The Last Chance Cafe

by Linda Lael Miller

  Kiera and Kiley headed immediately for the bookshelves, no doubt looking for Harry Potter, and Hallie let them go. There were no other shoppers in the store at the moment.

  “I’ll be with you in a minute!” Katie’s voice called from beyond the pink and white beaded curtain covering a doorway behind the counter.

  Hallie approached the “new titles” shelf, spotted a romance novel by a favorite author, and felt a pang at not being able to buy it. For the time being, she would borrow her reading material from Jessie’s sizable collection, and continue to keep her spending to a minimum. Later, she’d stop by the tiny local branch of the county library, spotted just that morning, and check out a stack of books on home schooling. Sometime in the future, when she and the twins were settled in a new place, a safe place, she would be able to splurge once in a while.

  Katie appeared, wearing jeans and a white sweater. She was smiling, but there were shadows in the backs of her eyes. “Hallie,” she said cheerfully. “Hi.”

  “Hello,” Hallie answered, smiling back. “I promised Kiera and Kiley a book, so they’re busy shopping.”

  “Good. Have some coffee or tea,” Katie urged, indicating the refreshment table. “I usually put out some cookies, but I didn’t get a chance to stop by the supermarket this morning. I never seem to have time to bake anymore.”

  Hallie offered no comment on that, though baking had been one of her favorite tasks at Princess and the Pea. Instead, she nodded in cheerful commiseration, and helped herself to coffee. “I wanted to ask you about Evie Callahan and her play-group,” she said.

  Katie warmed to the subject immediately. “Evie is a wonder,” she answered. “I’ve known her since she was a little girl—I used to be her baby-sitter, in fact. She’s always had a way with kids, and of course she’s got a degree in Early Childhood Education, as well as all the licenses and permits. She runs her operation out of the old Grange Hall down at the end of Main Street, and tuition is pretty reasonable.”

  “I’ll go and talk to her first chance I get,” Hallie mused aloud. “The kids are used to—” She stopped. She’d been about to say that they were used to the stimulation and social interaction they’d enjoyed at school in Scottsdale, but there was unacceptable risk in revealing even that much. It would be too easy to slip, and bring the sky down around her ears.

  Katie was watching her closely, a quizzical expression in her eyes, but she didn’t pry. Kiera ran up to the counter just then, waving the book she and Kiley had chosen. Hallie smiled, unzipped her fanny pack, and took out the money to pay.

  Katie rang up the purchase at the cash register, put the book into a bag, along with the receipt, and made change. “Thank you,” she said. Then she handed the bag to Kiera, who took it with pride. Hallie’s heart swelled with love for her daughters and, once again, she renewed her vow to keep them out of harm’s way, no matter what she had to do to accomplish that purpose.

  “I’ll talk to Evie this morning, if I have time,” she said. “I need to get to the supermarket and the library, and then back home in time to get ready for work.”

  Katie smiled sympathetically. “It’s hard sometimes, isn’t it, doing everything on your own?”

  Hallie’s throat squeezed tightly and, for one difficult moment, she thought she might actually break down and cry. Some conversationalist she was. The perfect opening, a chance to strike up a meaningful friendship with Katie, and did she take it? Certainly not. She felt shy, cautious, even tongue-tied. She did manage a nod, however.

  Katie reached out, laid a hand on her arm. “If you ever need to talk,” she said quietly, “I’m here. I’m usually at the shop in the daytime. My home number’s in the book, and our house is the white colonial with green trim, at the end of McQuarry Road. Stop by if you get the chance.”

  “I’d like that,” she heard herself say. It was as though her voice came from the other end of a long tunnel, instead of her own throat.

  The bell over the shop door chimed again, and a group of women came in, talking among themselves, all of them carrying copies of the same book. The latest Oprah selection, no doubt. Hallie recognized several of the elderly canasta players who’d been hanging out at the café the night she and the girls arrived in Primrose Creek.

  “It’s the Speedy Readies,” Katie confided, with an amused smile. “They call themselves that because they go through a new book every week. Most of my groups meet just once a month.”

