You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology(60)

Not that he’d get a chance to make use of said lesson. He was enjoying his waitress’s smiles particularly because he didn’t get the feeling that she had much of an opportunity to show them. He liked the way he felt as though he could let his guard down around her, not to mention that her mix of suspicion and friendliness made him want to know more about her.

He wouldn’t get to, of course. She’d told him that he didn’t even have a chance at another conversation, much less insight into her history and personality.

Just as well. His father had always said that the best way to figure out what to do with your life was to disappear into the wilderness and let nature tell you. His father hadn’t said anything about taking someone else along for the ride.

“Anyway,” she said, patting the Formica table and nearly brushing his own hand, which was still resting there, palm up. “I’ll leave you alone so that you can eat. Pay at the front and holler if you need more coffee.”

A couple walked into the diner as soon as his waitress walked away, but the place had never felt emptier.





Chapter Three





“Hey.” A strong, reassuring hand pressed into Selina’s shoulder. “Want a cup of coffee?”

Selina looked up into the warm eyes of her boss, Babe. “I do, but I shouldn’t have one. I need to try to sleep tonight.”

The woman rubbed Selina’s shoulder and down her arm. “Do you need a place to sleep tonight?”

Babe could look intimidating in the kitchen, especially when standing there with a knife, her white apron covering a generous bosom and an almost as generous stomach. But the people close to her knew that her heart took up as much space as her body. Her husband was known to say that her body wasn’t big enough for all the things he loved about his wife.

“Yes, but I don’t want to be anywhere my mom will think to look. She’ll ask me to come home, and I can’t.” She couldn’t face her mom and the hurt she’d surely caused when she’d run off. But she couldn’t face Gary or that house again, either.

The worst part would be the show her mom would make of it. She would put her hand against her forehead, moan about her ungrateful daughter and all the work she and Gary had put into raising her. Selina didn’t have a clue why her mom even wanted her around. As far as she could tell, the very fact that she was living in the same town where she grew up, in the same house even, was a disappointment to everything her mother had worked for.

Drama—her mother’s specialty.

At first, Selina had been happy when her mom had started working more hours. There’d been less yelling. Of course, now she’d take the yelling if it meant that she wasn’t home alone with Gary.

“There’s that spare bedroom at my sister’s.” Babe’s sister lived an hour north, almost spitting distance from the Canadian border.

“I’m a little afraid to drive up there, as tired as I am.” It was clear now, but a storm was supposed to be rolling in tonight. Driving on the highway in blinding snow was treacherous enough when wide-awake.

“Plus, better that you don’t know where I am when my family comes knocking.” For all her mom and Gary’s fake concern, Selina brought home an income they both needed. Gary was an angry, abusive drunk, but he wasn’t an idiot. And he certainly wasn’t lazy when it came to making sure someone was around to buy groceries.

“Why haven’t you moved? Out of the house, at least?” Babe kept her hand on Selina’s back so she knew her boss wasn’t being judgmental or critical, just merely asking the same questions Selina asked herself almost every night.

For all her big talk about never going back to that house again, she knew she probably would. A couple of nights sleeping in her car, a couple of nights feeling guilty when Gary knocked on her friends’ houses at two in the morning, and a couple of calls from her mom saying the electric bill was late. That would be all it would take, though she’d buy a bar to put across her door.

“Money. Isn’t that the reason anyone ever does anything?” As far as she could tell, money was the reason Gary didn’t just move out, not when Selina and her mom paid the mortgage, the bills, and for most of the groceries.

All those bills ate into Selina’s escape money, too, plus there was tuition for her community college classes, the expense of driving to Sandpoint, the nearest town with a community college, textbooks, a laptop . . . Funds drained out of her bank account almost as quickly as she was able to put them in, especially since not everyone left as nice a tip as the man from this morning had. That money would fill up her gas tank, at least.

“Sorry I can’t pay you more.”

“Thanks, Babe, but I get it.”

Babe’s Diner, like all the other businesses in this town, made almost no money. No one in town made much money. There was a naval testing center and . . . well, nothing else for people to do for work. Everyone’s fingernails were worn to the quick in an effort to make ends meet. No one had anything extra.

“I’ll get out of here,” she said, trying to sound hopeful.

Someday.

She was taking a survey of art history class, and while she’d probably end up being a nurse—practicality trumped dreams—she liked to imagine what it would be like to work in an art gallery. She’d looked up pictures of galleries online, all white walls and brightly colored art. She’d have a signature pair of black boots and . . .