by Lynn Cahoon
“I can’t believe that woman,” I hissed at my friend. “You would think they were still married by the way she was all over him. The mayor even called her Mrs. King.”
Amy handed me a tissue. “Well, she is technically Mrs. King until she remarries, right?”
“No.” I took the tissue and started tearing it in pieces. “Well, maybe. I don’t know. Can’t we look it up on the Internet or something?”
“What and then tell the mayor he can’t use the term anymore?” Amy tried to sound reasonable. “Calm down, Jill. Greg divorced her because he knows all her games. He’s with you now.”
“Well, he’s dating me now.”
Amy raised her eyebrows. “Like there’s a big difference in Greg’s mind.”
She had a point. I said my good-byes and started walking home, wondering what else the day could bring. At least I’d finally met Greg’s ex-wife—and I was dressed in jeans and an old Bon Jovi T-shirt that I’d gotten at one of his concerts. A far cry from Sherry’s polished appearance. Greg likes me this way, I chided myself. But then I wondered. Had I let our comfort level get too lax? Should I be dressing up more for our dates? Taking more time with my hair?
I’d worked myself into a funk by the time I’d reached home. Emma’s over-the-top welcome did nothing to refresh my mood. I sat at the table spinning a banana.
I stood and shook off the negativity. Greg would be here in a few minutes with lunch from Lille’s. I had probably ten minutes before he’d arrive, so I ran upstairs, took a quick shower, and dressed in a light blue cotton shift, not too fancy, but not jeans and a tee.
Thirty minutes later, he finally arrived, food sacks in hand.
He buzzed my cheek as he walked past me. “Sorry, Sherry kept me longer than I wanted. Man, that girl can talk.”
I followed him back into the kitchen. “About what?” I tried to sound casual.
Greg shrugged, pulling out burgers and fries and, God bless him, milk shakes. “Absolutely nothing. She blabs on and on about people we used to know, friends who were always more her people than mine, and all the good old days. I think she forgot she hated being married and has told me over and over how I made her life miserable.”
I sat and dipped a fry into Lille’s special sauce. Ketchup and Miracle Whip. “Maybe she realizes she made a mistake by letting you go.”
“Her mistake, not mine.” He took a bite of his burger. Cocking his head, he smiled at me, a drop of cheese on his lip. “You’re not worried about Sherry, are you?”
I reached out and wiped the corner of his mouth. “Why would I be worried? You just spent time with a woman who looks more like a supermodel than a real person.” I put on a stronger smile than I felt.
“You don’t want to know how much she spends on those stupid shoes of hers.” Greg kept his eyes cast downward, but his lips twitched. “I like the dress, by the way. Maybe Sherry should come rile you up more often?”
I slapped his arm. “Jerk. Don’t think I dressed up for you.” I smoothed the blue skirt of the sundress. “I’m heading back to work after lunch.”
“Yeah, and that’s what you typically wear for a shift at the coffee shop.” He shrugged. “Whatever you need to tell yourself. You know you’re crazy about me.”
I needed to change the subject and not toward the mess of a situation we’d just left at the mayor’s office. Tina and Sherry weren’t going to ruin the rest of my day. “Did I mention that I met the new program director who took Ted’s job? Or I should say, took her job back after Ted had forced her out?”
“Is that where you disappeared to on Monday?” Greg finished off his burger. “I stopped by early, but you’d already left.”
“I had some errands to run.” I polished off my fries and cut my burger in half. “Her name’s Candy Peterson.”
“Whose name?” Greg pinched one of my fries.
I moved the container farther away from him. Lille made to-die-for steak fries. “The new program director.”
“Oh, her.” He popped the fry into his mouth. “She seems nice.”
I glared at him. “You already knew about her?”
“Honey, what do you think I do for a living? I’m the one who’s supposed to be investigating Ted’s murder, not you.” Greg stood and let Emma out the back door. “I arrived there ten minutes after you left.”
