by Loree Lough
“What’re you lookin’ so down in the dumps about?” Eliot asked. He’d already toasted several loaves of bread and now stood at the stove, flipping sausage patties in a giant iron skillet.
“Liam’s uncle is coming to meet him today.”
“A big-time lawyer in The Chili Pot?” the cook said, shaking his head. “There goes the neighborhood!”
“Fortunately,” she countered, laughing, “he’ll only be here a short while. I don’t think he’ll drag down the property values in an hour or two.”
“Well, he gives you any trouble, you send him to me,” he said, slathering butter onto the last slice of toast. “I’ll set that legal beagle straight!”
Jaina patted his shoulder. “Thanks, Eliot.”
“Hey, what’re friends for?”
Billie barged into the room, balancing a plate on one palm. “They’re for saving us the last wedge of lemon meringue pie, that’s what friends are for,” she said around a mouthful. “I love ya, big guy!”
“Aw, now don’t go gettin’ all mushy on me, girl. I only set that piece of pie aside ’cause I couldn’t stand to throw it away.”
“I forgot,” the waitress said, smiling sarcastically and rolling her heavily made-up eyes, “how much you hate to waste food.”
“Don’t you sass me, missy, or I’ll put you to work choppin’ onions. You know what that does to your mascara.”
Her blue eyes widened. “You wouldn’t!”
Eliot smirked. “I would, and you know it.”
Billie faced Jaina, pretending she needed protection. “Help?” she said in a tiny, wavering voice.
“Don’t look at me,” Jaina said, holding up one hand as Liam inspected the other. “I just write the paychecks. He’s in charge of the kitchen…or the onions at least.”
Billie chucked Liam’s chins. “How’s our widdo boy? Did him sweep wike a wock? Did him have boo-tee-ful dweems?”
“Don’t talk to him that way,” Eliot scolded. “You’ll make a sissy out of him. Besides,” he added, “I read someplace that it takes young’uns twice as long to learn proper English if they have to learn two languages.”
Billie grabbed the salt canister. “What?”
He held up one finger. “English,” he said as a second finger joined the first, “and baby talk.”
Using her hip to open the swinging door, Billie harrumphed. “When did you get so smart?”
“Didn’t get smart,” he called after her. “Was born smart.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said from her side of the door. “And it’s gonna snow on the Fourth of July.”
Eliot met Jaina’s eyes.
“I know, I know,” she said on a sigh. “You think she’s getting too big for her britches.”
“If she spent a little more time on her feet, waitin’ tables,” he hollered, “and less time warmin’ the stools at the snack bar…”
“I heard that, Eliot!”
“Are you two at it again?” Rita asked, waltzing into the kitchen. “Honestly, I feel like I’m back teaching kindergarten again, refereeing all of your squabbles!” She held out her arms, and Liam spilled into them. “How’s my boy? Did you sleep well, sweetie?”
“Connor Buchanan will be here at lunchtime,” Jaina said matter-of-factly.
Rita’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. “You invited him here? Jaina, what were you thinking?”
“I was thinking we’d better keep him happy so that maybe—Lord willing—he’ll see how good we are for Liam and won’t throw a monkey wrench into the works and ruin our chances for adoption.” Her heart raced as she said it because Buchanan had probably already set his investigative team to snooping into her background.
Rita looked at Eliot. “I guess if you’re going to dream, you may as well dream big, right?”
Eliot looked from Jaina’s frowning face to Rita’s mistrustful expression. “Ladies,” he said, carrying his egg tray to the stove, “I have scramblin’ to do, so if you’ll just excuse me…”
“Chicken,” Rita grumbled. “Go ahead, leave me here all by myself.”
“I learned long time ago, it ain’t smart to take sides. Not when it puts you between two women!”
Rita clucked her tongue, then said to Jaina, “I finally figured out why Buchanan’s name is so familiar.” She handed Liam a long-handled spoon to chew on. “There was a big article about him in—”
“The Howard County Times. I know.”
Eliot turned away from the stove long enough to ask, “What did he do? Cheat on his bar exam?”
