“That does smell good, girlie.” Jack, a cross-country trucker, nearly drooled over the plate of home-cooked food Emma sat before him.
“Almost as good as you, sweetie.” His nearly toothless companion reached an arm around Emma, trapping her beside him as she set his food and drink on the table.
If Clarence wasn’t such a good tipper, she’d gladly dump the hot plate in his lap. He was harmless so she’d chosen to ignore his advances over the years. “Now, Clarence, you don’t want me telling Betty Jo over at the Tasty Swirl that you’re flirting with me again, do you?” That comment gained her immediate release. “You wouldn’t want to miss your weekly bowling night, now would you?”
Clarence had the good grace to appear chagrined. “Aw, Em, you know I was just teasin’ ya.”
“Of course I do, Clarence.” She squeezed his shoulder. “But we wouldn’t want any gossip to get back to Betty Jo, now would we?”
“She’s got ya there, Clarence.” Jack guffawed, then dug into his meal.
Emma grinned as she turned away from the pair. The regulars knew her and most treated her like a younger sister or daughter.
The bell above the front door sounded as it opened. Lorna’s daughter, Rachel, entered, with Benjamin and Brian in tow.
“Hey guys!”
“Mommy!” They both ran to her, nearly knocking her over as they wrapped their arms around her hips.
“Did you guys have fun with Rachel?”
“Yup. We played one-handed tug-of-war, and I won.” Ben announced.
“But I won the dart throwing contest.” Brian said.
“Darts?” Emma glanced at Rachel, who was busy putting on her waitress apron.
“Safety darts, Em. They stick to the board with suction cups. And the guys were real good, by the way.” Rachel picked up her note pad and shoved a pencil behind her ear.
“How was Mama?”
Rachel always stayed with the boys on Tuesdays, since Mama’s younger brother and his son always took her into Newark for dinner and a movie.
“Your uncle and Gage picked her up right on time. Sometimes she reminds me of a schoolgirl going out on her first date when those two take her to the movies. I even helped her put her hair up tonight.”
Emma paused a moment. “You helped her do her hair?”
Rachel shrugged. “She was having a little trouble getting it pulled into her usual roll in back.”
“Thanks for helping her,” Emma said. For the first time in her life, concern that her mother couldn’t do her own hair nagged at her.
“No problem,” Rachel said. Chomping on a piece of gum, she went into the kitchen to hug her mom then returned with a tray laden with glasses of water for a table.
Emma pulled the reserved sign from the two counter stools next to the cash register. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, days when Mama had regular plans, the boys always ate at the café with her. She routinely set two stools aside for the boys when she started her shift. Rachel, who watched the boys at the beginning of the evening, usually brought them in for dinner while Emma took her break.
The boys climbed on their stools, each bracing their arms on the counter.
“So, what’ll it be tonight, guys?” Emma loved this part of her night, getting to take dinner orders for her two favorite customers.
“Cheeseburger and fries, mom,” Ben announced.
“Cheeseburger and fries for me, too,” echoed Brian.
“Okay, two burgers and fries, coming up.” Emma laughed. They ordered the same thing each time. Usually she convinced them to have something a little healthier. Tonight, however, cheeseburgers might be the easiest for them to handle one handed—especially if she cut them into small pieces.
While they ate their dinner, Emma spent her time between the counter and register. She let each boy have a turn helping her make change while they ate their dinner. Lorna always arranged her relief so she could spend her time with her sons.
“Now, if you can tell me how much change I get if my meal cost six dollars and seventy-five cents, and I give you seven dollars, then you may keep the change, young man.” The elderly Mr. Weaver held out his money to Benjamin.
Emma hid her smile as her older son concentrated on the task.
“That would be twenty-five cents, sir.” Ben glanced at her for reassurance and Emma nodded her head. He grinned then pushed the buttons on the antique register. The drawer popped open. He placed the bills in their proper place, extracting one bright new quarter and handing it to Mr. Weaver.
“Oh no, young fella. You earned that quarter yourself.” He patted Ben on the head, then handed each of the boys another quarter before escorting his wife out into the night.
“Look, mommy.” Brian held up his quarter. “Mr. Weaver gave me one, too. That makes five quarters tonight!”
“And I got six.” Ben nudged his brother with his hip.
Emma pushed the money drawer closed, then looked at her sons. “And do you know what you’re going to do with that money?”
“Put it in our piggy banks.” They recited it from memory. Their faces matched their voices in total lack of enthusiasm. Emma studied them for a moment. She wanted to teach them to save their money, but maybe letting them spend it occasionally might not be such a bad idea. All work and no play made them all a little unhappy.
“How about tomorrow we go out for ice cream after the T-ball game and you can spend your money then?”
“Yippee!”
“Hooray!”
The boys jumped up and down then ran around and around their mother. Emma grabbed them both and hugged them tight.
“And what is all this excitement about?” A deep voice asked from the counter behind them.
Emma cringed as she turned. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw Clint sitting on a vacant stool next to where her sons’ plates still sat.
Chapter Three
“Doc Clint!” Both boys raced around the counter to scramble onto seats flanking the doctor. The joy drained out of Emma, anger quickly replacing it. So much for keeping her sons out of the good doctor’s radar range.
