Flamingo Diner (24 page)

“The bottom line is you’re going to need help at the diner, Mama,” Emma continued. “It might as well be someone who’s not only experienced, but someone who knows the diner’s customers and us.”

Rosa was still stunned by the fact that in all these years Harley had never mentioned the kind of work he did. Maybe he’d thought it would be too intimi
dating to a small diner’s owners to know that one of their regulars cooked for a far fancier clientele.

“Can we afford him?” she asked. “I know our finances are in bad shape right now. It’s one thing to take out a loan for Jeff’s college expenses, but the diner’s already in debt and I want to pay that off as soon as possible.”

“I don’t think we can afford not to hire him,” Emma said. “And I got the feeling he wasn’t looking for a lot. I think he’s bored.”

“I’ll say,” Matt said. “I don’t think I can take him playing sleuth for me again.”

Rosa regarded him with surprise. “What on earth was Harley investigating?”

Emma and Matt exchanged a look. Emma was the one who responded. “He was helping us try to find a motive for Dad’s suicide. And that was the second thing I wanted to talk to all of you about.”

Rosa suddenly felt sick to her stomach. She took a sip of cold water and tried to steady her nerves. She glanced from Jeff’s suddenly shuttered expression to Andy’s dismayed face. “I’m not sure—”

“Mama, you need to hear this,” Emma said, deliberately cutting off Rosa’s protest. “So do Andy and Jeff.”

Rosa looked at her sons, who were nodding. “Okay, then, if you think it will help….”

“I do,” Emma said. “You know that the finances for Flamingo Diner were a bigger mess than any of us imagined.”

Rosa nodded. “It was so unlike your father to refinance the building without saying a word to me, to say nothing of refinancing this house. I can’t imagine what he was thinking. Where did all that money go?”

“He was playing the stock market,” Emma said. “Jennifer Sawyer filled us in. When he lost your savings, she tried to get him to stop investing, but she said it was like he was addicted to the game.”

Rosa pressed her hand to her chest. “He was gambling?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Mom, it was the stock market,” Jeff began, but Rosa cut him off.

“It was gambling,” she said emphatically. “He took money we couldn’t afford to lose and bet it on stocks. He might as well have been playing roulette.”

A million and one memories came flooding back, none of them good. There had been a time when Don had spent all his spare time in Miami either at the horse races or the dog track. Some weeks he’d do well and convince himself he was invincible. Other times he lost his shirt. They had fought about it over and over again. Her parents had warned her that she would be in for a very rough time of it, if he didn’t give it up. Because she’d known they were right, she had forced the issue. It was the one time they had come close to calling off their wedding.

“Mama?” Emma said, regarding her curiously. “Are you okay?”

“I was thinking back to the months before your father and I got married. He was gambling too much. My parents saw trouble down the road if he kept it up. We talked, but he wouldn’t—or couldn’t—quit. I finally threatened to break off our engagement if he didn’t give it up. It was touch-and-go for a while, like you said, as if he were fighting an addiction, but eventually he put our relationship first. As far as I know, he never gambled again. We never spoke of it again,
but he knew what the consequences would be if he did.”

Emma stared at her, her expression dismayed. “What were they?”

“That I would leave him,” Rosa said flatly, then uttered a gasp of dismay as she realized the implication.

Don had gotten in over his head in the stock market. He’d obviously been uncertain about how she would react if he told her about his investments. And when things had gone from bad to worse, he’d clearly feared she would make good on the threat she had uttered so many years before.

“Oh, Don,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face. She gazed helplessly at her children. “If only I’d known what he was going through, I could have reassured him that the time when I would leave was long past.” She looked at each of her children in turn. “Let this be a lesson to you. Nothing is more important in a relationship than communication. If your father and I had talked, really talked, maybe all of this could have been prevented and he would still be with us. I had no idea that such an old threat could weigh so heavily on him after all we’d been through.”

Emma looked thoroughly shaken by the torrent of bad memories she’d unleashed. “Mama, I’m sorry. I thought you should know.”

“You were right,” Rosa said. “I’m not sure if it makes it easier or harder, but it was important to know what was going on in his head during those last weeks. It breaks my heart to think that he thought we couldn’t weather such a crisis.”