“Worse,” Rita explained. “He defended a doctor whose botched surgery cost a woman the ability to have children. He got the man off.”
The cook put his back to the women. “Nothin’ wrong with that,” he grumbled. “Man’s innocent ’til proven guilty. Least, that’s what the writers of the Constitution intended for folks in this country.”
Jaina stiffened but said nothing. Eliot didn’t know about her past so he couldn’t possibly realize how deeply his comment had affected her. What he didn’t know couldn’t hurt her; she’d learned the hard way that when people found out about the accident, things changed. They took a step back. Smiled the way one might smile when speaking to the very young—or the very old. Spoke with a patronizing tone as though they believed anything they said might cause her to snap.
“What’s this lawyer fella gonna say when he finds out what your employees were up to before they started working here?” Eliot wanted to know. “You reckon he’s gonna use it against you in the adoption proceedings?”
She had never been one to sugarcoat things. “I’m sure he’ll try, but he won’t get very far. You and Barney, Billie and Joy have turned your lives completely around. If anything, knowing about you will help me, not hurt me.”
Eliot’s brow furrowed. “How do you figure that?”
Jaina grinned mischievously. “Well, my goodness, if I can make honest citizens out of the likes of you guys, think what I can do with an impressionable kid like Liam!”
“Oh, so now you’re taking the credit for our reform?” he teased.
Her grin became a gentle smile. “Only if Buchanan forces me to, and even then, only on the witness stand.” She took a deep breath. It’s my past that’ll hurt me in court, not the Chili Pot employees’.
“Enough blabbing,” Ray ordered good-naturedly, dumping a fifty-pound sack of potatoes on the floor. “Let’s get this show on the road. We open in fifteen minutes!”
As usual, eighteen-wheelers, pickup trucks, motorcycles, cars and assorted minivans had already filled the graveled parking lot. They opened the doors at seven, and by quarter past, all the booths and tables in the diner were filled.
Joy took care of the Minnesota family heading for Washington, D.C., and the young Maryland couple who planned to spend the afternoon at Baltimore’s National Aquarium. Billie handled the truckers and bikers sitting at tables near the window, Jaina waited on retirees and construction workers lining the snack bar, while Rita monitored the cash register. Barney saw to it that a steady supply of squeaky-clean dishes lined the shelves below the counter, and Ray did double duty as busboy and setup man.
They’d worked it out to a fine science, easily satisfying hundreds of hungry patrons a day, thanks to Ray’s “Get ’em in, fill ’em up, move ’em out” policy. If the dishwasher had decided to malfunction any other day, the Chili Pot team would have handled the setback with quiet efficiency, and more than likely, nary a customer would have noticed.
But the machine sprang a leak at precisely the same time as the main drain developed a clog. Barney hadn’t touched the central water valve in so long, it took five minutes to locate and turn it off. Meanwhile, the black-and-white-tiled floor seemed to float beneath several inches of foamy, antiseptic-scented dishwater.
The crew tried valiantly to sop up the mess, slinging long-handled string mops, towels, aprons…anything they could get their hands on. Customers tiptoed through the suds, their sneakers
and sandals and work boots squishing as they made their way to the cash register and out the door. A pigtailed redhead of perhaps five fell splat on her behind, raining water on everyone in the vicinity.
“I can’t get up, Mommy,” she whimpered. “The floor’s too slippery.”
As her mother held out a hand to help, she joined the girl with a watery sploosh. “George,” she called, “give us a hand, will you?” To his credit, the poor man tried. A second later, he, too, hit bottom.
“Danny’s making fun of us,” the little girl whined, pointing at her brother. “Make him stop it, Mommy.”
“Danny,” the woman warned, shaking a bubbly finger in her son’s direction.
The boy clamped his lips together to stanch his laughter. But his efforts were of no avail. His snickers and snorts soon had the rest of the patrons laughing right along with him.
Jaina, balancing Liam on one hip, stepped cautiously toward the wet-bottomed threesome. “I’m so sorry,” she said, extending a helping hand to the mother. “Your breakfasts are on us.” And as if to punctuate the offer, she became the fourth, turning the damp human triangle into a neat, if soapy square.
