by Jillian Hart
“You know where I’m going,” Evan accused her. “And I’m not ordering until we come to an agreement.”
“You’re going to charge me for your plumbing work last night?”
“No, ma’am. I don’t want you thinking you’re going to give me a free meal. You charge me like any other customer, or I take my business down the street to your competitor.”
“Ouch, you drive a hard bargain, but if you’re going to call me ‘ma’am,’ then I’m going to insist you go down the street to my competition. I just am not going to put up with anyone reminding me how old I am. I’m just not going to do it.”
Evan chuckled, leaning back in the booth just enough that the sunshine streaming through the slatted blinds washed over him, haloing him in light. “I think we have ourselves a bargain. I’ll have a large bowl of your famous chili, miss.”
“Miss. I like that.” Her face felt hot; she wanted to blame it on the sunshine, but she knew that wasn’t the cause at all. She felt as if she were blushing; the good Lord knew she felt younger. She couldn’t really explain it, but she didn’t like it, and she took a step back. “How about you, Phil?”
“Make that two.”
“You’ve got it. I’ll be right back with your cornbread. Excuse me.” She didn’t even look at Evan as she pounded away, quick to turn her mind to the new party crowding through the doorway and the teenagers getting restless in the booths.
But as she took the kids’ orders, Evan remained in the corner of her vision. She could not shake the memory of his confession last night of how he’d been in no hurry to head home to an empty house.
Her son gave her a cheeky grin as he ordered two monster burgers and extra fries, and she felt a hard pang of sympathy for the man when she realized his sons were no longer at home.
Sympathy—not interest—she told herself firmly. She felt sympathy for the man. Maybe because she was going to be in his shoes before long. As she clipped the order to the wheel, she caught sight of Alex sitting in the booth with his friends. Beth was with him today, crowded against his side, a quiet, blue-eyed redhead who had ordered a cheeseburger in a polite voice. Remembering Alex’s confession last night about Beth’s mom, she had a harder time not approving of the girl.
“Paige?” Her younger sister, Amy, caught her attention through the pass-through window. “Uh…could you come back here for a minute?”
Paige’s heart caught. “Are you all right? You’re as pale as a sheet.”
“I, uh, you’re gonna have to take over the grill. I’m feeling sick.” With a clatter, Amy suddenly dropped the spatula she held and dashed off at a run.
Okay, that’s not good. Wanting to run after her sister, and knowing the food sizzling on the grill needed to be tended to, she hurried around into the back. She snatched up the spatula and flipped burgers and rescued a batch of chicken tenders from the deep fryer. Wasn’t it just her luck that she could see Evan Thornton through the window? She had a perfect view of him, and with the way the sunshine poured through window highlighting him, it was like a sign from heaven.
I know what you’re trying to tell me, Lord. The realization hit her like a sunbeam. Evan had become a more frequent customer over the winter. He was like so many of her other regulars, the ones who came alone, as often as not because they needed more than a meal. Friendship. Connection. Fellowship.
All her life, she’d been the one looking after others. First as the big sister taking care of her brother and younger sisters. Then as the adult in the family, after their parents’ deaths. Finally she became a mom, and the role of caretaking just became hers through the years.
Heaven knew she was more parent than cousin to the twins, who were so lost, what with the way their parents lived. Somehow, her diner had become a big family kitchen in a way. And while her thoughts drifted down the hall as she wondered if Amy was okay, she quickly built the bacon, cheese and chili burgers for table eight, and held off on the incoming orders so she could run down to check on her sister.
“Order up,” she called to Brianna who was just back from seating the last of the incoming customers.
“Is Amy, like, okay?” Concern wreathed the girl’s face.
“I’m just going to go check on her. You’ll watch the front for me?”
“Yeah, totally!”
“Thanks, sweetie.” Paige started down the hall and found Amy washing her face at the sink in the women’s bathroom. The way she clung to the edge of the basin told Paige everything. She caught Amy’s reflection in the mirror, grabbed a length of paper towel from the dispenser and held it out to her. “I would say you’ve got a stomach bug, but something tells me that’s not your problem.”
