She knew that as she moved from diner to diner, giving and exchanging smiles, delivering plates, scooping up her tips—the machinery of the Misty Cat was well-oiled and nearly balletic—
He’d watched her the entire time.
She might be a little rusty at whatever this was, but she just somehow knew she hadn’t seen the last of that man.
She was just pocketing the tip—twenty bucks!—and plucking up his bill when Casey Carson swept into the Misty Cat like a Valkyrie—which was basically how she swept in anywhere—for a to-go order. She was blonde and golden, a big-framed girl who was loud and funny and had gorgeous skin and preternatural confidence, which is how she’d successfully run the Truth and Beauty salon—where you could get anything on your body trimmed, dyed or waxed—since the age of twenty. She was almost thirty now.
She slowed down a bit when she saw Truck Donegal eating a burger.
Then she gave her hair a haughty flip to show she could care less.
Kayla Benoit rushed in right behind her. She was small and slinky and brunette, a piquant blend of the best genes her American dad and Japanese mom had to offer, and she’d named her boutique after herself, which, some people in Hellcat Canyon said, was pretty much all you needed to know about Kayla Benoit. She had a lock on the local wedding and maternity business, two events that didn’t necessarily follow sequentially in Hellcat Canyon. But her heart was in the designer dresses. She didn’t move a lot of them, given their price tags. Sometimes Britt thought Kayla stocked a few just to torment her.
When Kayla saw Truck she came to a full stop and her face went utterly expressionless.
Then she gave her own hair a dramatic toss and pivoted away from him.
Kayla and Casey ignored each other pointedly and entirely.
Truck hunched his shoulders and ducked his head and applied himself to his hamburger like a wood chipper, eager to get out of there.
And then Eden Harwood and her daughter Annalise burst through the door.
“Grandma! Grandpa! You’ll never guess what happened!”
Sherrie rushed toward them, wiping her hands on her apron. “What are all you girls carrying on about? You win the lottery? Did Peace and Love turn out to be a girl and have kittens?”
“You’re so funny, Grandma!”
Britt knew that what Sherrie was really dying to say was,You finally met your daddy?Becauseno onebut Eden knew who Annalise’s daddy was, and Eden Harwood, who was a petite woman but stubborn as a rock and almost regal, had been closemouthed on the subject since before Annalise was born. People mostly shrugged when girls in Hellcat Canyon had babies before they got married.
But Eden had been bound for bigger things, and bigger cities, like her brothers. Annalise had kept her in Hellcat Canyon.
And Britt knew, even though they tried never to show it, that her silence on the subject hurt Glenn’s and Sherrie’s feelings.
“I swear I saw—” Kayla blurted.
While at the same time Casey said, “Let me tell you who—”
“No, no, let me tell, let me tell!” Annalise begged all of them, with limpid eyes.
Casey and Kayla could compete with each other but theycould hardly compete with a limpid-eyed ten-year-old.
They clapped their mouths shut, albeit reluctantly.
Eden put her hand on Annalise’s shoulder and said, “Go on, baby. Tell everyone.”
“Grandma, John Tennessee McCord ate a hamburger in here and he said it was the best ever and stopped to pet Peace and Love and he gave Mama his autograph and I spelled for him!”
“IthoughtI saw him walk by my store!” Kayla crowed.
“I thought Isawhim walk by my store!” Casey said, as if Kayla hadn’t said a word.
“IthoughtI recognized him from somewhere!” Sherrie was all radiant satisfaction. “He’s that actor fromBlood Brothers! That boy isbeautiful. Didn’t you think so, Glenn?”
“Ah, Sherrie, I wish you wouldn’t ask me questions like that,” Glenn was pained. “He’s a good-lookin’ kid, sure.”
John Tennessee McCord... John Tennessee McCord... John Tennessee McCord.