Liam slipped from her arms and began crawling through the frothy water, stopping now and again to slap at the foam. His giggles blended with the rest of the happy din.
Connor stepped back onto the wood-planked porch and looked up at the sign. It said The Chili Pot all right, he thought, frowning as he went inside. He didn’t know which was wetter—the floor, the diners, or the staff. Talk about a tempest in a teapot, he mused, smiling slightly as he looked for Jaina amid the tumble of soggy, cheery people.
His smile froze when his gaze came to rest on the baby on the floor, sitting in a diaper-deep puddle, spattering his own happy face with the droplets that flew from his hands. The baby had Susan’s blond hair and his own blue eyes. Liam? he wondered, his mustache tilting in the beginning of another smile.
But what was the child doing in the middle of this mess, unsupervised? And what was the mess anyway? It looked like soapsuds, and if it was, they could get into the baby’s eyes and—
“Dih-dih-dih,” Liam squealed, flapping his arms like a bottom-heavy bird. “Dih-dih!”
Since Liam had been looking straight at Connor when he’d said it, all heads turned, gazes zeroing in on the only dry person in the diner. Connor was the center of attention, but he didn’t even notice.
As he moved slowly, woodenly, across the room, his feet seemed weighted down by far more than the water that had seeped into his Italian leather loafers. If he didn’t know better, he’d have to say the baby seemed pleased to see him. But how can that be, when we’ve never met?
Chili Pot patrons cleared a path for the tall, muscular man in the dark suit, but Connor didn’t notice that, either. The closer he got to Liam, the harder his heart pounded, and when at last he was within reach, he got down onto one knee, seemingly unaware of the inch-deep water, and scooped the baby into his arms. “Hi there, little guy,” he said, sliding a crisp white handkerchief from his breast pocket. “What’re you doin’, taking a bubble bath, or do they have you swabbin’ the deck?” he added, blotting Liam’s hands and dripping blond curls.
The child looked deep into his eyes as if searching for some clue to a riddle. He popped a fist into his mouth. “Dih-dih,” he muttered around it. “Dih-dih.”
Lost in the deep blue intensity of Liam’s gaze, Connor felt as though he was in a trance. Mesmerized, he stood, balancing the baby on his hip as he blinked silently, unable to tear his eyes from the child’s angelic face.
Her voice came to him as if through a long, hollow tube. “Mr. Buchanan? I mean, Connor?”
Hugging Liam a little tighter, Connor turned. He knew before she came into his sight who had called his name. She looked lovely, despite her waterlogged jeans and sneakers, despite the drops raining from her cinnamon curls and clinging to her long, lush lashes.
He swallowed hard, then gritted his teeth, fighting the feeling of powerlessness that was washing over him. He was here to meet his nephew, to establish a routine visitation schedule—as his friend, Judge Thompson, had advised—not to get all googly-eyed over Jaina Chandelle.
“What’s the big idea,” he demanded, “of leaving the child all alone in the middle of this slop?”
Chapter Four
“I realize how this looks,” she said, hands twisting in front of her. “You’re probably thinking he might have gotten soap in his eyes.”
“But—”
“And you may think he could have fallen facedown in this mess—kids can drown in half an inch of water, you know. He might have—”
“I haven’t said—”
“But I had an eye on him every minute,” Jaina defended, tucking a damp and droopy curl behind one ear.
“So did I,” Rita announced, stepping up beside her daughter.
Ray stood on Jaina’s other side, his defensive stance indicating he’d been watching, as well.
Eliot crossed both arms over his broad chest. With a nod of his head, he indicated the kitchen, which was no more than five feet away. “I was right there the whole time.”
Joy knocked on a nearby tabletop. “This is my station.”
“And this one,” Billie said, pointing to the tables across the narrow aisle, “is mine.”
The last muffled voice, coming from somewhere under the counter, belonged to Barney. “And I was right here.”
