Authors: Kristen Ashley
This town didn’t have Christmas decorations in late January. This town took care of itself. The Christmas decorations went up in a town lighting ceremony that everyone showed up at on the day after Thanksgiving then were quietly taken down and stowed away as soon as possible after New Year’s. I had been there three days, it was late January so I did not know this for a fact but still, I knew it for a fact.
My eyes moved to the buildings around the square. Most of them, like the one the diner was in, were two storied red brick. Some had creamy mortar plates close to the top stamped with dates. One said 1899 which surprised me, that was old especially for here. Another said 1907. Shops, restaurants and sandwich places on the bottom floors, offices with signs in their windows (mostly attorneys and bail bondsmen) on the top.
One whole side, though, was taken up by a large department store. The stamp at the top of that building declared it was built in 1912. How the hell that thing survived, I would never know seeing as it was clearly locally owned and had not been gobbled up by a conglomerate. That said a lot about the town. If they needed whatever that store sold, they didn’t go to some other store where they could probably get it for less. They took care of their own. That department store had probably been there and owned by the same family for four, five generations, maybe all the way back to 1912. And the town wasn’t letting it go anywhere.
Same with the butcher across the square from the diner. No town had a butcher anymore. That meat probably cost twice as much as grocery store meat and even if it was probably better meat than you could buy in any grocery store, twice was always twice and money was always money. Still, it was there and it was bustling.
So were the sidewalks. Folks out and about, smiling, calling greetings.
The whole place might be creepy if the a third of a block of the two story red brick buildings that were across the street behind the courthouse hadn’t been torn down and in their place a modern (for the time, I was guessing at least two decades ago), glass fronted, somewhat glitzy (now tarnished with age, it was dated and not in a good way, it would need at least another decade or two to come back into retro style) restaurant. Someone had sway with the City Council to build that monstrosity. It marked the space, was totally out of place and didn’t look good. Someone thought their shit didn’t stink, thought it was cool then and would be cool forever. They were wrong. Still, its presence said this place wasn’t perfection. This place wasn’t a creepy, weird town lost in time that Casey and I somehow found ourselves in and we’d never get out because we’d eventually either be captured, deprogrammed and reprogrammed as perfect, small town dwellers. Me in my apron, Casey bringing home the bacon in a manly way. Or we’d be eaten by or become zombies.
So that restaurant was good.
To me, the blight of that restaurant made me like this town even more.
To me, that restaurant made the town with the unbelievably cool name of Mustang imperfect perfection.
“Hey.”
At this word said in a man’s deep voice, I blinked at the window and turned my head.
Then I froze.
This was because, opposite me in the booth sat the man from the bar, the man from that night, the man from the playground.
How did my guard go down so much I didn’t sense him even approach must less make it so his behind was sitting in the booth across from me, his eyes on me, his attractive hand unwinding his scarf?
“Uh…hey,” I replied quietly.
This was not good.
It was sunny. The diner had big, plate glass windows and my booth was right up next to one. It was not a darkened bar or an even more darkened playground.
And he was not attractive.
He was beautiful.
His hair wasn’t dark brown, I was shocked to see. It was actually blond but a blond I’d never seen before. Very dark blond with a hint of red burnish that was nowhere near making him a redhead, just enriching the color of his thick, longish hair so it wasn’t just fantastic, it was astonishing.
His bone structure wasn’t strong, defined and interesting. It was striking.
And I could see the color of his eyes surrounded by thick, long, dark lashes with the same rusty burnish as his hair.
They were a deep, dark blue.
And as he unveiled his throat, I saw its corded, supremely masculine length and my palms got sweaty.
Hells bells.
I pulled it together.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
He opened his mouth to speak as he dropped the scarf next to him on the seat but I heard shouted, “Gray! Breakfast or coffee?”
He turned his head and my eyes followed to see my waitress across the way. She was wearing faded jeans that were too tight, definitely bought before she’d put on the extra fifteen pounds she wore and that extra fifteen had been added to an extra thirty. Same with her sweater. An apron was tied around her disappearing waist and it did her no favors, unfortunately.
