If her life had been normal, right now she’d be having coffee at The Bookworm on State Street, a new supply of books at her feet, comfortably dissecting office gossip with Jean and Dora over a
mochaccino
in a bone china cup. Instead, she was reading
The Rupert Pioneer
over tepid river sludge in a chipped mug.
But her life was here now, like it or not, and she found herself being drawn into the life of Simpson, almost against her will. She had read every word of
The Pioneer
, including a breathless, blow-by-blow account of last week’s local varsity basketball game—which the local team had lost—and obituaries of people she’d never heard of. A true Devaux, Julia thought wryly.
Making a home in the unlikeliest of places was in her blood. Her mother had been a diplomat’s daughter and her father an Army brat. Her father’s job had kept them moving to a different country every two or three years. She’d learned the drill. You settle in and make do.
She was here in Simpson against her will, under a death threat. But like it or not, it was her home now.
“Sure you don’t want any more?” The young waitress hovered eagerly. Julia could see how the waitress might want to please her. She was the only customer in the diner at the moment. “No, really. Thanks, anyway.”
The young woman grimaced, set the pot down on the cracked linoleum table and slid into the seat opposite Julia. “I don’t really blame you,” she sighed. “Terrible stuff, isn’t it?”
Julia’s smile froze. There was absolutely nothing polite to be said about the coffee that wouldn’t have a bolt of lightning immediately striking her dead. “Uhm, well…” Julia hedged.
“That’s okay,” the girl said cheerfully. “I know it’s awful. I guess it’s a family tradition. My mom’s coffee was awful, too. Mom was Carly. Of Carly’s Diner.” She had an open expression, her pale blue eyes—a color Julia was beginning to think of as Simpson blue—sparkling with interest. She rested her chin on the heel of her hand and leaned forward. “You’re Sally Anderson, aren’t you? The new grade school teacher?”
“Yes,” Julia sighed. She hated lying to such a sweet-faced woman. “I moved here a month ago.”
“Yeah, I know,” she replied, brushing back a shiny strand of taffy-colored hair. “I’ve seen you in here a couple of times. I wanted to introduce myself, but…I don’t know.” She shrugged, embarrassed. “I think it’s been so long since I’ve met someone I haven’t known all my life, I’ve kind of lost the knack for conversation. Like everyone else around here. Sometimes I think we’re all dinosaurs, extinct and we don’t even know it because we live in such a remote place.”
It was so close to what Julia thought that she felt ashamed. “Well…” Julia said. The lie had passed her lips so often it didn’t even feel like a lie. “I guess Simpson’s not that bad, I mean compared to other places, er…”
“Alice,” the young woman said eagerly and shot out a hand quickly, rocking the coffeepot. Julia steadied the pot with her left hand while grasping Alice’s right with her own. Alice pumped Julia’s hand energetically. “Alice Pedersen. Pleased to meet you. I don’t often get a chance to meet new people. Especially not women close to my own age. This is great. Just great. I’m really glad you moved here. You married?”
Julia was gamely trying another sip of coffee and almost choked. “Pardon me?”
“Not supposed to ask that right away, are you?” Alice said glumly. “I forgot. Told you we’re not used to dealing with outsiders. And lately, I’ve been spending way too much time with my little brother. He’s seventeen and a handful, let me tell you. I love him, and he’s had a bad time since Mom died, which is why I can forgive him for being such a megajerk, but he’s not exactly gracious company, believe me. Ever been married?”
Alice’s face was like an open book and Julia could see nothing but friendly curiosity in the light blue eyes. She stifled a sigh. “No, Alice. I’m not married, nor have I ever been married. I haven’t even been engaged.”
And the last thing on my mind is romance
, she thought. A picture of Sam Cooper of the fabulous thighs flashed across her mind. Lust, maybe, she corrected herself.
“That’s strange.” Alice blinked. “How come? You’re sooo gorgeous. And you look—I don’t know—big-city.”
Julia put the cup down. “Er…thanks. I think.” She cast about for a change of subject. “Alice Pedersen. Pedersen. By any chance are you related to the Sheriff?”
“Yup, and not by chance, either. He’s my dad. I hear you and old Coop put on quite a show for him yesterday. He was still chuckling when he got home. I really owe you one for that. It’s been a long time since I heard Dad laugh.”
