CHAPTER TWO
The next two hours were an out-of-body experience. I saw people talking, I heard the buzz; I even interacted and smiled, nodded and shook hands, and generally breathed in and out as if a universe-sized bomb hadn’t been dropped on my head.
What was I going to do? What could I do? Go interrogate and rip my dad a new ass for breaking his promise, throwing our lives away again? The bitter anger that raged under the surface of my skin wanted to. With every turn, every pour of a coffee cup, every plate set in front of a customer, I had to grit my teeth together and swallow it back. Because I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t go off on an old man that did most of his living inside his own head now. Whose biggest joy was when his Dallas Cowboy T-shirt got washed so he could wear it again. He wouldn’t remember doing this, and it would be selfish and cruel of me to beat him up with it.
I had to deal with it. I had to find a way to figure this out in what was now a foggy maze with no instructions or directions. Everything that had always been A was now Z. Up was down, green was the new blue, and for the first time in thirty-three years, I wondered what I was going to do with my life. It had never been a question for me. The most college interest I’d ever had was business courses at a nearby community campus, and that was so I could be a better restaurateur.
Now, I had no footholds. Everything was slippery. Everything hung on a sleazeball named Landon Lange. And Bash knew him.
There was another fiery poker.
Bash of the incredibly hot, embarrassing, carnal delight visiting my dreams each night. Bash, of the forever friend category, the man I could normally tell anything. Bash, the honorary uncle to my daughter, the child he delivered in a storeroom during a particularly stressful night when we were seventeen. My closest, dearest friend. Who I had kissed three months ago.
Because—crap.
I’d kissed Bash. And I was pretty sure he’d kissed me back. Everything had been flipped on its awkward ass ever since.
And now I’d seen him sitting buddy-buddy, shaking hands with the asshole out to ruin me. Good times.
My phone buzzed from my pocket. I shook my head free of the crazy and pulled it out. Angel’s school. Awesome.
“Mrs. Greene?” a female voice replied to my answer.
“Miss,” I said, accustomed to the assumption.
“Oh, sorry,” said the young woman, a hint of fluster in her voice, as though she’d practiced a spiel and I’d knocked her off her game.
“Not a problem, can I help you?” I asked. “Is Angel okay?”
“Yes ma’am,” she said. “Except she isn’t feeling well.”
I rubbed my eyes. Today wasn’t the day.
“Is that so?” I asked. “Does she have fever?”
“No ma’am,” she said. “But Angel said she has a bad stomachache, and there is a bug going around, so—”
“Well, this morning it was a bad headache and her throat hurt,” I said. “But her throat was as pretty as can be. Have you asked her about fourth period-itis?”
The woman didn’t find me amusing, probably because I questioned her ability to be a school nurse and not spot a fake a mile away. Fifteen minutes later, Angel was in the car, looking appropriately miserable for about thirty seconds before the first question kicked in.
“Can we stop at the Quik-Serve?” she asked, pointing at the convenience store up ahead.
“For?”
“I need to get some random magazines for a project for sociology,” she said.
And there it was.
“Uh-huh, and when is this due?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, shrugging. “Next week sometime. But I’ll probably do it today since I’m home.”
“Right,” I said. “Should I run in and pick them up since you’re so ill?”
“Nah, I’m—I’ll be okay,” she said, placing a hand to her belly. “I’ll only be a minute.”
I pulled in, handing her a twenty. “Don’t move too fast, don’t want you puking in there.”
Stomachache, my ass. That girl needed to realize who she was talking to, and the level of faking talent she needed to perfect before surpassing me. In my senior year of high school, I was six months pregnant before anyone suspected it. Not my dad, not anyone at school. And that included a month and a half of puking every time I smelled chalk. The only one I told was Bash, and he kept my secret.
I narrowed my eyes, studying her as she returned to the Jeep and got in with a plastic bag full of magazines.
“Are you pregnant?” I asked.
She looked at me like I’d sprouted warts.
“Are you high?”
I turned the key. “Just checking.”
“I’d have to have sex first, Mom,” she said. “I’m pretty special, but I’m not quite holy enough to pull that off.”
And I’m not you.
That’s what she had the tact not to say, but I knew ticked across her brain.
I’d never hidden the truth from Angel, she knew how she came to be and what the story was with the boy that knocked me up and bailed. I never wanted her to have the young struggles that I had. The stigmas and social barriers that I had to overcome. I wanted her to enjoy the fun perks in life and be loved and liked for the awesome person she was. I raised her to hold her ground and be her own girl, and not let herself be controlled by someone who got his kicks out of yanking her chains.
When she was younger, I thought I’d succeeded. Now, she was turning into such a teenager. Fortunately for her, she wasn’t anything like I was. Unfortunately for me, I sometimes had no idea how to decode such a creature.
“Good to know,” I said, pulling out. “Have everything you need? What is the project about?”
Angel shrugged and clicked into her seatbelt.
“No idea.”
