You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology(59)

“I guess. We went there every year on field trips, same as the submarine museum, so it seems like an old hat to me.” She nodded her head toward his plate. “You should eat your food. It’s going to get cold.”

Obediently, he cut some pancake away from the rest with the side of his fork. “Tell me about the Wolf People. I’ll eat. You talk.”

She shrugged, looking both less irritated and less tired than she had when he’d first sat down. Maybe not chipper, but her face was no longer drawn and she’d lost the wobble he’d seen in her when she’d gone back to turn in his order. “The Wolf People is an organization north of here. There are some twenty wolves in a closed park. You can take a tour, and there’s a gift shop.”

Marc nodded and swallowed his food. “These are delicious. Good pick.”

His waitress inclined her head to the kitchen. “It’s Babe. She’s such a good cook.” The rest of the sentence went unsaid, but he heard it. Babe’s talents were wasted on this tiny town in the middle of nowhere and—maybe he heard this in the waitress’s tone, too—so were the talents and interests of his waitress.

He wondered what her talents are. Was she happy in this small town? Did she want to leave? He’d desperately wanted to leave his own small town, but not everyone he’d gone to school with had felt the same way.

Whatever he was hearing in his waitress’s tone of voice, though, he let it alone. Athol, Idaho was a blip in the course of his trip. He was passing through her life as much as he was passing through this town while he decided what to do next. And spent some of his sudden wealth on skiing the best snow on earth. He was searching for something, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to enjoy himself.

“All right. You’ve sold me on the Wolf People. And I’ll drive by the museum. Even if it’s not open, maybe there’s something I can see. They don’t test submarines in the air, do they? ’Cause seeing a zeppelin would be awesome.”

“No,” she said, laughing. “Lake Pend Orielle is there. And it’s a state park. The whole place is pretty. It’s cold, but you’ll probably see people horseback riding and, since it’s clear, flying model airplanes. Maybe a model zeppelin,” she said, and he could swear her voice was flirtatious.

He cut aside more of his delicious pancake—a bigger piece this time—and scooped up more of the syrup. “That sounds worth the drive. Pretty is good.”

She blushed, like maybe he was referring to her, even though he hadn’t intended to. Or maybe she was just tired and here he was, reading more into her face and posture than was really there. He was a stranger and she was a waitress, used to dealing with people, even if being on this out-of-the-way mountain meant those people weren’t usually strangers.

But she was pretty, and he wanted to talk to her for as long as she was willing to stand here and talk to him. “Okay. Naval museum, state park, and wolves. Anything else?”

She cocked her head. “You’re going to be driving all over Hell’s Half Acre just to see those three things. Are you sure you want more suggestions?”

“I’ve got all day and no place I need to be until Saturday.” He picked up a piece of bacon and looked at it. It was thick and studded with pepper. Between the waitress and the diner, he would consider passing through Athol again.

“How about this?” he said, thinking both of the delicious breakfast and of his pretty waitress. “How about I see those things, then come back for dinner and tell you what I thought of them. Then you’ll know if you should suggest them to the next passing stranger.”

“We don’t get many passing strangers,” she said, her eyes twinkling with humor, the tiredness he’d seen earlier mostly gone.

“Of course not. All the more reason to be prepared for the next one that comes in. You can practice on me. I volunteer. In fact, I insist,” he said, pounding a fist on the table as if it were a gavel.

She waved him off, obviously trying not to give in to a smile. “I’m only supposed to work the morning shift.”

“As I said, the food’s good, so I’ll come back for dinner anyway and hope that you’re still here to listen to my adventures.”

“If I’m not here, Jesse eats dinner here almost every night. He always needs some company.”

So do I. The thought entered Marc’s head so quickly he almost didn’t notice its entry and attempt to set up camp. He shook his head to dislodge the drivel.

“Don’t want to tell your tales to Jesse?” she asked.

“Jesse sounds all right,” he said, turning one palm up on the table, which was cool under the back of his hand. “I’d rather tell my tales to you, but I told you that I wasn’t trying to pick you up and I’m trying to stick to my word.”

His honesty was rewarded with a blinding, full-wattage smile from his waitress, the first one he’d seen all morning. No tiredness lingered in her eyes, and her shoulders weren’t slumped anymore.

“Thank you,” she said. “I like a man who sticks to his word.”

Now Marc was regretting saying anything. Of course, when he’d been trying to flirt with her and get her to smile, she’d gotten irritated and defensive. Now that he was just trying to be himself and talk with her, he was being rewarded. He wasn’t so blind as to not notice the lesson here.