Dance Away with Me(12)

“I guess that’s up to her.”

Her hands stilled on the register drawer as she looked up at him. “Is it?”

He didn’t like subtlety. “What are you getting at?”

“A cup of coffee won’t do her any harm.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Where did you get that scar on your neck?”

Most people were too polite to ask, but she didn’t seem to care about everyday courtesies. Neither did he. “Trying to squeeze under a chain-link fence when I was eighteen and the cops were chasing me. Do you want to know about the others?”

One on his arm from a nasty encounter with a New Orleans guard dog. Another on his leg from falling off the roof of an apartment building in Berlin. When you spent so much of your life climbing ladders and sneaking around dark city streets, shit was bound to happen.

The one he prized the most was the jagged mark across the back of his hand. He’d earned that after he’d tagged his father’s Porsche. It served as a reminder of a beating he’d never forget, along with the evidence that he’d fought back.

“No. That’s okay.” She dismissed his question and also dismissed him.

He grabbed the coffee, along with his change. Instead of leaving, as she seemed to expect, he took a seat at the opposite end of the community table from the horny brewer and opened the doughnut sack.

A woman came in. He didn’t know for a fact that she’d once been a homecoming queen, but her diamond-shaped face and faded-blond prettiness bore the hallmarks. Now, however, her blond bob had lost its fluff and her facial bones had sharpened. Twenty years earlier she might have been succulent, but the juice had been sucked out of her.

“Tess, can I talk to you?”

“Hello, Mrs. Winchester.”

Winchester. Even he’d heard about the local boy who’d made good with some kind of start-up involving Internet domain name trading. Apparently, he’d sold the business for a fortune and used the money to finance his political career.

Tess nodded at the teenager who’d accompanied the woman. “Hi, Ava.”

And here was the current homecoming queen. Blond like her mother, but fleshed out. Round cheeks, rosy lips, in the full bloom of prettiness. She smiled at Tess, then left her mother to join two other teens at a table by the window.

“Can we talk privately?” Mrs. Winchester nodded toward the back of the store.

Tess was the only one working, but she made her way toward the minuscule hallway by the bathroom. He could see them but not hear what they were saying.

The Winchester woman did all the talking, her gestures as sharp as the rest of her. When Tess finally spoke, she appeared calm in the face of the onslaught. Winchester shook her head, clearly dismissing whatever Tess said. Meanwhile, her daughter, Ava, was making a concerted effort not to look at her mother.

His curiosity annoyed him. Whatever human drama was unfolding had nothing to do with him. He picked up his remaining doughnut along with the coffee and dropped a dollar tip on the table. He didn’t like leaving Bianca alone.





Chapter Three




The storm started on a Friday, the first day of March, a month after Tess had begun working at the Broken Chimney. It rained all that day and the next. By Sunday morning, the temperature had dipped below freezing, with the rain changing to sleet and Poorhouse Creek racing like a river. Instead of going to work, she wanted to curl up in a blanket by the windows and watch the rushing water creep closer to her back door.

Last night, her Honda CR-V had barely made it through the flooded low spots on the road up from the highway, and there was no way her car could make it to town today with the water rising even higher. She’d have to walk to work—over a mile down Runaway Mountain, which wouldn’t be nearly as bad as the hike back up. For a job she’d taken on a whim.

Cell service was spotty up here, but she had just enough signal to reach Phish, who was in Nashville, hungover from a rock concert. When she told him she couldn’t get to work, he wasn’t having it. “. . . get down there . . .” His voice cracked over the bad connection. “. . . count on. . . . Women’s Alliance . . . monthly meeting . . .”

“The road’s flooded. I can’t get my car out.”

“. . . walked to work before. You said . . . exercise.”

“I’ve walked when the weather’s been decent.”

“. . . mountain girl now, not some city puss . . .”

“Go away and put my nice guy boss on the phone,” she grumbled.

But she’d lost the connection.

Muttering, she shoved dry jeans, a pair of flats, and a flashlight into a plastic bag, which she stuffed in her backpack. Wearing her oldest sneakers, she flipped her rain jacket hood over her head and let herself out into the sleet and gloom.

The trek down the mountain was cold and miserable, but not as miserable as the trek back up would be. With the road buried in nearly three feet of water in spots, she stuck to the narrow track that served as a trail.

When she finally reached town, the sidewalk was an ice rink, and she nearly fell as she approached the Broken Chimney. Light showed brightly through the steamed-up front windows. Despite the weather, or maybe because of it, at least ten people were gathered inside. Savannah, wearing leggings and an oversize T-shirt, stood impatiently behind the counter. “You’re late.”