Chapter 3
THREE
It was a good thing Holly was habitually early.
Ten minutes before is right on time, Dad used to say, squinting through the truck windshield every morning as he dropped her off at high school.
It was one of the many things he’d learned in the army, like how to fill out forms, how to heft a rifle, and just how wrong your country could do you when you believed in her.
Or in the men claiming to speak for her.
Which added up to Mike Candless’s daughter getting to work just as Doug was threatening to quit again. Ginny had just poured a glass of ice water on a grabby-hands patron, and the espresso machine was making that wheezing noise again.
Just another day at Crossroads Diner. In other words, welcome to hell.
“Thank God someone sane is here.” Barbara cracked her gum, the sound lost in the ancient time clock punching Holly’s card. “Can you talk to Doug? I’ve got a guy threatening to sue—”
“I saw that.” Holly struggled out of her coat, clipped her name tag on, and was in the process of twisting her black hair up. “Ginny strikes again.”
“You’d think her ass would come with a warning label.” Barbara fishhooked a wad of pink gum out, flicked it accurately into the scrap bin and sallied through the swinging doors to pour oil on the troubled waters of a businessman with wandering fingers.
Steady cursing came from the other end of the short hall. Holly finished manhandling her hair into a bun, slapped a band around the base, and called it good. She stepped into the kitchen’s heat and vapor. “Doug?”
“Holly!” Doug Endicott waved a knife while skinny Bart, his understudy, rolled his eyes. Bart was hunched over the grill, tending what looked like the mother of all breakfast rushes. “I can’t work like this!”
“You say that every week. What’s wrong now?”
“The fan!” Broad-shouldered, buzzcut, and loud, he was more of a sonic assault than a visual experience.
Holly took a deep breath, reaching for patience. “What about it?”
“It quit working.” The cook was the very definition of built like a brick outhouse, and the tattoos on his neck were pure jailhouse art. However, right at the moment, he looked like a balding, petulant three-year-old.
Holly put her hands on her hips. “Did you check the fuse box?”
Silence, broken only by the sizzling from the grill. Holly sighed, marched past him into the utility closet, and a few seconds’ worth of fiddling set everything to rights. “Honestly,” she continued, stepping out and kicking the door shut with her heel, “it’s two steps away, Doug.”
“He just wants you to talk to him.” Bart grinned, his gold-capped tooth flashing. He was a little slow sometimes, but those knob-knuckled hands could coax the balky old grill into behaving plus clean it to spotless, and he was pretty laid-back even when Doug went on his rampages.
“Shut up.” The senior cook’s ears had turned bright pink. Looked like the special today was something to do with asparagus. At least it wasn’t like the time he’d brought in buckets of oysters. Got such a deal on them, he’d crowed, and nobody had the heart to disagree.
Who’s going to pay for oyster anything? Antony had moaned, but he didn’t get rid of Doug. Or the poor bivalves.
Antony was a softie. Also, nobody had gotten any food poisoning, which was damn near miraculous.
Holly clucked her tongue and escaped before Doug could find something else that needed attention. It was going to be a long day.
As soon as she hit the swinging doors, Ginny descended.
The tall girl, whorls of color marching up her arms and her bottom lip pierced, was afire with righteous indignation.
“Can you believe it?” She swiped at her Bettie Page bangs with the back of one hand, and her kohl-smeared eyes blinked rapidly.
“Second time this week? Or third?” Holly tucked a fresh order pad into her apron. “What’s it look like?” She could very well glance over Ginny’s shoulder and see the usual brunch rush, but getting the girl distracted would make the rest of her shift easier.
“Hell.” Ginny swayed a little. She was in the combat boots again. At least she wasn’t trying to work in heels like she did at first. “And your weirdo’s here.”
“Which one?” But she saw him, and her heart sank a little bit.
It was the usual table, tucked against the corner. He always moved the chair, though, resting it against the mirrored wall. Dark hair, dark eyes, wide shoulders, in jeans and a T-shirt most of the time but with a nice watch. Always ordered coffee, sat for at least an hour...
... and left a humongous tip, which would have been great, except he asked for Holly every damn time. He never even drank the coffee.
All of which added up to potential trouble, and attention Holly didn’t want. She was trying to slide by unnoticed, but people just kept latching on wherever she landed.