I blew out a breath. I wouldn’t be a hypocrite. I was by no means a great student in school, and becoming a single mom at seventeen was certainly no prime example of what to do with your life, but this girl was smart. Like crazy smart. Straight A’s without ever cracking a book until the teen years rolled around and she realized that being the class whiz wasn’t cool anymore. It punched me in the gut every time I saw her waste her brain.
“Angel, you’re better than that,” I said, feeling her tune me out without ever looking her way. “I’d be willing to bet you know exactly what the project is, what’s required, and five different ideas on how to do it better.”
“Think so?” she said in a bored tone, her dark-eyed gaze focused on the small-town streets of Charmed passing outside her window.
“I know so,” I said, yawning.
It wasn’t even ten o’clock yet, and I felt like I’d lived a week outdoors being stomped by a horse.
“So what’s with you not sleeping lately?” Angel asked.
If only that were something I could discuss with a fifteen-year-old. I shook my head.
“Just too much on my mind, I guess,” I said.
“Bad dreams?”
I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. Lord have mercy. “Something like that, too.”
“About Uncle Bash?”
If I could have yanked my dashboard off and fanned myself with it, I would have. Oh God, what if I’d said something in my sleep and she heard?
“Why?”
“Because you cursed him in the shower this morning,” she said. “You were too cranky to ask at the time.”
I took a deep breath and let it go. I was cursing him before I even knew I had a legitimate reason. That had to say something.
“Don’t say anything to Pop about me having bad dreams,” I said. “He worries about stuff like that.”
My dad being coherent enough to worry was really a fifty-fifty shot, but when it came to the subject of dreams in our family, he was likely to pull right out of his foggy little world and grill me for hours. He took that crap seriously. Protecting our livelihood—now evidently not so much.
Stop. It would do no good.
“Can we stop for donuts, too?” Angel asked, twisting a strand of dark wavy hair around a finger as we stopped at a red light and a new bakery sat all pretty at the edge of the Lucky Charm.
I stared at her for what I hoped was an uncomfortably long moment.
“For your severe stomach problems?”
She gave me an innocent hurt look. “It’s comfort food.”
“You are so full of it,” I said. “I have to get back to work.” Because…why, exactly?
“You own the place, Mom,” she said.
Oh, just shoot me and throw me in the pond. The stab to my middle was so strong, I had to work for my next breath.
“Pop owns the place,” I managed, shoving the words out. I couldn’t tell her. Not yet. “I just—”
“Do everything?”
I cut Angel a sideways glance as we started moving. “Run the place,” I said. “But yeah, that too.” Since my dad’s illness kicked in, and before that some back problems that had him down, the list never seemed to end. I’d actually missed the days of coming in to work for someone else who had all the responsibility. The irony of that was brutal and cruel. “Who is going to take care of the diner in my absence?”
“Nick?”
“And if I’m AWOL, what does that tell my employees to do?”
“Take a break because the big bad boss isn’t there?” Angel said, tilting her head with a snarky grin.
“You’re a piece of work,” I said, shaking my head. “There are no breaks in the service industry, baby girl. People never stop eating, boss or not.”
She just blinked at me. “So—comfort food?”
A simple little donut would rock my world, considering the morning I’d had. I tapped my blinker. “The things I do for you.”
“Speaking of people doing things for me,” she said, raising an eyebrow my way. “Uncle Bash is supposed to start driving lessons with me tonight, has he called you?”
My tongue stalled as the familiar anxiety washed over my skin. Has he called you? No, Bash hadn’t called me. Not in the wide awake world of reality. He hadn’t come by in his normal drop-by-to-see-my-Angel-girl way or swung by the lunch counter at the Blue Banana to swipe a handful of peanuts from the bowl I had out. He even started having couriers drop off the cases of honey I sold from his apiary instead of delivering them himself. He’d been there as a customer off and on, but always with someone and always engaged in a conversation that didn’t look interruptible. Not that I would have, since I was avoiding him like a virus, myself.
“You could call him,” I said, clearing my throat and my mind as I pointed at her phone. “Text him, message him, Facebook, or Insta-something him. You’re the one wanting him to teach you, Angel, and that thing that never leaves your hand has to have some kind of purpose.”
“Okay, okay,” she said, holding said phone up. “I will. I was just saying that y’all have been weird lately. Normally, you’d have this all arranged and set up and probably giving each other grief about who was doing the teaching, but he hasn’t even come over for coffee in forever.”
Dryness scratched at my throat. “I know,” I said. Did I know? Did I know anything? “He’s probably just been busy.”
She cut her eyes at me in a way that a girl her age shouldn’t be savvy enough to do.
“Something happen between y’all to make him be busy?” she asked.
My heart skipped ahead. “Why would you ask that?” I said.
“Because you get all—” Angel wiggled her fingers at me as she looked me up and down. “Like that every time his name comes up.”
I waved her off and frowned and mentally imagined banging my head on the steering wheel.
“No, of course not,” I said, pushing all thoughts I shouldn’t be having away to pick up one of her new magazines and fan myself. “Life is just—so why are you getting him to teach you to drive?” I asked instead. “When your mother is right here?”