  Hallie nodded to the blue-haired, pin-curled contingent. “I’d better get to the supermarket,” she said, with a glance at the clock behind the counter.

  Katie smiled in farewell, then went over to help the group get squared away for their discussion. They had gathered around the wood stove, talking and shedding their coats, and they watched with friendly interest as Hallie and the girls left the store.

  They crossed the street to the bank, where Hallie cashed the check for Lou’s old truck with relative ease. She politely skirted the teller’s suggestion that she open an account and hurried back to the Jeep. The twins scrambled into the backseat, fastened their seat belts without being told, and began poring over their new book. She heard them reading from it, and marveled.

  She felt a now-familiar pang of guilt. They were exceptional children, and they needed mental challenges. Back in Arizona, they’d attended a special program at school. Now, they were little vagabonds, essentially, with one toy and one book to their names, about to be home-schooled by their mother. Hallie was an intelligent woman, but she knew that, by virtue of her inexperience, if nothing else, she was not going to be able to give her daughters the kind of education they deserved, not on her own.

  The supermarket was at the opposite end of town from the Last Chance Café, and when Hallie stepped through the whooshing automatic door and took a shopping cart, she was once again struck by the importance of ordinary things. She’d taken so much for granted—buying groceries, for instance—for so long. Hard times had given her a new sense of appreciation for such simple blessings as being able to feed her children.

  She made her selections carefully, ever mindful of limited funds, choosing sugar-free cereals, milk, bread, fruit, cheese, hamburger, and the like. She was wheeling her cart into the checkout line when a flyer on the bulletin board beyond caught her eye. Even from that distance, she could make out Evie Callahan’s name.

  When she’d finished checking out, she read the blurb, then tore off one of the fringe of telephone numbers at the bottom of the flyer and tucked it into the pocket of her jacket. She’d call Evie on her break, maybe, and find out if it would be feasible to enroll the twins in class.

  At the library, she found a number of books on the subject of home schooling, and borrowed three, after applying for a card.

  Back home, she checked on the animals in the barn, keeping the girls close all the while, in case the mountain lion was prowling around somewhere nearby, then the three of them carried in the groceries and put them away.

  When that was done, it was time to get ready for work. She sat the twins down at the kitchen table for a midmorning snack of apple slices, crackers, and cheese, and then dashed upstairs to shower and put on fresh clothes. She was humming when she came down again, after half an hour, feeling as though she could handle anything.

  She found Chance Qualtrough in the kitchen, sipping coffee he must have brewed himself, and looking damnably appealing in his jeans, boots and blue chambray work shirt.

  Hallie stopped on the threshold, so suddenly that she nearly lost her balance and pitched forward, face-first onto the linoleum. There it was again, that battering-ram sensation in her midsection, a distinct and apparently involuntary overreaction to the presence of this one particular man. Evidently it didn’t matter whether the encounter was unexpected or not; she suspected she would have felt exactly the same way if she’d seen him coming from a mile away.

  “The girls let me in,” he explained, with a twinkle.

  She ran her hands down the thighs of her jea
ns and came up with a wobbly little smile. “I can see that,” she replied. “What can I do for you?”

  He was leaning against the counter, and now he shifted, mildly uncomfortable. It was reassuring to Hallie to know she wasn’t the only one who felt awkward. “I was hoping we could have dinner Sunday night, and maybe take in a movie.”

  It was no big deal, Hallie told herself. Just a restaurant meal and a show. So why did she feel as though she’d just been asked to take a sunset, champagne-and-violin balloon ride over the Loire Valley? She’d gotten out of practice, when it came to dating.

  “Can we go too?” Kiley piped up, from the table. She and Kiera had finished their snacks and had been taking turns reading aloud from the book. “Please?” This was in chorus. “Please, please—”

  Hallie was about to refuse, make some excuse, when Chance grinned at the kids’ upturned faces, which were glowing with anticipation. “Sure,” he said.

  Kiera and Kiley began to cheer. When had they been to a movie last? At the moment, she couldn’t recall. Neither could she bring herself to disappoint them.