Julia gritted her teeth. “Well, I’m glad I was able to provide some light entertainment. I was actually quite scared at the time.”
“Of
Coop
?” Alice’s light blue eyes rounded. “Why Coop’s the nicest guy in the world. I’ve known him all my life and he wouldn’t hurt a fly.” She thought for a moment. “Well, not an American. And certainly not a
woman
. Why even when Melissa—” Alice broke off and looked up, smiling. “Hi, Coop,” she said.
Julia’s head whipped around. Sure enough, there was Sam Cooper, tall and big as life. Still dressed in black, still looking dark and forbidding. How long had he been standing there? She hoped he hadn’t got the impression that she idly gossiped about him, angling for more information.
“Alice,” he said, then nodded at Julia. “Sally.”
Julia surreptitiously placed a hand over her stomach. Sam Cooper’s voice was so dark and deep it seemed to reverberate in her diaphragm.
Either that or the coffee was making her sick.
Cooper reached out and softly squeezed Alice’s shoulder. “How are things going, Alice?” Julia was surprised at how gentle his deep voice sounded. “How’s the diner coming along?” Cooper slid in next to Julia and she scooted over towards the window. His wide shoulders took up two thirds of the back.
Tears sparkled in Alice’s eyes. “I don’t know, Coop. I just can’t seem to get it together.” She stood up to fetch him a mug and poured him some coffee from the pot on the table, surreptitiously wiping her eyes. Julia saw that Cooper’s mug had a chip, too, only his was on the right side of the handle and hers was on the left.
Cute
, she thought,
matching mugs
.
Alice sat down again and heaved a huge sigh. “I wonder if I’m doing the right thing.” She waved a hand around the café, encompassing dirty, dingy walls and the cracked linoleum counter. There was no one in the café besides the three of them. “Maybe I should just sell the place. Though I can’t imagine anyone buying it.”
Cooper sipped his coffee and grimaced. “Well, you’re certainly keeping the traditions alive. Carly brewed a lousy cup of coffee and so do you. It’s good to know some things don’t ever change. Company’s still good, though. Makes up for the coffee.” His mouth curved slightly.
Julia stared at him. Was that Sam Cooper? Cracking a joke? And smiling? And yet, she thought distractedly, he had an extremely nice smile. It was probably a good thing he didn’t unleash it all that often. It softened his hard features and made him look more human, more approachable. In the daylight, she could see that his eyes weren’t obsidian black, just a very dark brown. He included her in his smile and her breath caught.
Uh-oh
, she thought.
Then Cooper turned back to Alice and Julia started breathing again. In. Out. In. Out. Easy, once you get the hang of it.
“How’s Matt doing?” he asked.
Alice looked out the dirty window and bit her lip. “Not so good, Coop,” she confessed. “He’s not concentrating on his studies, and he answers back to Dad something fierce. He talks back to me, too, but that’s different. He spends all his time in his room, listening to rap and banging away at his computer. He’s starting to miss classes. He’s really hurting.”
“Give him some responsibility.”
“What?” She swiveled her head and stared at him.
Cooper curled his big hands around the chipped mug. “Give Matt a few tasks here at the diner. Pay him if you have to. Keep him busy and ask his opinion on things. Get him involved in what you’re doing.”
“Oh, Coop,” Alice wailed. “I don’t know what I’m doing. What am I thinking of, trying to run this place? I mean, it was barely a paying proposition when Mom was running it, and you know how popular Mom was. People would stop by for a cup of coffee and a slice of pie just to say hello. But now nobody wants to stop by. And how can you blame them? I mean just look at the place.” Alice waved her arm and Julia and Cooper obediently looked around.
It was no wonder people weren’t thronging to Carly’s Diner, Julia thought. Even if it was the only place for a drink and a meal in a forty-mile radius, you had to be awfully hungry, or awfully desperate, to risk a meal if the coffee was anything to go by. You’d probably be better off buying a chocolate bar and a couple of apples at Jensen’s grocery store. The walls were dirty, the only decoration a few out of date calendars and a family portrait, with a younger, happier, thinner version of the Sheriff, a lovely, middle-aged woman with Alice’s smile, a teenaged Alice and a sweet-faced little boy with a missing front tooth.