“So you know Ted forced her out of her position when he came into town.” I wrapped up the leftovers and tossed everything into the paper bag. I threw the bag into the kitchen trash and slapped my hands together. “Dishes done.”
“My little Suzie Homemaker.” He leaned back in his chair. “What else did you find out?”
I pulled the sheet out of my jeans pocket. “I think Ted was still looking for the wife who disappeared ten years ago.” Greg glanced over the receipt. “It’s for a private investigator.”
Greg rolled his eyes. “I can read, you know.” He slipped the page into a plastic bag he’d pulled out of one of the kitchen cabinets. “As far as leads go, it feels like a dead end.”
“But …”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t check it out.” He kissed me on the top of my head. “Gotta get back to work.”
I followed him to the door. “I’ll be right behind you. I’m just closing up the house, then back to the shop to relieve Toby.”
“Your aunt and Josh make up yet?” Greg leaned against the doorway, watching me, and his gaze made my blood heat.
“Not yet. She’s sure he’s seeing someone else. Even swears she saw the girl sneaking up the back stairs.”
Greg laughed as he walked down the stairs. “I just can’t see Josh as a player.”
“Me neither.” I watched him drive away and then glanced at my watch. I had better get moving before my barista started thinking with the cop side of his brain and assumed something bad had happened.
I walked into the shop with ten minutes to spare. The women from the cosmetology school, or Toby’s girls as Jackie called them, had all but disappeared. The only customer was a young woman reading the latest novel from a popular romance novelist turned mystery writer. A cup of tea sat in front of her as well as what appeared to be part of a brownie. Toby was cleaning the back sink when I approached the coffee bar.
He turned and a wide smile filled his face. “Hey, boss. How was your break?”
“Besides getting yelled at in the mayor’s office and having Greg’s ex-wife look at me like I had just been rescued from the woods where I’d bonded with bears.” I came around the counter and poured a cup of coffee, chocolate-flavored.
Toby poured his own cup and, glancing at the lone customer, nodded at the counter. “Come tell me all about it.”
“You’re not a psychiatrist or even a counselor.” I crawled up on a stool and sipped my cup, wondering if Toby’s ability to listen was what drew women to him. And yet I started talking about the crazy meeting in the mayor’s office, finishing with the one thing that irked me more than anything else. “Then your other boss decides he has to walk his old flame back to her car and leave me hanging.”
Toby laughed. Not quite the response I’d been looking for.
“Men, they all stick together.”
He shook his head. “You don’t get it. Greg hates Sherry. It must have driven him crazy to have to be nice to her.”
“He didn’t seem to mind.” I thought about the way Greg had acted with Sherry hanging all over him. Maybe Toby was right and I in my jealousy could only see their past, not the reality of the present.
Toby shrugged. “Greg does a lot of things that you’d never guess drive him crazy. You should have seen him being nice to Tina when she came over to decorate the jail. He tried to tell her that the jail wasn’t supposed to be bright and cheery, even at Christmas. In true Tina style, she totally ignored his request for her to leave. Face it, around women your boy toy’s kind of a wuss.”
“Most men are,” a female voice agreed. Toby and I glanced away from each other and the window. The young cust
omer reading by the window had abandoned her book and was standing in front of Toby and me. Her face was drawn and thin, apparently from a lack of regular meals. Her jeans and T-shirt looked like she’d been wearing them for a week. She couldn’t have been old enough to be on her own. This was the type of person who needed to be protected. “Sorry, didn’t mean to intrude. Can I get another tea?”
I stood and walked around the counter. “No problem. How’s the book?”
“Okay, I guess. My boyfriend was always reading crap like this. I wanted to figure out what the big deal was.” She glanced out the window toward the street.
I pointed to a display book, another young adult vampire knockoff. “I could suggest some books you might enjoy.”
The girl didn’t even look at me before she answered. “Don’t know if I’ll be around for much longer this time. No need to be nice to me.”