“Had breakfast, Ang, coffee,” he called back then turned to me. Finishing shrugging off his jacket, he swung it out from behind him and dropped it on his scarf. “I’m Gray,” he announced as he settled.
“Hi Gray,” I replied then repeated, “Can I help you?”
He grinned and he really shouldn’t have done that. He really shouldn’t have.
Because he had a dimple in his left cheek, it made him go from strikingly handsome to strikingly handsome with a hint of cute thrown in for good measure. And if that wasn’t enough, it brought my attention to his lips which, I did not know how, but I hadn’t noticed until then were full and inviting.
My mouth got dry.
“I’m Gray,” he repeated, I tore my eyes from his now moving, beautiful lips to his equally beautiful eyes and he went on, “You are?”
I pulled it together again.
“I’m wondering how I can help you.”
His eyes went funny, assessing, watchful as his head tipped slightly to the side.
Then he untipped his head and noted, “You’re still in town.”
I looked down at myself then at him and agreed, “Yep.”
He grinned again.
Hells bells!
“You get warm the other night?” he asked.
“Yep,” I repeated.
“Good,” he muttered and Ang, our waitress, hit the table with a mug of coffee for Gray.
We both looked up at her. She was looking at Gray.
“How’s Mirry?” she asked.
“She’s good,” Gray answered on another dimpled smile.
Jeez oh Pete, that smile.
I had to get out of there.
“Been awhile since I been out to see her. She want some company?” Ang asked Gray.
“Always,” Gray answered.
“Can she take a visit from the brood?” Ang went on and Gray’s smile got bigger.
Yep. Oh yes. I had to get the heck out of there.
“You know she can, Ang,” he replied.
“All right then, I’ll pack up my monsters and swing by this afternoon after school,” Ang declared, dipped her head at Gray, looked at me, gave me a head to chest then she looked back at Gray, her head tilted to the side, she grinned a knowing grin then waddled (it had to be said, it was definitely a waddle) away.
Gray’s fantastic blue eyes came back to me.
“That’s Ang,” he told me.
“Got that,” I murmured.
He grinned again.
God. I had to
get out of there.
“She’s got one boy, three girls, the boy…” he shook his head, still grinning. “Not sure which way that kid’s gonna swing but I had to guess, I reckon my guess would be accurate. The girls, all tomboys. It’s wild. Never seen anything like it. They’re more boy than most boys and her boy is more girl than
any
girl.”
“That’s fascinating,” I stated. It was and more, it felt good him sharing that with me. I didn’t know why. It could be the casual way he did it, like we were having a conversation, like we were getting to know each other, like this would be one of many such situations we would find ourselves in, together, just like we were then, conversing, sharing, getting to know each other until we knew each other and therefore I had to shut it down. “But you still haven’t answered my question.”
His smile faded and his eyes went watchful again. He also didn’t speak.
He studied me for a while as I assessed my options, deciding to get some money out, throw it on the table in order to pay for my already eaten and plate cleared breakfast and mostly drunk not cleared third cup of coffee, get my stuff, say a farewell that wasn’t rude but was final and get the heck out of there.
Before I could put this plan into action, Gray spoke again.
“Man you’re with, not old enough to be your Dad, looks enough like you, gotta be kin. He your brother?”
That had my attention.
When had he seen Casey?
I didn’t ask this question.
Instead I made a point.
“You the sheriff or something?”
He shook his head, his eyes never leaving mine.
“Then can’t say I’m real comfortable with that kind of attention,” I told him.
“Bet not,” he replied quietly.
“I –” I started but stopped when he leaned in.
“Can’t say I wanna say this but I’m gonna say it. You’re not here to look into the waitressing gig at Jenkins, you and your guy best be moving on.”
Not good.