A soggy-looking apple pie lay on the counter under a water-speckled glass dish. A blackboard on the opposite wall advertised four-dollar hamburgers and an all-you-can-eat special for twelve dollars. Julia shuddered at the thought.
The whole place cried out for an interior decorator, but that didn’t surprise her. The whole town cried out for an exterior decorator.
Something had to be done. So Julia did what any mature, compassionate woman in her position would have done. She hunched her shoulder and looked around with a furtive air. “Oh, I don’t know,” she cackled in her best Igor imitation. “It’s not that bad. A little paint, a few throw pillows…” She cackled again and waited for the laughs. There was a long, embarrassing silence.
Alice was staring at her as if she had just lost all the dots off her dice. Cooper looked his usual, impassive self.
“That’s from
Young Frankenstein
, isn’t it?” he asked finally. He turned to Alice. “You’re too young to remember. It’s an old Gene Wilder movie. Actually—” Cooper turned back to Julia with a puzzled frown, “you’re too young to remember it.”
“No,” she replied, straightening up with a sigh, “I have this rule. I only watch movies that are at least twenty years old. Saves me a lot of trouble. If it’s good after twenty years, it’s really good. Clothes and hairdos are sometimes a little funny though. And you have people talking into cordless phone handsets big as bricks.”
Cooper was staring into his mug, so she did too, on the off-chance that an answer to Alice’s problems could be found there. Heaven knew the answer to hers couldn’t. But all there was in her mug was a muddy noxious brew. She stared deeply into it and then suddenly the answer stared back.
“Tea,” Julia surprised herself by saying.
Alice lifted her head. “Tea?”
“Tea,” Julia said firmly. “You need to offer tea to your customers. Black tea and…and herbal teas.”
Alice looked blank. “Herbal teas?”
“Yes.” Julia stole a glance at Cooper, only to find that he was watching her steadily out of opaque, dark-brown eyes. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking. “Lots of people drink tea, don’t they, Cooper?” Feeling daring, she nudged his booted ankle under the table with her foot.
“Sure.” Cooper’s face gave nothing away, but again, she had a faint impression of a smile flickering briefly. Then it was gone. “Drink it all the time.”
He was lying, of course, but Julia wanted to kiss him for it. Then she overheated at the thought of kissing Cooper.
“Coop? You do?” Alice looked skeptical.
Cooper nodded his head gravely and Alice’s brow cleared. Clearly, anything Sam Cooper did was okay in Alice’s book.
“I saw peppermint growing outside the diner.” Julia suddenly had vivid memories of hot summer Moroccan days and cool mint tea. “Dry the leaves out and make an infusion of them. You can make herbal tea out of almost anything—rosemary, rosehip, verbena, sassafras, sage. The list is endless. Then you can add things like cinnamon or lemon peel to flavor black teas. I’ve got a great recipe for vanilla tea. You’d be surprised how good it tastes.”
“Wait.” Alice had pulled a pad and pencil out of her apron pocket and was scribbling madly. “…cinnamon, lemon peel, vanilla.” She shook her head. “Hey, who knows? It just might work. Besides what have I got to lose?” She watched Cooper unfold himself from the seat and stand up. “Coop? What do you think?”
“Might work,” Cooper answered, leaving some money on the table. “Why don’t you try it?” He held out a large hand to Julia to help her out of the seat. “We should be going,” he said to her.
Alice stared open-mouthed first at Cooper, then at Julia, then back to Cooper. Her thoughts might as well have been tattooed on her forehead. “Oh,” she said, on a long drawn-out breath. “
Oh!
”
Julia was about ready to deny it, whatever it was Alice was thinking, but then Cooper took her elbow in a strong grip and started walking towards the door. Julia could either go with him or leave her arm behind. “I’ll give you the recipes later,” she called out hurriedly to Alice over her shoulder.
Just then the door opened and teenager walked in. The lower half of his skull was shaved clean of hair and the top half was gathered in a blond ponytail that hung down past his shoulders. He had a pierced ear, a pierced nose and a pierced eyebrow. He was wearing a ratty denim jacket over a hairless, bare chest, despite the chilly air, jeans torn at both knees and killer black boots with enough studs and cleats to rivet the roof of a stadium.