“Mine, too,” Emma said.

Rosa blinked back tears and looked at her children. “Let’s make a pact, all of us. From here on out, when we think of your father, when we talk about him, let’s vow to remember all the good times, all the wonderful things he did for us and other people. Let’s make tonight the last time we talk about how he died. If we dwell on that, we lose the best part of him.”

Matt gave her an encouraging smile as he lifted his glass of iced tea. “I propose a toast,” he said, meeting her gaze. “To Don, a good friend, a great father and a terrific husband. May his memory be with us forever.”

“Amen,” Rosa said, reaching for Matt’s hand. “He was so proud of you, you know. Of all of you. I don’t want any of you to forget that. And I think he’s been watching over us since he died. I think he’d be proud that we’ve gotten through this terrible time. We’re going to make it.”

Though Emma’s revelation had made Rosa heartsick, she felt lighter inside, as if all the pieces of the tragic puzzle had finally fallen into place. And now that the picture was complete, she could put it in a mental album, along with so many other memories, most of which were warm and wonderful. She wouldn’t bury this one, but she could finally put it in perspective.

And wasn’t that what getting on with life was all about, putting things into proper perspective? She’d have to ask Anne about that next time she went to her support group meeting at Saint Luke’s.

“I have the feeling we’re finally healing,” Emma said as she and Matt took their evening stroll around the lake. It had been a long night and a longer day,
but the walks always eased her mind. She turned to him. “But there’s one more thing I’d like to do tonight.”

He lifted her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss across the knuckles. “What’s that?”

“I want to go all the way around the lake tonight. I don’t want to turn back before we get to the place where he died.”

Matt’s expression darkened. “Emma—”

She cut off the protest. “It’s all right. I’m ready now. I want to put it to rest, all of it.”

“There’s nothing to see,” he told her.

“I know. That’s why I want to do it. It’s symbolic, I guess, of what Mom said earlier. The way he died really isn’t the important thing. It’s the way he lived, and he loved this town and the lake. He brought us here so many times when we were little. I want those happy memories back.”

Matt sighed. “Then we’ll walk around the lake.”

She gazed up at his profile. “You’ve been such a rock through all of this.”

He gave her a wry look. “People don’t get involved with rocks.”

She elbowed him in the ribs. “You know what I mean. Besides, I am involved with you, far more than I expected to be.”

“Is it enough?” he asked.

“I don’t know that yet,” she admitted, knowing that the reply would hurt him, that in so many ways it was unfair. And yet, she had to be fair to herself, too. Maybe she’d blown living in Washington all out of proportion. Maybe she’d made it into a show of her independence, a demonstration that she was more than a small-town girl. She wasn’t sure who she’d
needed to prove that to, her family or herself. And now that she had, did it even really matter anymore? Those were questions she wasn’t sure she could answer, not until she went back again, tested the happiness she’d found here against what she remembered of being on her own.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Matt asked.

“You knew I would.”

“How soon?”

“If Harley seems to be working out, soon, I imagine.”

“I see.”

“I have to do this, Matt.”

He nodded. “I won’t try to stop you.”

She regarded him with surprise. “You told me once we’d slept together that you’d fight for me,” she reminded him.

He grinned at that. “Never said I’d stop fighting, just that I wouldn’t try to hold you here.”

“How do you feel about long-distance relationships?” she asked.

A smile tugged at his lips. “Better than I used to.”

Emma drew to a stop and turned to him. She reached up and traced the line of his jaw, the outline of his mouth. “I do love you,” she whispered, just before she stood on tiptoe and kissed him.

Matt might have promised not to use words to try to stop her, but he threw everything he had into that kiss. Emma was pretty sure her toes curled and her knees melted. She was clinging to him to stay upright by the time it ended.

She was still leaning into him, feeling his heat and his love surround her, when she realized where they were. The mound of dead flowers and other tokens of
affection were the giveaway. She sucked in a sharp breath at the sight and Matt’s arms immediately tightened around her.

“I’m okay,” she said, though her voice shook. She lifted her gaze to his, felt her nerves steady. “I really am okay.”