She put her smile on, hipchecked the closest undercounter fridge door to make sure it was closed and headed for the espresso machine.
Antony had picked it up somewhere and kept putting off the servicing.
Can’t afford it. I got a sinking ship here, folks, he’d say, rubbing at his salt-and-pepper stubble.
Didn’t they all.
* * *
She put it off as long as she could, but the tables filled up fast and she had to make a coffee round eventually.
She saved him for last, glancing out the window at traffic heaving slowly by on Merton Avenue.
Crowded pavements, too, even in the rain.
The Crossroads had a great location, adjacent to both downtown and the naval base butting up against the river, and that was probably its only saving grace.
Well, that and the fact that staff turnover was low.
Antony was irritating sometimes, but he did right by his workers.
All in all, she was lucky to have ended up here.
Sometimes, though, it didn’t feel like it.
Mostly when she got tired, and the thought of something malignant crouching inside her body, quietly growing in the darkness and listening to her heartbeat, filled her throat with a rock and her eyes with hot water.
Don’t brood on it. Just keep working. The doctor’s office had stopped calling, finally. Holly had changed her number, too, just to be sure. Twenty bucks she couldn’t afford, but it was worth it to have the damn landline stop ringing.
Holly halted at the table near the window, summoning a smile that felt like a mask.
Ginny called him “your weirdo,” and Barb kept bugging Holly to use those customer-service skills to find out more about him.
Dark hair, dark eyes, aquiline nose, wide shoulders; dark blue T-shirt, jeans, the same canvas jacket with a high collar as always.
His capable-looking hands were covered with vivid scrapes and there was a shadow of a bruise on his cheek.
“Morning.” She couldn’t help herself, even though she knew showing any interest was probably a bad move.
The quiet, borderline-handsome ones were never a good idea—they wormed their way in and before you knew it, you were eating your own heart out with regret.
“Looks like you went through the wringer.”
He waited until she got close enough to pour to cover his coffee cup with one banged-up hand. The bandages were fresh, and his hair was damp. Of course, there was the rain. “Hi, Holly.”
One of these days she’d get a job without a name tag, or she’d finally keel over and the whole thing would be academic.
Still, she couldn’t help smiling more naturally now.
He looked pretty pleased to see her, even if he was a little.
.. weird. “Ah. Hey, you were in a couple weeks ago. I think you left the wrong tip.” Because a twenty for a cup of burned coffee isn’t strange at all, no sir.
“I put the change in an envelope up at the register. I’ll go get it. ”
“No.” He leaned forward a little, as if preparing to reach out and stop her, and Holly noticed his watch again. Nice, heavy, expensive but restrained. What was someone who could afford a Bvlgari doing sitting in the Crossroads as regularly as he did? “Don’t do that. I left it for you.”
“That’s really nice.” She tried for diplomacy, the coffee slopping inside its glass carafe as she stepped back. “I think you meant to leave a single, though.”
“I didn’t.” He wasn’t quite staring at her, but it was close. His gaze flicked away, came back, and there was the ghost of a smile around his mouth. “It was for you.”
Oh, man, this is not going to end well. Still, she could use the money. “Well, thank you. You look a little tired.”
“Jet lag. Got in a couple hours ago.” He was freshly shaven, though, and something about the way he sat bothered her. Too tense. His back was straight, too. Good posture, but something about it warned her that he was ready to move at a moment’s notice.
“You should get some rest.” She had four other tables needing attention, one with kids. If he wanted to drop twenties just for sitting there, it wasn’t any of her business. This was the big bad city, and she carried Mace in her purse.
“I will, but not for a while.” The smile was real now, and for such a nondescript guy he had a pretty good one. She couldn’t figure out what about him made her so nervous. Was nervous the word? “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. It’s pretty busy, so flag me if you need a refill, okay?” Making awkward conversation with you is not high on my priority list.
“I will.”
Did he watch her walk away? She had no way of knowing, though she could have sworn she felt him looking.
Probably harmless, she decided. Maybe lonely. Although why he’d pick a washed-out divorcée in a sinking diner to fixate on, she had no idea. The world was full of strangeness—she’d seen more than enough of it working retail and food service.
She racked the coffee carafe just as Bart hammered the order-up bell and yelled her name. Holly winced internally, put on her best smile, and got back down to business.