Amy let out a watery sigh as she grabbed the paper and swiped it over her face. “I’m almost afraid to let myself think it, in case this is just an upset stomach.”
“Does your new husband know about this?”
Amy’s eyes filled. “This is only the second morning I’ve felt like this, and well, I think it’s too early to take a pregnancy test.”
“I’ll run across the street to the drug store and get one, and we can read the instructions to see. Or, wait, no, you want to share this with your husband.”
“I do.”
“Whatever you need, sweetie.”
The diamond wedding set on Amy’s left hand caught the light, sparkling like a brand-new shiny promise. Life had been hard for Amy for a long time. She’d been a rebellious teenager, and unhappy trapped in this small town. She’d run away her senior year in high school for a bigger and more exciting life in a big city, but she’d returned unhappy and disillusioned with her baby son in her arms.
She’d worked so hard all the years since to raise her son and provide for him, and now Paige prayed for her nightly—that this new marriage and the man in her life were everything she deserved, that her road ahead would be easier and filled with love—the kind of love that could last.
“Thank you, Paige. You are the best big sister.”
“No, I’m just marginal and very lucky to have you. Why don’t you sit down for a bit? I’ll get some ginger ale and crackers to calm your stomach. Sound like a good idea?”
“No, because the lunch rush is about to hit.”
“Not your problem. It’s mine.”
Amy wadded up the towel and gave it a toss. It landed neat as a pin in the wastebasket. Her heart-shaped face was ashen, but her jeweled eyes were big and bright and full of hope. “I’m not sick, I don’t think, and I want to finish my shift.”
“Not on your life. You’re going home. First you’re going to sit until you’re looking better and when you are, we’ll discuss you staying at the diner. C’mon, baby sister.” Paige put her arm around Amy’s slender shoulders. “You come let me take care of you.”
“I’m not sick.”
“Then you’re something better, and you need to take care. C’mon.” She navigated them through the door and down the hall. “Go sit and I’ll be right out.”
“But the lunch rush—”
“Go!” Paige softened her stern tone with a smile. “Brandilyn,” she called to the teen, who was standing at the till, her forehead wrinkled in concentration as she stared at the ticket and then the cash register keys. “Brandilyn, honey, go fetch two orders of cornbread for Mr. Thornton’s table. I’ll grab Alex to man the till.”
“Like, I totally need help!”
Paige rang up the ticket, handed the change back to Mrs. Brisbane, and thanked her for coming. It took a second to haul Alex from his friends, he came with only a half-hearted complaint, and took over front-desk duties so she could go catch up in the kitchen. She ladled out two huge bowls of chili for Evan and the plumber, and started a row of burgers on the grill. After swiping off her hands, she brought Amy a bowl of crackers and a big cup of soda. Amy looked too miserable to tackle the crackers but sipped at the pop with a look of deep gratitude.
Since Alex was answering the diner’s phone, probably for a take-out order, sh
e grabbed her cell from her pocket and dialed Amy’s home number. It took only a moment to let Heath know what was going on, and before she knew it, the meat patties were done. She dressed the buns, plated the meals, added a heaping round of golden fries and rang the bell.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Evan, digging into his chili and talking animatedly with Phil. There was something about him, something nice.
What was she thinking? She filled a basket with raw cut potatoes and lowered it into the fryer. She was so not interested in Evan Thornton. In any man. She didn’t have time for one. Room for one. Heart for one. Her life was far too full taking care of everyone else. And that was besides the fact that she’d had enough of men. One husband was more than enough for any woman. What would she want with another?
More customers were piling in, Alex was seating them, and she turned to dress two lunch salads at the counter to go with the club sandwich for table twelve. Heath came in through the back, Brandilyn rushed in to grab the green salads and rushed right back out again, and more orders filled the wheel.