“I know you are,” he said. “But I like it when you lean on me just a little.”

“Literally or figuratively?”

“Both.”

Emma laced her fingers through his. “Then let’s go to your place and I’ll lean on you a little more inventively.”

He grinned at the suggestion. “Anytime, darlin’. Anytime.”

E
mma called her old boss in Georgetown and asked if there was still a place for her at Fashionable Memories.

“You’re coming home?” Marcel asked, clearly elated by the news.

Though she’d been stubbornly—defensively—claiming Washington as home ever since her return to Winter Cove, hearing that label from Marcel startled her. The description didn’t fit as comfortably as it once had.

When had that happened? Emma wondered. When had she begun thinking of Winter Cove as her home once again? When she thought about it without her blinders on, she could see the truth. Winter Cove was where she mattered to people, where she was loved. It was where she’d discovered what it meant to be in love with a good man.

“I’m coming back to Washington,” she corrected, not sure why it felt so important to make the distinction, even less sure why she didn’t feel happier about it. She’d waited months for this moment, waited for her family to get back on track, waited to find the answers she needed to put her father’s death to rest. She ought to feel ecstatic about finally being able to leave.

“I’ll even pick you up at the airport,” Marcel said, which for him was a huge concession. He hated driving in heavy traffic and there was no airport in the D.C. area where traffic was not an issue.

“That’s okay. I’m not sure I can bear to listen to you grumble all the way back into D.C. I’ll take a cab.”

“Where will you be staying? You gave up your apartment, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but it’s not a problem. I’ll stay with Kim until I find another place.”

“There’s an apartment above the store,” he reminded her. “The tenant just moved out. It’s yours, if you want it. You’d be right in the thick of things here in Georgetown. It’s a great location for a young, single woman.”

It was the perfect solution, but for some reason Emma didn’t feel especially eager to grab it. “I’ll take a look at it when I get there,” she said, stalling.

“And when will that be exactly?”

“I’ll fly up Sunday and be ready to go to work on Monday.”

“Perfect timing,” he said with gratifying enthusiasm, then spoiled it all by adding, “There’s a sale I wanted to go to on Tuesday. I was afraid I was going to have to miss it.”

Emma realized the old pattern was going to fall right back into place as if she’d never left. She would manage the store, while Marcel roamed the countryside.

But that was the way she wanted it, wasn’t it? She liked being left in charge. She liked the responsibility, the persuasive negotiations with the interior designers.

Still, it might have been nice to be the one who got
to look for treasures once in a while, she thought irritably. Half of what Marcel sent back in the lots he bought was nothing but junk.

“Have you been missing estate sales the whole time I was gone?” she asked.

“No, I had someone who filled in when I couldn’t be here, but it hasn’t really been working out. She occupied space. She waited for the customers to make up their own minds, rather than planting the idea that they’d regret it if they didn’t purchase whatever they were looking at.”

“Couldn’t you use this person one more time, so I could go to the sale with you?” she asked, hoping for an indication that things could change.

The request was met with shocked silence. “But I pay you to run the store,” he said finally.

“You also pay me because I have a good eye for bargains that can make a huge profit. Wouldn’t you be putting it to better use if I were at the sales?”

“I suppose,” he said cautiously. “But then I’d have to pay someone else to be at the store. Let me think about it. We can talk it over when you get here.”

Emma bit back a sigh. She could already tell that nothing would change. Marcel was too tightfisted and shortsighted to see the wisdom in what she was suggesting. For the first time, she ended a conversation with him feeling thoroughly frustrated and dissatisfied with her role at Fashionable Memories.

She wandered into the kitchen and found her mother fixing dinner.

“Something wrong?” Rosa asked, regarding her worriedly.

“Not really.”

“Weren’t you just on the phone with your old boss? You aren’t having a problem convincing him to take you back, are you?”

“No, but it’s on the same old terms,” Emma admitted.

Her mother regarded her curiously, then asked as if she feared she might be treading on thin ice, “Did you want more money?”

“No, more independence to do what I do best,” Emma explained. “I want to acquire antiques, not just sell them.”

