Chapter Two
HAWK
The pretty redhead’s gone quiet, which I'd bet doesn't happen often. Pink in the cheeks, she’s glaring down at her empty plate like it said something fresh to her.
“Hawk.”
She looks up, green eyes flashing. “Excuse me?”
“My name. You were about to ask.”
“Well, I was working up to it. I was going to do some small talk first, ease you in gently.” She holds out her hand across the Formica, businesslike. “Taryn Denton.”
Her little hand disappears into mine. Warm, small, calluses in the right places, a burn scar across two knuckles that’s the mark of a regular cook with more enthusiasm than sense. My old CO called those marks chef’s stripes.
Taryn. It suits her.
I'm still deciding what to do when big air brakes sigh out front and that bell over the door starts its damn cheerful tinkling sound. I glance outside; there’s a huge tour coach parked in the lot.
Retirees in windbreakers, cameras, sun hats, the works, are walking in twos and threes with no end in sight.
“Sweet merciful heavens!” Lila says, which is as close as she gets to cursing.
Marvin comes out of the kitchen door behind us, wiping his hands. He takes one look through the window and goes pale. “Butter my butt and call me a biscuit! That's the Scenic Summits charter… they’ve never stopped in High Vale before.”
The bell keeps on chiming as people pour through the door.
“Gus is in Haberstone General getting his gallbladder out as we speak. I ain’t got no line cook, there’s just me and Lila.” He wipes his brow with a handkerchief.
“I’m right here beside you, boss.” Lila says grimly, already pulling menus.
Across from me, Taryn's head comes up like a bird dog's.
She's out of the booth before I have time to react. Moving toward the kitchen, she unwinds that little jacket off as she goes; the girl’s got curves that don’t quit, her tits bouncing as she pulls her hair up into a ponytail. Taryn plants herself in front of Marvin, hands on hips.
“How many burners and how big is your flat-top?”
Marvin blinks at her. “Six and four foot, but…”
“I cooked seven years at a diner this size. Breakfast and lunch, a hundred covers a day or more, usually alone. Point me at your hand sink and tell me where you keep the aprons, and you can pay me or not pay me, but decide while we walk.”
Marvin looks over at me, of all people. As a member of the High Vale Outlaws MC, I’m not usually anyone’s first choice for a character reference. I shrug. He looks back at her and nods.
“Aprons are on the hook. The hand sink's by the walk-in.”
Taryn's gone through the swing door as Marvin trots after her.
I should leave. I've got an errand to run twenty miles east. Instead I take my coffee to the end stool, where the pass-through gives me a sightline. I bring Taryn’s suitcase with me, tucking it by my feet.
Through the window, she opens the lowboy, checks the walk-in, lifts the lid on the soup and finds the ticket rail. She fires a couple of questions at Marvin that I can’t hear over the din of the new customers. Then she sticks her head through the pass.
“Hey, Lila. Sell the soup, the patty melts, and the grilled cheese. Anything else, tell them the chef recommends the bacon cheeseburger.”
“There's a chef now?” Lila says.
“There is for the next two hours!”
“God bless you!” Lila smiles, wading into the sea of windbreakers.
The tickets start coming and the kitchen finds a rhythm. Marvin sounds happier than he has in weeks. Every few minutes her voice comes through the pass, calling tables in a steady singsong, and plates land in the window piping hot.
Somewhere a kid sitting in a booth with his family knocks a full strawberry shake into his own lap and starts up a siren wail.
His grandmother's mortified, the tables around them wincing.
A couple minutes later a sundae comes through the pass with a tower of whipped cream and two cherries.
Taryn tells Lila: “Cook's mistake, tell him. We made it too pretty to pour.” The kid quits crying and everyone relaxes.
I've sat in a deer stand for eleven hours without my mind wandering once. But now I can’t keep my mind or my eyes off the pass window to where she's working the line with her sleeves shoved up and her ponytail swinging. Her pretty face is flushed and she’s laughing at something Marvin said, sliding three plates onto the shelf in a row like dealing cards.
The world narrows down the way it does out in the woods when I’m tracking. No sound but my own pulse beating in my ears.
Mine.
I don’t bother trying to talk myself out of the truth.
Arguing with true things is a foolish young man's game. What I do instead is step out back by the dumpsters and text my sergeant-at-arms, Striker. I’d called him earlier from the lot, asking him to check out a Mr. Wells when I overheard her mention the name to Marvin.
Striker’s girl Bethany is a computer wiz, so she’ll be helping him to check out the name.
Hawk: Some details for you and Bethany. Mr. Wells’ first name is Keith. Owns a hardware store past the pass, Route 9.
The rush breaks after lunch. The coach loads up and sighs away with forty happy tourists. Inside, Taryn comes off the line and the first thing she does is plate two lunches, puts one in front of Lila and one in front of Marvin. She eats hers standing at the counter.
“Marry me,” Marvin says, around a mouthful.
“I'm spoken for,” she says lightly, and something in my chest drops.
My phone buzzes.
Striker: Keith Wells, 51. Wells Hardware, Route 9. Store's open today, but no answer on the business line. No red flags anywhere, the guy pays his taxes, is a member of the volunteer fire department. He looks like a decent man, Hawk. What the fuck’s going on?
Taryn catches me looking and smiles at me across the diner, tired and bright at the same time.
“Stay here,” I tell her, picking my gloves off the counter.
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll be back soon. I’m going to see if I can find your Mr. Wells for you.”
Outside, my bike starts on the first kick. The pass road is twenty minutes if a man minds the speed limit.
I make it in ten.