fine. I’ll go back with you,” she acquiesced. “And then you can apologize.”
