“You ready to head to dinner?”he asked.
“Yeah.Let’s close down and go.”
We did that.
Shortly after, I found that Hutch told no lies.
When we got to Luigi’s, not only did Gianni fashion a huge salad with chunks of meat, thick shaves of parmesan, and lots of romaine, olives and tomatoes for Hutch that he tossed in a vinaigrette (Hutch let me taste, it was delicious), he came out of the kitchen to do the handshake, back clap thing dudes do.
Hutch introduced him to me.
Gianni was all smiles and welcomes, but in a hurry, since the small restaurant wasn’t that busy but there were tons of deliveries going out the door for folks who didn’t want to brave the cold and impending sleet.
By the way, I got a delicious calzone covered in even more delicious red sauce and followed it up with homemade spumoni ice cream chockful of pistachios and cherries.
In other words, we were going back to Luigi’s.
I’d also sent anAll good?text to Brett.
He did not reply.
This didn’t make me happy.
Sleet was what we walked out to, and I wasn’t feeling that.
“Maybe we should just go up the mountain,” I said to Hutch.
“I let the dogs out before I came down.They’re good.”
“No.It’s that I don’t like driving in this,” I admitted.
“That’s cool, babe,” he said softly.“It gets bad, I’ll drive and bring you back down to get your truck tomorrow when it’s clear.”
That was a deal, so we headed to the town hall, and I did it with Abigail’s description in my head, anticipating I’d walk into some form ofNorthern Exposure, or possibly better yet, aParks and Recsituation.
But when we got there, there was hardly anyone there.
“I heard it’s always standing room only,” I told Hutch as I shrugged off my coat.
“This flu must have a bigger grip on the town than I thought,” he muttered.
“Mabel!Hutchison!”we heard in a tone that made me want to immediately stand attention and salute.
Instead, we both looked to the rows of sparsely occupied benches to see Mrs.Matthews, front and center, Ellis sitting next to her.
We headed that way and scooted down the row to get to her.
I tucked my coat in my lap when I sat, and asked, “Where’s Mark and Brooks?”
“Down with this dreaded flu,” Mrs.Matthews stated.“So is Helen, my daughter-in-law.It’s a disaster!”she announced irately, as if the flu came to Misted Pines just to annoy her.
Though, she wasn’t wrong.It was a disaster.
I turned to the elevated curved bench desk in front of us, seeing only an attractive blonde in the seat in the middle, another guy one chair over at her left, and that was it.
“Yes, more than half the council isn’t even here,” Mrs.Matthews pointed out.“Nor is Sheriff Moran.”
I turned to Hutch just as the attractive blonde reached to the microphone in front of her.