“Hey guys, what’re you two doing here?”
He seemed genuinely happy to see her sons. For that she’d cut him a little slack—maybe a centimeter’s worth.
“Helping mommy...” Brian started.
“...work and make money,” Ben finished.
Clint glanced at her with one eyebrow lifted in a silent sardonic question.
Great! Now he thinks I have the boys employed in child slave labor.
“Actually,” Emma lifted her waitress pad from her skirt, “they’re simply having dinner while I man the counter and register. Can I take your order?”
“We got tips.” Brian whispered.
Ben nodded his head in unison.
Emma wanted to groan.
Clint picked up the plastic covered menu, glancing up and down, then over at the boys. “I seem to remember Lorna made the best pies this side of a bakery. What’s in the case tonight?”
Both boys ran to the pie display case where slices of the pies could be viewed and the names written on cards beside them.
“Apple.” Ben found a word he knew first.
“Cherry.” Brian knew his favorite.
“Lem...” Ben looked back at Emma for help.
“Lemon Meringue.”
Brian grinned. “That’s mom’s favorite.”
Could the floor just open and swallow me?
“Okay guys, that’s enough help. Finish your burgers.” Emma watched with pride as her sons ran back to their counter seats. They were bright boys, and read on the level two years ahead of their grade. She turned her attention on Clint. “And what would you like?”
“I’ll have cherry, with a large glass of milk, please.”
Emma wrote down his order then went to fill it. She prayed he’d simply eat and go away. But when she returned, she found the boys telling him all about their T-ball team and explaining that Mama always went out with
friends on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Great. Now he knew their family schedule.
Setting the plate and glass before him, she cleared the boys’ dinner plates.
“Thank you.”
The sincerity in his simple reply surprised Emma, who blushed for no reason. “You’re welcome,” she muttered before moving down the counter to continue cleaning.
The only customers left were her sons, Clint, and Violet and Nola Miller, the pastor’s two sisters. The sisters ate dinner every Tuesday together while their husbands attended the deacons’ meeting at the Baptist church. Even though the sisters had each celebrated their thirtieth wedding anniversaries the entire town still called them the Miller twins.
Emma glanced at the clock. Seven-thirty. Thirty more minutes and then she could close. If she managed to finish the mopping while Rachel, Lorna, and Billy, the teenager who washed dishes every night, finished in the kitchen, they could go home early. Of course, she’d have to convince Clint to finish his dessert.
Maybe the smell of bleach and the sound of a swishing mop will give him the idea, or at least ruin his appetite. For the first time she could ever remember Emma went to retrieve her mopping supplies with a happy heart.
When she returned, the Miller twins stood in front of the register, admiring Ben and Brian’s casts.
“Oh dear, you climbed all the way up Mr. Thompson’s tree?” Violet held Ben’s arm in her hands.
“And we jumped way out.” He exaggerated the word way.
Nola patted Brian’s arm. “Weren’t you scared?”
“Just a little,” he confessed.
Emma set the bucket behind the counter, making sure it lay beneath Clint’s plate, where most of the pie had already disappeared. She stood for a moment, watching the oldest set of twins in town interact with the youngest. The foursome had developed a unique relationship the day she brought the boys home as babies to live with her parents. Both sisters, aunts of the local minister, were now married, but the whole town still referred to them as “the Miller twins”.
“Suzie called us as soon as she heard from Harriett about what happened to the boys.” Nola smiled softly at Emma, her head tilted slightly to one side. Apparently Suzie had also told them all of the doctor’s threat to report her as a neglectful mother.
Violet, the more flirtatious of the two sisters, laid her hand on Clint’s arm and turned on her most cheerful smile. “We’re so glad you were there to set our little friends’ arms. The boys are so dear to us.”
“I didn’t do anything my uncle wouldn’t have, ladies.” He flashed them a smile equal to any Hollywood hunk.
When Violet giggled in response, Emma rolled her eyes then busied herself ringing up the ladies’ bill. She wanted to tell him that his uncle wouldn’t have taken out the boys’ misbehavior on her, but given them a stern lecture on taking responsibility about obeying rules.
“Emma, your mother and the boys will spend the day with Sister and I on Thursday, correct?” Nola asked.
Emma handed her the change. She felt Clint watching the entire exchange. “Yes, Miss Nola, they are. I’ll have them at your house about eight.”
She waved to the two ladies as they left, then ignoring Clint, she heaved the heavy bucket to the far side of the café. She sloshed the bleach solution on the black and white linoleum, working it under the booths with the long strings of the mop. The heavy work stretched and pulled her muscles, but it beat doing aerobics with all those skinny models on TV any day.
She worked her way from one corner of the dining area, across to the other, then toward the counter space and the rear booths. As she passed her sons and Clint the conversation stopped her dead in her tracks.
“Petey calls us the immacurate contraption,” Brian announced out of the blue.
Emma stared at her youngest son.
“You know, coz we don’t got a daddy,” his brother explained.
“You mean the Immaculate Conception?” Clint clarified as his gaze drifted from the boys to meet and hold hers.
