“Waylon Guthrie. Here since I learned to walk.”
This is perfect. This man must know everything about Sierra Grande. “Would you like to join me?” I ask, gesturing to my empty table.
It’s painful watching Waylon get up, grab his drink, and gather his lightweight tan jacket, but I don’t offer to help. He strikes me as a man who wouldn’t appreciate the insinuation that he needs it.
I clear my purse off the tabletop and make room for Waylon’s things.
“Well,” he says, huffing out a breath as he settles beside me. “Took long enough.”
I hold up my drink. “To new friends.”
“To new friends,” he echoes, tapping his bottle to my glass. He takes a drink of his beer, wipes the back of his hand across his upper lip, and says, “What kind of business brings you here, Dakota?”
“I’m looking at purchasing some land.”
He whistles. “Rich lady, huh?”
I cough on my drink, picturing the depressingly low number of my bank account and the late notices that are still in my purse. “Uh, no. I’ll be developing said land.”
“You going to put in a Starbucks?” His lip curls as he speaks.
“Do you want me to?”
He slams down his beer. It’s less than half-full, so the liquid doesn’t make it over the rim. “Hell no.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“What are your plans then?”
“That”—I reach over to poke his upper arm—“is where you come in.”
He gives me a disbelieving look. “How’s that?”
“You’ve been in Sierra Grande since you learned to walk. Tell me, what does the town need?”
“Nothin’, if you ask me.” He makes a face. “If you asked my daughter and granddaughter, they’d tell you something different, probably.”
“Maybe I can do that. Ask your daughter and granddaughter, I mean.”
Waylon reaches behind himself, fishing his wallet from his pocket. He opens the billfold and retrieves a rectangular white card and hands it to me. “That’s my daughter’s nail salon. They might do more than nails, hell I don’t know.” He waves a hand in the air. “Pay her a visit. Get your nails done.” When he says this, he waggles his fingers. “She’ll tell you what this town needs.”
I tuck the card into my wallet. “Let me get you a refill, Waylon.”
And that is how, on my second night in Sierra Grande, I end up very buzzed with the old man I nearly flipped off.
7
Wes
She’s late.
Dakota was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago and I feel like a dumbass for being so keenly aware of that. Watching the clock like a whipped schoolboy. Pathetic.
I walk away from the window that faces the road, and go to the kitchen to rinse out my coffee cup and set it on the drying rack. Somewhere in the distance, a car door slams shut.
Before I open the front door, I’m careful to rearrange my features. Cool indifference is what I’m going for, maybe with a side ofI forgot you and everything about that night.
I pull open the door just in time to watch Dakota falter on the second step. She regains her footing and keeps going. When she notices me standing in the open door, she stops short, her eyes wide, and she sucks her bottom lip between her teeth.