She had enough to do to fill two lifetimes. She didn’t have time to waste on romance. She was just too busy for impossible dreams.
Chapter Five
Evan scraped the last bite of chili from the bottom of the oversized bowl and licked it off the spoon. He was near to bursting, but Paige’s chili had really hit the spot today. The sun had vanished and ice pellets were pounding the window next to him, dampening the lunch rush. The traffic along the main street was thinning.
It was easier to look out the window than to look around. He knew he’d catch sight of Paige hurrying between the kitchen and the front, checking on the waitresses and running the till, for she’d let her son rejoin his friends in the booth.
When she was around, his gaze kept finding her. And that was the kind of thing Phil had noticed.
Phil gave his plate a shove and leaned against the padded back of the booth. “You’re right. That was the best bowl of chili I’ve had since I was stationed in Texas. Say, did you know we heard from Liz the other day?”
“I thought you vowed to never talk to her again.” Just like me, he thought.
“She called right in the middle of supper. Marie thought it was a telemarketer and almost unplugged the phone. Should have done it, and we would have, too, if we’d known it was her. She’s in Tucson.”
I don’t want to hear this. Evan’s guts tightened. The only thing Liz ever brought him was bad memories and deep emotional pain. “I know she’s your sister, but I don’t want to talk about her. She took what she wanted.” And how. But he got what mattered, the real treasures, the real riches. Their boys. “You wanted to work on your estimate for Paige? She looks a little less busy.”
“I can take a hint. I only meant to say that Liz couldn’t rise to the challenge. She didn’t grow up all the way. But that doesn’t mean all women are like that. Look at my Marie. There isn’t a better gem in all the world.”
Evan’s guts twisted hard with an old, bitter pain. Some losses ran too deep. Some wounds left a vicious scar. “Look, I don’t need this, Phil. I’ve got time on my hands with both boys gone. I admit it. But I don’t want to hear it one more time. A woman isn’t going to be the answer. I’m better off alone.”
“No one is better off alone. God didn’t make us that way. That’s all I’m gonna say, and well, I’ve got one more thing. Marie knows this real nice lady from her Bible study. Smart, kind, has a good job. Her husband passed on a few years ago from cancer. She’s a good kind of woman. We could have her over for dinner, and you, too—”
Phil meant well. There was no doubt about that. But Phil had a great wife. A woman he’d always been able to count on. A woman who did her best never to let him down.
How could he understand what it was like never to have had that? To have finally finished up the last of his scheduled payments on the nearly fifty-thousand-dollar credit-card debt his wife had left him with.
Then there had been the legal battles, the settlement he’d made in order to keep the boys…everything. If that was the way a woman who said she loved him treated her husband, then he wanted nothing to do with that again.
The trouble was, and he’d known for a long time, that not all women were made like Liz. The truth was, he just didn’t think he had the heart to try again.
His gaze found Paige as she swept down the aisle with her lean, quick efficiency. She looked spare and stern and very in charge, but her manner didn’t fool him; it was the same as the black sweater she wore. The color was severe, but superficial. He didn’t know why last night’s single glance beneath Paige’s daily armor made him want to like her.
He didn’t want to like any woman, right? “I’m not interested, Phil. But I appreciate it. I know you mean well.”
“Mean well? What do you mean? We’re more like brothers, that’s how I see you. And the boys, they’re my nephews. You know how I feel about ’em. Our kids have always been close, the way cousins ought to be.
“But you know what? After a hard day’s work, a good day’s work, I go home to Marie. She lights up when I walk through the door. Now everything’s right, she says and everything just fades into the background. I started thinkin’ last night how you go home to an empty house. You’ve got no Marie.”
Evan wanted to tell Phil that he sure wished he’d been as lucky as to have a woman like Marie in the first place, but his throat tightened with a strange aching emotion. The cynical part of him that had been hurt so hard and deep wanted to say how he was glad to be single and unencumbered by a woman who would only hurt him.