“And he won’t agree?”

“He hasn’t yet,” she admitted, reaching for one of the cherry tomatoes in the salad and popping it into her mouth.

“Ever thought of opening your own business?” Rosa asked so casually that it was obvious that this was something
she
had thought about, probably often.

Emma stared at her. “Me? What would I use for money?”

“I imagine with your experience you could find an investor or you could get a traditional loan from a bank or apply for a loan from the Small Business Administration,” Rosa said, offering yet more proof that she’d given this a lot of thought. “There are lots of ways to do it, if it’s what you really want.”

Emma had honestly never considered such a thing. She’d always thought she was too young to run her own business, but her mother and father had been younger than she was now when they’d started Flamingo Diner. Maybe she would look into it as soon as she got back to Washington. She gave her mother a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Mama. You’ve definitely given me something to think about.”

Rosa let the subject drop, also proving that she’d contentedly planted a seed just as she’d intended. She was patient enough to wait for it to flourish. She did, however, ask, “You going out with Matt tonight?”

“He said he’d call once he knows what time he can break free.”

“You two have gotten close these last few months, haven’t you?”

Emma thought she saw where this was heading. “Don’t get any ideas, Mama. I’m still leaving for Washington on Sunday. I already have my ticket.”

“Tickets can be refunded,” her mother pointed out.

“Not this one,” Emma said, unwilling to even consider the possibility. She was going back to D.C. no matter what, even if she wasn’t looking forward to it the way she’d expected to.

“Your decision,” Rosa said readily.

“That’s exactly right, Mama. It is my decision.”

So, why didn’t she feel a whole lot better about it? Why did she have this awful sensation in the pit of her stomach that she was going to be losing far more than she gained?

Matt sat at the counter at Flamingo Diner and watched Emma work. There was finally some decent color back in her cheeks and she no longer looked quite so defeated. Maybe that was because talking with Jennifer Sawyer had given her some closure when it came to her father’s death. Maybe it was because her mother finally had her act together and actually seemed happy to be back at work at the diner. Jeff’s behavior had improved dramatically since his brush with death. And Andy, well, the kid was back
to getting all tongue-tied over girls, instead of trying to act like the man of the family.

As relieved as Matt was by the changes in these people he cared about, a part of him was filled with regret. Once again, he was going to lose Emma. The only difference was that he was going to have to sit back and watch her leave, rather than being the one doing the leaving. And now he knew just how much her going would cost him. She’d be taking his heart with her.

“You intend to let her get away again?” Rosa asked, sliding onto a stool next to him.

He whirled and stared at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Rosa looked as if she’d like to shake some sense into him. “Matt Atkins, I may have been in a daze these past few months, but I’m not blind. Nor am I stupid. You’ve been in love with my daughter for as long as I can remember. If anything, that old infatuation has grown stronger since she’s been back.”

He considered denying it, then decided not to waste his breath. “It doesn’t matter.”

She gave him a scathing look. “You can’t possibly be that dense. Love
always
matters. Haven’t you learned anything from Don’s death? If he’d seen that, if he’d believed in the strength of our marriage, he’d still be with us.”

“Emma wants to go back to Washington,” he reminded her.

“So she says.”

“She bought her ticket.”

“Nonrefundable. I know.” Rosa shrugged. “What’s a couple of hundred dollars compared to a whole future?”

Matt stared at her. Had he missed something, something critical? “You think she doesn’t really want to go?”

She smiled and patted his arm. “I think you could change her mind, if you put a little effort into it.” She winked at him. “I hear that the junk store over on Palm Drive is for sale. I wonder if Emma’s aware of that?”

She was talking about Joshua Mullins’s place. Somehow he’d forgotten all about his plan to plant that particular idea in Emma’s head. He grinned at Rosa. She’d always been one step ahead of him. “Think you can hold down the fort for an hour or two if I can get some things in order and get back here for Emma?”

“Haven’t I been running this place for thirty years?”

“I’m glad you’ve remembered that,” he said, suddenly serious.

Rosa’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “So am I,” she said softly.