  “I guess it would be all right,” she said, guessing no such thing. Hadn’t she already made up her mind to be extra-careful where this man was concerned, to keep her distance as much as possible, both physically and emotionally? “If I don’t have to work, I mean.”

  “The café closes at six o’clock on Sundays,” Chance said. He’d set aside his coffee, and folded his arms. He had good biceps, straining a little at the sleeves of his shirt, probably the kind that come from hard ranch work, rather than some gym. “Besides, Madge likes to work that day. It’s her idea of a social event.” He grinned again. And, again, that simple motion of his mouth had the effect of a sucker punch.

  “Ummm, okay,” she said.

  He seemed to be looking deep into the shadowy corners of her heart, though his expression was gentle, and a flicker of amusement moved in his eyes. “You seem a little edgy,” he said. “I don’t make you nervous, do I?”

  “No,” she lied.

  He laughed.

  “Maybe a little,” she allowed.

  The blue eyes danced. His hat was resting on the counter top, and he reached for it, letting her admission pass without further comment. “How are Jessie’s horses?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Are you going to try and tell me that you haven’t already looked in on them?”

  He laughed again. “No,” he said. “That was the first thing I did. They look pretty good. You’ll call me, though, if you run into trouble?”

  There was a promise she wouldn’t hesitate to make, on behalf of the livestock, anyway. Or if she saw the cougar. She didn’t look up at the rifle hanging over the door, but she was conscious of it, all the same. “You bet,” she told him.

  He nodded, turned with that rolling, loose-hipped ease that said cowboy, and headed for the door. Before opening it, he crooked a finger.

  She followed him out onto the porch without a thought, and then could have kicked herself for being so deferential.

  He stood in a way that sheltered her from the crisp autumn breeze, though she couldn’t be sure whether it was a deliberate courtesy, or a simple accident. He exuded the good, earthy scents of hay and fresh air and sun-dried laundry. “Did Jase warn you about the cougar?” he asked.

  Alarm wriggled in the pit of her stomach, and she nodded, hugging herself tightly against the sense of elemental fear that arose within her. “Yes,” she said.

  “And have you decided whether or not you want to learn to use a gun?”

  She shuddered hard. She’d grown up in a cop’s household, and she’d developed a healthy respect for Lou’s service revolver in the process. The only time her stepfather had ever punished her, in fact, was when she was nine, and she climbed up and took the pistol from the top of a high bookshelf, in order to show it to a friend. When Lou found out, he not only grounded her for a full month, he cut off her allowance, revoked her television privileges, and assigned her extra chores around the house. She’d never gone near the thing again.

  “I hate guns,” she said, at some length. Imagined images of Lou’s bullet wounds flooded her mind and, for a moment, she thought she would have to bend over the porch rail and throw up. Deep breathing saved her from that humiliation, but barely.

  Chance saw too much in her face, in her countenance; he took her upper arms firmly but gently into his hands. “Hallie,” he ground out, “look at me.”

  She looked. She couldn’t help it. Nor could she find the impetus to break free of his grasp.

  “Tell me about Lou Waitlin,” he said.

  Her knees went weak, and her vision shrank, in the space of a second or two, to a pinpoint, then expanded again so rapidly that she nearly fainted. She couldn’t find words; merely shook her head.

  Chance sighed. “Listen, I know he was a retired cop. I know he was murdered in his own living room, in Phoenix. What I don’t know is, who was he to you?”

  “Don’t,” she pleaded. He knew too much as it was. If she explained about Lou, the dam would burst. She’d be forced to flee Primrose Creek before she was ready.

  He cupped her chin in one hand. “All right,” he said gruffly. Reluctantly. “All right. I’ll let it go for now, but we’ve got to talk about this, sooner, rather than later.”

  She gazed up at him, tears stinging along her lower lashes, and that was when it happened. That was when the earth shifted on its axis, when all of creation changed, starting at a point square in the center of Hallie O’Rourke’s battered heart.

  He kissed her.

  She felt a surge of aching energy rise through her center like a shaft of light. Her breath caught, and something turned over inside her, and she put her arms around Chance Qualtrough’s neck and kissed him back, hard. Right there on Jessie Shaw’s porch.