The pain in her voice twisted my heart a bit. “I’m not being nice. Part of my job is to suggest books you might not know about. I sell books as well as coffee.” I nodded over to the row of bookcases that lined the dining room. “Do you want to talk about books you’ve read and liked in the past? I bet I could list off five great authors for you to try after talking to you for ten minutes.”
The girl shrugged again. “Maybe tomorrow. I just want my tea now.”
I’d forgotten I was working on her drink. I doused the tea bag with a blast of hot water to get the brewing process started, then filled the cup. Handing it to the girl, I waved away the dollar bills in her hand. “No charge for refills.”
She glared at Toby, then stomped back to her book.
“Great, now I’m the bad guy for charging her a quarter for each of the three refills she’s already had.” Toby stood and pulled off his apron. “I’m beat. I’ve got tonight off from the other job and I’m heading home for a quick nap.”
I pulled out my own book and took a seat at the table. “See you tomorrow.”
Toby leaned against the counter. “You know, Jackie usually checks the receipts before I leave.”
I snorted. “I trust you. Besides, if you’re dipping into the till, who am I going to tell? If you’re stealing from me, who do I report it to?”
“I’m just telling you, we have a routine. She snips about how low the sales were, and I tell her she’s an old grump and I can outsell her any day of the week.” Toby tapped his fingers on the counter. “I hope she gets over being mad at Josh. I think they make a cute couple.”
After Toby left, the girl at the window finished her tea in two long gulps and followed him out the door. She zipped her Oregon Ducks hoodie up against a chill and swung her backpack over her shoulder. A flash of greasy blond hair peeked out near her neck, but she pushed it away. I watched her walk out the door and for a moment, our gaze met. Anger flared out of that look, making me turn my head and drop my hand that had been starting to lift in a friendly wave.
When I glanced back out the window, she’d disappeared. Street kid, I guessed. Probably a runaway using the café as a break from being outdoors. A real chair to sit in rather than the park bench. I sent good thoughts into the universe to ease her way and returned to reading my book.
For the next two hours, I had three customers, if you counted the mother looking for a bathroom for her daughter. But Jackie’s display of children’s books caught the woman’s attention and before she left, she’d purchased three books for her daughter and matched the three for the center. My last customer before I shut down for the night was Matt, stopping for a large coffee on his way to Darla’s winery.
“I didn’t expect any of the crew until tomorrow.” Sasha worked the evening shift with Jackie, giving my aunt plenty of time to think up new projects and marketing ideas for the store. Eight weeks, well, seven now, would go by fast. Not for the first time, I wondered if the business could afford to bring Sasha on for anything close to full-time.
Matt blushed. “Darla needs help redoing a section of her patio before the rain sets in, so I thought I’d come over and get a start on it tonight.”
“Have you met Candy over at Work Today?” I wondered what the program director would say if she knew her charge was putting in extra hours. Were they even allowed to do that?
Matt shook his head. “We’ve got a meet-and-greet tomorrow afternoon before they bus us over. You’d think they wanted us to look for work rather than waste our time with social teas.”
“It’s all about the networking and who you know,” I said, mostly as a joke.
Matt’s jaw clenched. “You can say that again.” He handed me two dollars for the coffee and walked toward the door. He stopped with the door half-open. “Although for all his connections, it didn’t save Ted from being a jerk and getting killed.”
CHAPTER 12
Jackie came down from the apartment during my morning shift the next day. She pulled a batch of flyers out of a box and shoved them toward me. “Standard drill, give everyone who buys a drink one with their cup, and if they get something from the dessert case, shove one in their bag.”
The flyers were sectioned off into fifty-page bundles, the better to monitor the distribution in Jackie’s mind. I unclipped the binder and held one up. Pictures of the center and one of a little girl sitting alone with a book on her lap in front of the shop’s bookshelves told the story with quiet elegance. The plea went way past just buying a book for a needy child. Jackie had almost promised world peace with an end to the theory of Mutually Assured Destruction finishing with ending childhood hunger. A typical Jackie overdo. “Nice,” I said and meant it. “We can slip them into the books we sell as a bookmark.”