Now would be a really good time for an earthquake or tornado. Anything to make me disappear. Emma broke the connection and resumed her mopping with a vengeance. She didn’t need to justify her life or her past to anyone, certainly not Clint Preston.
Clint ate his last forkful of pie, watching the twins’ mother out of the corner of his eye. With each new fact he learned about her, Emma Lewis seemed more of a puzzle. He knew she’d listened in on their conversation and heard Brian’s announcement. The blush that had quickly covered her face made him wonder about her relationship with the boys’ father. Obviously they thought they didn’t have one. Had she completely hid their existence from their father, or just cut him totally out of their lives?
Surely Emma wouldn’t have hidden the boys from their father, would she? If she had, then why?
The Miller sisters’ suggestion that Emma’s mother and the boys visited them on a regular basis surprised him. Had they already been scheduled to spend Thursday with them, or had his threat this afternoon scared the little redhead into finding additional childcare to help her mother watch the boys? And if so, how temporary of a time had she arranged?
“You finished with that, Doc?” Lorna stood in the doorway, her frame nearly filling it. “I need to finish and get closed. Jeopardy is on in ten minutes.”
Clint finished off his milk, then carried his dishes to the café owner and cook, just like he had as a kid. “You still make the best cherry pie in the whole world, Lorna.”
“Oh hush, you.” She took the plate then moved out of the way for Emma to carry the mop and bucket through the door. “If you’re finished, Em, I’ll count down the register. You can go a little early.”
“Yippee!” Both boys danced around as their mother dumped the contents of the bucket, then washed her hands.
“Okay guys, settle down,” she called, gathering her bag. “Thanks, Lorna. See you Thursday night.”
Clint stepped around the counter so Emma could get through. The fresh scent of lemon soap wafted past as she walked by him. He leaned on the counter, as the threesome left and headed in the direction of their house.
He didn’t know why they intrigued him. After all, his only reason for being here was to help his uncle and get his own head on straight. Once his six month commitment to his uncle was finished, he’d return to the fast paced ER medicine, and the promotion he’d been offered.
The last thing he needed was get involved with anyone in this town on more than a professional basis—especially not someone with as much baggage as Emma Lewis.
“If you were a gentleman, you’d walk that little girl home.”
Clint gave Lorna a rueful smile. “I’m not so sure she’d want my company.”
“Nonsense. Emma’s got a heart of gold. You go make sure she gets those boys home in one piece.”
“What do I owe you for the pie?” He reached for his wallet.
“Not a thing, Doc. We’ll call it professional courtesy.”
He flashed her a smile and hurried out the door, surprised at how much he really wanted to catch up with Emma and her sons. Wanting to be around the boys didn’t surprise him. So far, every conversation with them had been entertaining and rather surprising. Certainly, that was the reason he wanted to join the little family, not the missing puzzle pieces about their mother.
The trio had stopped at the toy store two shops from the Café. Both boys had their noses pressed against the glass. Emma listened to them, laughing at something they said.
Clint slowed his pace, coming to a stop behind them.
“We could play catch with that football, mommy.” Ben pointed to the window.
“It’s nearly as big as you are, boys.” Their mother glanced into the window, the smile dying on her lips as she saw him reflected in the glass standing behind them all. “Good evening, Doctor.”
Icicles hung from those three words.
Yep, she didn’t want him to walk them home. Too damn bad. Lorna
was right. Dark had descended quickly and his mother trained him to be a gentleman at all times. “I thought since we were all headed the same way, I might walk along with you.”
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark? This is Weston you know, not the big bad city.” Sarcasm edged her words.
“You’re afraid of the bogieman, too, Doc Clint?” Brian asked his face full of knowing sympathy.
Great! How did he correct their mother’s opinion of him without embarrassing the kid for his own fears? Emma crossed her arms under her breasts waiting to see how he’d get out of this.
“I used to be when I was a kid, Brian. But tonight I just thought you guys could point out your favorite stars to me while we walk. We don’t see this many of them in Columbus.”
Emma shrugged, and he swore he heard her snort. He mentally patted himself on the back. He got out of that pretty good.
“You don’t have stars in Col...”
“...umbus?”
Clint blinked. Would he ever get used to the twins finishing each other’s sentences?
He turned in the direction of their homes, the boys quickly falling in on either side of him. It took a moment, but he finally heard Emma a step or two behind them. He slowed his pace so they all strolled down the block as one group—Ben closest to the store windows, himself, then Brian, and finally Emma on the outside.
Clint stopped and pointed through a clearing in the trees to the brightest star close to the moon. “See that one there?”
“What one’s that?” Brian asked.
“It’s called Venus.”
“Venus is a planet, Mommy told us so.” Ben spoke with the authority of all six-year-olds who believe their parents are infallible.
A soft snicker sounded from Emma.
“Well,” Clint glanced at their mother. Even in the moonlight he could see the sarcastic lift of her lips in a challenge. He’d get no help from her on this subject. “Your mom is right, Venus is a planet. But the sun shines on it and we can see it in the sky at night.” There, that explanation would work.
Close To Home (Westen Series) Page 3