“Sorry?” I asked even more quietly than he was speaking
“Don’t know the game, don’t care, don’t ‘spect you’ll share since you won’t even tell me your name. Do know what he’s doin’ and I’m not the only one. Don’t know when he calls you in to do your part. What I’ll tell you is, you move forward on whatever mark he thinks he’s found, you will find trouble. They’re expecting it. They’ve clocked him. You need to move on.”
I was right. Not good.
Casey had been made. And Gray, knowing I was laying low, made me.
Gray was right. Time for us to move on.
I was about to do that when he kept talking.
“That said, Jenkins’s girls get good tips. Food is top-notch, top dollar, always has been. Tips are big. Shelly, head waitress there, pulled down nearly forty grand last year. Nothin’ to sneeze at. She gets extra due to hirin’ and trainin’ but all the girls there been there awhile, they like it. It’s only that Diane left ‘cause her man got that job in Oklahoma so she had to go. Be a good place to be, you’re lookin’ for that kind of place.”
I stared at him and now my mouth
and
throat were dry. Not because he was handsome and all the other things he was, just because he was sitting there calmly offering me a dream.
I was probably the only girl in the world who wanted to be a waitress.
And it wasn’t being the waitress I wanted to be.
But that would work for me.
In this town.
With him in it.
Roots.
Connections.
Wake up every day and know where you are and go to bed every night knowing you’ll wake up that way.
I would love that.
And just thinking about it made me want to cry.
So I had to get the heck out of there.
And I set about doing that, getting money and suiting up against the cold while muttering, “Appreciated, Gray. Your time. Your honesty.”
I didn’t button my jacket or wrap my scarf around, barely had my wallet back in my purse as I slid out of the booth, scarf in hand, bag scrunched with it, still shrugging on one side of my coat.
But I gave it to myself, one last thing. Foolish. But I wanted it. Badly. And I didn’t get anything I wanted so I took it.
I looked back in his beautiful eyes surrounded by his striking face, his fantastic lips, his thick, unusual hair all on top of broad shoulders and a wide chest covered in a Western-style denim shirt with pearl snap buttons and I whispered, “Take care.”
Then I got the heck out of there.
I Owed Him Everything
Fifteen minutes later…
“That works for me,” Casey stated and I stared.
“What?” I asked.
He grinned and I knew that grin.
My brother.
Darn.
“Had a hot one the other night, gonna take another dip in that. Good to have the time and not have to be on the job.”
I told him about what Gray told me, he was made, Gray made me. The situation was hot. We couldn’t proceed.
We had to get out of there.
“Casey, I don’t think I have to remind you but we have five hundred, twelve dollars and thirteen cents. We gotta get on the road.”
His grin didn’t fade even a little.
“Just one night,” he replied.
I shook my head. “No, we gotta go.”
“Ivey,” his voice turned cajoling as he moved towards me, “we got a night.”
“We don’t. We have five hundred, twelve dollars and thirteen cents without a play to make. We gotta get on the road, find a new burg, find a new payday. That takes time. We have a week before we got nothing.”
“Honey,” definitely cajoling, the grin getting bigger, “it’s only one night.”
“One night means one more night’s hotel stay and one day we’re not on the road, a day we lose. We don’t have a night.”
Casey stepped back and his face got hard.
This was not good either.
My life was filled with not good. It happened a lot. And a lot of when it happened was when Casey got this way.
“Jesus, Ivey, what the fuck? It’s just one night!” he clipped loudly.
“Casey –”
“No,” he shook his head. “Fuck that. I liked her. She made me laugh. Spendin’ time with you, love you, sis, you know it,” he thumped his chest, “bottom of my heart,
you know it,
” he said the last three words leaning in, emphasis made in his tone, his body, his face, emphasis he made often, “but you aren’t about shits and grins, honey. She made me laugh. I had fun. I don’t get that a lot. I’m not askin’ for a week, I’m askin’ for one night. The least you could give me.”
Over the last ten years there were a lot of “the least I could give Casey”.
And just like then, I gave them.
“One night.”
He wasn’t done being angry.
“Jesus,” he muttered, moving away, “why you make me jump through these hoops…” he trailed off and I closed my eyes.