Jackie stared at me, her eyes narrowing and her lips pursing.
“Or not,” I faltered.
She shook her head. “No. It’s a terrific idea. I’m just wondering when you started thinking marketing rather than spending your free time reading all day.”
Busted. I guess I had used most of the evening shift to get caught up on my favorite owner duties, researching the new releases. How could I recommend a book I hadn’t read? The door chime kept me from having to explain my lack of measurable work yesterday.
Regina Johnson waved. She didn’t come right up to the counter. Instead, she wandered over to the bookshelves, running her finger across the books and stopping occasionally to pull one out. David, her driver, stood behind her, and as she took books from the shelves, she handed them to him. By the time they walked up to the counter, the man held ten books, ranging from classics to several modern authors.
She waved him to set the books down and tipped her head upward to read the menu board. “Two large mochas and a random dozen of your treats over there. David’s got some reading to catch up on.”
“You don’t have to buy me these books. I can afford them.” His face was turning beet red.
I started the mochas and smiled at Regina. “Trying to get him to branch out from his reading rut?”
She picked up one of the books and glanced lovingly at the cover. “When I realized he’d never read anything from Mark Twain or any of the classics, I knew I had to correct that error with his literary education. Besides, I’m paying him for his time. He can at least try to read what I ask him to read.”
David mumbled something so low, I couldn’t even hear him. Regina ignored the comment, but I jumped in with both feet.
“What?”
He blushed, then straightening his shoulders, said in a clear voice, “I like my books.”
Regina laughed. “You sound just like my son did growing up. Petulant and stubborn.” She patted David on the arm. “Relax, you might even like some of the books I bought for you. What did you do in high school? Some of these must have been on your English reading lists.”
He grinned. “I restored my teacher’s ’69 Duster. I was in auto shop and didn’t have a car of my own to work on, so Mr. Higgins let me restore his. I guess maybe I didn’t do all the English homework and he didn’t care.”
Regina pursed her lips.
“Our education system at work. This is why we need standardized testing to pass from grade to grade. My son spent so much time in the garage with his dad working on that hot rod of his, I’m pretty sure he schmoozed his way through some of his classes. The boy was class president all four years of high school.” She paused. “He was a charmer.”
Something in Regina’s words made me wonder if her son wasn’t in her life anymore. Before I could answer, David put his hand on her arm and she turned to him, brightening.
“Right, we’re not talking about the old days.” She smiled at me. “I’ve made it my mission to try to widen David’s reading choices. He’ll love these stories.”
He didn’t answer aloud, but I could read his answer on his face. Fat chance. I bit my bottom lip to keep from smiling and changed the subject. “I’m sure I gave my mom grief about her summer reading list.” I handed a cup to Regina. “Let me ring this up for you.”
She picked up a flyer on the counter. “A book drive, how sweet. Remind me to write you a check for the cause before I leave.”
I frowned, confused. “Today?”
“No. I meant before I end my stay at your quaint little town.” She paused, looking wistful, like she’d lost something and she didn’t know where to start searching. “I guess I have to go back to the real world someday.”
“Reality is overrated.” Jackie’s voice jarred me. I’d forgotten she was in the shop she’d been so quiet.
Regina turned her head and considered Jackie’s comment, her face solemn. “I think you’re right about that. Unfortunately, I have commitments to keep. Ones that won’t go away just because I’m feeling blue.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard the adage about putting your oxygen mask on first in case of a crash. Just tell the people hassling you that you need some Regina time.” I handed her the charge slip with her credit card.
She signed the credit card slip and picked up her packages. “I’m sure that works in some alternate universe, but not in my world.” Regina smiled, but the light didn’t reach her eyes. “Thanks for listening to the meanderings of a doddering old lady.”