  The contact ended of its own accord; neither Chance nor Hallie pulled away on purpose.

  “Uh-oh,” Chance growled, after a short interval of stricken silence. His hands were resting lightly on the sides of her waist.

  “It didn’t mean anything,” she said quickly.

  He looked at her with a sort of wry annoyance. “Whatever,” he replied. He waited a few beats, then added, “I’m going to teach you to use a rifle. No arguments.” With that, he was walking away from her, crossing the yard, striding toward his waiting truck, looking back at her over one shoulder. “When’s your next day off?”

  Hallie gripped the porch railing. She was freezing, and deeply, deliciously shaken, and she didn’t have the good sense, evidently, to go into the house. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Find out,” he replied, and then he was inside the truck, shutting the door, grinding the motor to life.

  Hallie watched him drive away.

  “I’ll need your Social Security number,” Madge announced, as an aside, when Hallie arrived at the café some fifteen minutes after her encounter with Chance. She’d left Phoenix in a hurry, but that was one contingency she’d covered, thanks to one of a number of fringe Web sites devoted to such topics as the fine art of disappearing without a trace. She’d found another Hallie O’Rourke, one close to her own age, who had died in an auto accident at seventeen, and simply appropriated the necessary statistics. If Madge asked for references, though, she’d be in trouble.

  “Sure,” Hallie said, busily wiping down the tables in preparation for the lunch rush. “I’ll write it down for you. Do you want me to fill out an application of some kind?” She held her breath, and her smile, waiting for the answer.

  “No need of an application,” Madge replied. She was restocking the pie cabinet with several fresh examples of Bear’s baking wizardry. “You’re already hired. Just need the number—you know, for Uncle Sam.”

  Hallie nodded. “Right,” she said.

  Madge was untying her apron, getting ready to leave. “I was just wondering,” she mused. “Would you rather work the breakfast shift? You’d start at seven and get off at two in the afternoon.
Might be better for you, since you’ve got the kids and all.”

  Hallie stopped, watched Madge, who wore her usual benign expression. It was hard, trying to put in a day’s work and keep an eye on her children at the same time. For the moment, hanging out at the café was a novelty to them, but soon, they’d start getting bored and restless. “It would be easier,” she said, very carefully. Maybe she could find good part-time daycare for Kiera and Kiley, and enroll them in Evie Callahan’s school for the rest of the day. That left the evenings for their schoolwork and her farm chores.

  “Fine, then,” Madge said. “You can start the new shift tomorrow. And we haven’t talked about your days off. Would Sunday and Monday work for you?”

  “Perfectly,” Hallie said, thinking of her date with Chance, for the following Sunday evening. Of course, she assured herself quickly, it wasn’t really a date, not with the kids going along. More of a friendly outing. Or a field trip. “No sign of Wynona, huh?” She couldn’t help thinking of Bear’s girlfriend, due to arrive on the bus at any time; when Wynona got there, she would probably be out of work.

  Madge rolled her eyes. “Must have been abducted by aliens,” she breathed. “God help the poor devils.” She peered at the feed store calendar on the wall next to the kitchen doorway. “What’s tomorrow? Friday?”

  “Saturday,” Bear boomed, from behind the grill. Hallie wondered if he’d heard his sister’s remark about Wynona and the aliens.

  “Saturday,” Madge marveled, in a tone of disbelief. She shook her head as she turned away from the calendar. “Where does the time go?”

  Hallie sighed. That was a question she couldn’t begin to answer, and it had been rhetorical, anyway. Barely a week ago, she’d been another person entirely—a successful businesswoman with a beautiful condo, a nifty BMW sedan, and several bank accounts. Her children had attended a good school, taken dance classes, and enjoyed play dates with their friends. They’d had plenty of toys and clothes, and no cause to be afraid. True, she’d had a difficult divorce to cope with, but lots of people dealt with worse. Then Lou had been killed, and from then on, the pillars of her life had collapsed in rapid sequence, like so many dominoes.