Then her expression brightened. “There’s Helen. I need to speak to her. There’s somebody I want her to meet, a gentleman I met in my support group. It’s going to take a lot of persuasion for me to get her to accept a blind date.”

“You could be sneaky and just make sure both of them are here at the same time. That way there would be no pressure on either one of them,” Matt suggested. “That’s always better than a blind date with two people who are in a panic.”

Rosa beamed at him. “What a wonderful idea! Any man that romantic should surely be able to figure out
a way to keep my daughter right here where she belongs.”

“I’ll work on it,” Matt promised. “Starting now.” In fact, he already had a plan that he was pretty sure Emma wouldn’t be able to resist.

“Look at us,” Jolie said as she, Helen, Sylvia and Rosa were gathered around a table at Flamingo Diner after the lunch crowd had left. “We are four of the most attractive women I know.”

“For our age,” Helen said dryly.

Jolie scowled. “For any age. We’re smart. We’re funny. We’re nice. So why are we all alone?”

“Because there are no funny, smart, nice men our age available,” Helen retorted. “Besides, I thought you and that guy from the Italian restaurant were about to launch a steamy romance.”

“Only in my dreams,” Jolie admitted. “Turned out he was more than willing, but I discovered he already has a wife—his third, no less—and five little bambinos he’d neglected to mention. He’d acquired this wife after the divorce he told me about.”

Rosa gave her a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was just an infatuation,” Jolie said with a shrug. “I’ll probably be in lust with a dozen inappropriate men before I actually find somebody worth dating.”

“At least you fall in lust,” Helen said. “There has not been one single man who made my pulse race since Harrison died.”

“Speaking of that,” Rosa said, seeing her opportunity to mention that Larry would be dropping by shortly.

Before she could get the words out, the man in
question walked into the diner, looking tanned and healthy and attractive in the way that retired men who played a lot of golf tended to look. He spotted her and a smile spread across his face.

“I hope I’m not interrupting,” he said. “You said this would be a good time to come by, Rosa.”

“You’re not interrupting anything more than girl talk,” Rosa told him. “Larry, these are my friends.”

She introduced them, then barely bit back a sigh when he automatically slid a chair in next to Jolie. Her eyes were already sparkling, her experience with the married maître d’ forgotten.

“Anybody want coffee?” Rosa asked, resigned to seeing her scheme go completely awry. Why hadn’t she considered the fact that Helen, with her quiet demeanor and understated style, always faded into the background when compared to Jolie’s bright colors and exuberance?

“I’ll help you,” Helen offered, following her behind the counter. “Do you believe Jolie? She has the attention span of a fruit fly.”

There wasn’t the slightest hint of jealousy in Helen’s tone. So maybe she and Larry wouldn’t have been destined to be a perfect fit, after all, Rosa concluded. Obviously there’d been no bolt-from-the-blue attraction the instant he walked in. Maybe she should leave the matchmaking to somebody who’d had more practice, except when it came to Matt and Emma, of course. She was not going to let those two throw their lives away. She’d done some very satisfactory nudging earlier, though she couldn’t imagine why Matt hadn’t come back for Emma as he’d indicated he would.

“What’s taking so long?” Sylvia asked, coming to
join them. “I feel like a fifth wheel out there. Those two have obviously made a love connection. I didn’t want to watch.”

“That’s because right this second you’re still at the I-hate-all-men stage of the divorce process,” Rosa guessed. “That’ll change. Are things going smoothly on that front?”

Sylvia shrugged. “Frank’s fighting me every step of the way, but I’m not backing down. And I want you all to remind me of how it’s been for the last twenty-five years, if you see me weakening for a second.”

“That is definitely a promise I can keep,” Rosa said, giving her a hug. “We are so proud of you for having the guts to walk away. It’s hard to do at our age.”

“It’s hard to do at any age,” Helen said.

“But somehow it’s much scarier once you’re in your forties or fifties,” Rosa said. “Being alone seems unnatural or something.”

“And there are so few men to choose from, unless you want to date some guy in his seventies who’s just lost his wife and does nothing but play cards or golf,” Helen added.

Sylvia forced a smile. “Gee, you two make it sound like so much fun.”