But the truth was, he was not that bitter. Not wholly. Phil was truly blessed, and that’s what Evan couldn’t say. What made his throat sear with emotion had nothing to do with bitterness and everything to do with a sorrow he couldn’t quite explain. At least Phil knew how fortunate he was. At least he knew the value of a good woman and appreciated the difference she made in his life.
He thought of the empty house waiting for him. It wasn’t the boys that had made his house a home, he knew, although they had filled it with a joy and chaos that was as equally wonderful. Finally, he found his voice, but it didn’t sound at all like his, as his words came thick and gruff. “You’re very lucky you have your wife. Anyone can see you got a good woman.”
“Then you can see how it is. Life is about the choices we make, about doing the right thing that’s asked of us or doing the easy thing. You got a bum wrap when Liz treated you the way she did, no doubt about that, but you can see that there are good women out there. Women who are alone, and who have a lot of heart to give a man. Maybe one woman who would make you happy.”
“Happy. That sounds nice.”
I’m not about to trust another woman just to find out. Not that he could admit that in a public place or anywhere. There was no way to really know a person, no way to peer into the future and see what choices they would make—to stay committed, to stay devoted, to stay…period.
How did he admit, even to himself, that part of the emptiness of his current life was that he had no one to share it with. No one to come home to and take care of and care for. Being a father had met those needs close enough that he didn’t miss the primary relationship of marriage…not too much, any way. Being a single father was a whole world better than how unhappy both he and Liz had made one another.
But it was hard not to notice the married couples in the diner. Men and women his age, with kids crowding into the booth with them or without, having sneaked away for a lunch alone, and it was a reminder that some marriages did last. That there were a lot of faithful, loyal, good women out there.
But knowing it and trusting it were two different things.
“Well, that’s all I’m gonna say on the subject.” Phil pushed his way out of the booth. “You want to wait around? I’m not gonna be long. Marie would love to have you over to supper.”
“Sounds good, but I’ve got plans.”
“Not
plans with a lady?”
“As Cal would say, ‘no-oo way.’ I’m going to catch a movie, but I’ll wait for you. Paige is a nice lady, so you’re giving her a good deal, right?”
“She’s a very nice lady.” Phil’s grin was mischievous as he backed away. “I’ll do well by her, don’t you worry.”
Mischievous? No, Phil had jumped to the wrong conclusions, but that was okay. Evan leaned across the aisle to take the morning’s paper left on an unoccupied table. He checked the baseball scores and then the local news and tried hard not to notice Paige McKaslin from the corner of his eye.
Not that he was interested, of course. She was at the front, ringing up the teenagers’ orders, giving them a serious discount by the sounds of things, as the kids chorused their thanks and clamored out the door.
An icy wind skiffed down the aisle and he shivered. It felt like snow.
“Crazy weather, isn’t it?” Paige had a hot cup of coffee and set it on his table. Along with his meal ticket. “As promised. Is there anything else I can get you?”
“Nope. The chili was excellent. It always is.”
“Why thanks. It seemed like a good special to run what with winter thinking it can make a comeback. You just take your time here.”
“I noticed your son earlier. Seems he managed last night out there driving.”
She flushed. “I’m a worrier, I admit it. Lord knows I try to control it, but it gets the best of me. He’s out there driving right now and it’s snowing. Look at that. It’s the last day of April and coming down like it’s December.
“What about your boys? Do they make it home much for the weekends?”
Evan stared at the white slash of snow veiling the world that had been promising a sunny spring. Somehow, the snow keeping things frozen and isolated seemed appropriate. “You know how busy they get.”
“I already do.” Understanding gleamed warm and rare in her eyes as blue as a spring sky, and she set the coffee carafe on the corner of the table, a deliberate movement, as if she had something to say on the matter. “Alex isn’t even gone from home yet, and he’s so busy he might as well be. The youth group this morning, off with his girlfriend this afternoon. They’re going to the mall and then the Young Life night at the church. I’m catering their supper.”