“Mmumm-mmumm,” Liam said, smiling and waving at Jaina. He leaned forward, nearly tumbling from Connor’s arms as he reached for her. “Mmumm-mumm, Mmumm-mmumm.”
Connor turned so the baby would be farther from Jaina rather than closer. A second or two ticked by before Liam turned, too. He looked into Connor’s face, an expression of confusion and slight mistrust registering in his now serious blue eyes, as if he was wondering why the man who had seemed so friendly would now want to keep him from his mmumm-mmumm. Undaunted by the added distance between him and Jaina, Liam threw his body toward her. Connor winced slightly as though the child’s actions had hurt his feelings.
But he did not hand the child over.
“Don’t you know anything about babies?” Billie snapped. “Can’t you see he wants Jaina?”
“Yeah,” Joy agreed. “Give him to his mommy.”
Both Eliot and Barney took a careful step forward, their assertive stances telling Connor they were prepared to do whatever it might take to rescue Liam from this stranger. His eyes narrowed and darkened as he searched each serious face.
A moment of silence passed as the row of defensive men and women moved closer. Connor stood his ground. “I’m the boy’s uncle,” he said through clenched teeth. “What’s wrong with you people?”
“Don’t make any difference if you’re the Pied Piper,” Eliot said, “if the kid wants Jaina….”
What’s with these people? Connor wondered. He looked at Liam, who had been temporarily distracted from wanting to be in Jaina’s arms by the intensity of the verbal sparring. The baby frowned as he studied his uncle’s serious face, then stuck a damp, chubby finger into his mouth. “Dih,” he mumbled around it. “Dih-dih?”
One look at the little fellow had been all it took to stir a strong territorial reaction; the child was his flesh and blood, not these strangers’, and the last thing he wanted was to hand him over on some infantile whim. And yet that was exactly what Liam seemed to want. The questions warred inside him: satisfy his own need, or the baby’s? He’d never been in a position like this before and didn’t quite know what to make of it. Because the real question—in everyone’s mind, it seemed—was what was best for Liam?
The baby answered for them by giving one last squeal, then diving toward Jaina. Connor’s eyes darkened even more as he handed the baby over. “This place is a madhouse. How do you expect to—”
Jaina, hugging Liam and smiling into his face, held up a hand to silence Buchanan. “We’ve had a minor emergency, that’s all. The dishwasher sprang
a leak, and the main drain is clogged, so there was no place for the water to go.” She met his eyes to say, “I know it seems like a madhouse right now, but things like this don’t happen every day. In fact,” she said, looking around at her friends for support, “ordinarily, our Chili Pot is a pretty quiet place.”
“I’ll say,” Eliot agreed.
“Downright dull,” Billie put in.
“Boring,” Joy said.
Ray gave a yawn and Rita stifled one as if to prove it.
Connor met each pair of eyes in turn. “Now why do I find that difficult to believe?”
If Liam had been in any danger, it was apparent any one of them would have fought to the death to save him. That fact should have riled him further. So why was he feeling strangely calmed and satisfied?
He pocketed both hands. “I’d call you a ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ bunch,” he said, a half smile slanting his mouth, “but there are too many monkeys…and too many monkeyshines.”
Rita stood as tall as her five-feet-two-inch frame would allow and lifted her chin. “We’re a family, Mr. Buchanan, and families stick together.”
Family. The woman couldn’t possibly know what the word meant to him. His smile vanished as he ground his molars together to hide his discomfort. “Right or wrong?”
She narrowed her dark eyes and rested a fist on her hip. “I can only answer half your question since we haven’t done anything wrong. We believe what it says in the book of Jeremiah. ‘Walk ye in all the ways I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.’”
“And blessed are those who are blameless,” he translated another verse, “who walk in the law of the Lord.” He gave her a hard stare. “But unless they’ve rewritten the Scriptures, Mrs. Chandelle, none of us is blameless…except Jesus.”
Rita’s mouth dropped open in silent shock.
“What’s the matter?” Connor asked Jaina’s mother. “Surprised I’m a believer?”
“Well…well, yes, frankly,” she stammered. “I suppose I am.”