She turned her head to me in an exaggerated pose. “My mother, who’s now famous for riding through town like a crazed hillbilly in the back of Mr. Hart’s pickup truck? Jumping in while it was moving, from what I’ve heard?”
I rubbed at my eyes. “Okay, time to let that horse die, already,” I said. “It’s been months—”
“Oh no,” Angel said. “That little gem will never die. I still hear about it at school.”
“Fabulous,” I muttered.
“Truly,” she said, a smartass smirk on her face.
“I was grabbing the quickest ride I could,” I said. “Bash—was in danger.”
I licked my lips as I said it, remembering the absolute terror that had rocketed through me, and what that had driven me to do.
Don’t go there.
“From a flare gun?” she said.
“I didn’t know it was a flare gun,” I said. “I just—” I just heard gun and all I knew was that I had to get to him. Now, what was he doing to me? Was he involved? I shook my head. “Anyway, that has nothing to do with your driving.”
“It has everything to do with the jokes I’ll have to endure if anyone sees me driving with you,” she said. “So, Uncle Bash please.”
“Angel, he’s—”
“He makes me laugh, Mom,” she said, getting to the real point. “And I don’t get defensive when he tells me I suck.” She shrugged. “I miss him.”
I flexed my fingers and faced forward, nodding. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t stab me in the gut, because he was the closest thing to a father that Angel had ever known. He had gone into the Marines when she was a baby, but had been there for every major moment since. First everything: softball games, school plays, phone calls when she was mad at me and needed that dad-like person to rant to.
“Well, who am I to get in the way of someone else telling you that you suck,” I said, turning into the bakery parking lot. “Y’all knock yourselves out. Take the Girl Scout cookies you scammed from the neighbors, too. I can’t quit eating them.”
Angel’s eyes lit up as we rounded the menu board like she was six instead of almost sixteen.
“Lemon?” I asked, knowing the answer. “Or something else?”
“Lemon-filled donut, please.” She grinned my way all silly. “I looovvvvve you.”
“Mm-hmm,” I said on a chuckle. “It’s your feverish delirium.”
“You know, I could get my own donuts if you got me a car,” Angel said.
“You don’t have your license yet, freak,” I said.
“But I will in a few months,” she said. “And I could go get lots of things. Groceries. Ice cream. Supplies for school projects.”
“Tickets,” I responded. “Ten-car pileups.”
I drooled looking at the menu, myself. I shouldn’t, but I was going to. I could have something ten times more awesome, nutritious, and probably even tastier at the diner. Nick would whip me up anything I wanted, but this morning’s lopsided beginning and horrible, terrible, no-good, very bad news had me needing empty calories in the form of thick glazed sugar, creamy sweet filling, and melt-in-your-mouth carb-loaded gooey warm donut.
“Your faith in me is astounding,” she said. “Hey speaking of Uncle Bash, isn’t that his truck? Is that his new building?”
I had pulled all the way around the building to that point in the drive-thru where a change of heart or conscience is no longer an option because you’re trapped within those little curb guides. And there it was with no doubt, the back end of Bash’s truck, distinguished by the BEEMAN license plate and a few inches of the Anderson’s Apiary logo magnet showing on the door. It was parked in front of the building next door that had been created to look like a woodsman’s cottage, and I knew it to be one of the new retail spots he’d snagged as part of the Lucky Charm complex. His apiary was a little off the beaten path, understandably. One doesn’t smack a bunch of bees in the middle of a high retail area. So all the products he made from the honey and the wax, he had to cart around to place at other retail sites on commission or whatever that retailer was willing to do in trade for showing his wares. Bash sold online as well, but he had wanted to add a more dedicated local retail presence to his business for a long time. I was happy for him. I hadn’t gotten to tell him that, yet, and to be honest I didn’t even know it was open, so the shit-friend of the year award was definitely on the table.
“Yep, that’s it,” I said.
“I could hop out and go run and talk to him real quick,” Angel said, reaching for her seat belt fastener.
“Or you could call him later,” I said, pulling to the window. “Like when you get home and are lying in bed or doing whatever this project is for next week. I have to get to work.”
“Killjoy,” she muttered.
“Happy morning to you!” a lady chirped from the window, making us both jump at the loud.
“Oh, wow.”
“Jesus,” Angel said under her breath.
Okay, a little too bouncy for that time of the morning. Even for a service industry. If I was that singsongy at the diner first thing in the morning, somebody would slap me with a pancake.
“What can I get for you?” she said robustly.
“One Bavarian cream filled, please,” I said, purposely using my inside voice as a hint. “And one lemon filled.”
“Awesome blossom,” she sang. Literally sang. Her nametag had smiley emoji stickers on it and read Hi! I’m Maxie! “One mo-ment-o.”
“Good grief,” I muttered, rubbing my eyes as Maxie nearly skipped away.
“That’s so not normal,” Angel whispered.
“Yeah, I don’t know if it’s worth it.”
“Allie Greene Bean!” said a male voice that both startled me for the second time and made me want to dive into the back seat.
I head-jerked around to see a guy in a red apron and a black collared shirt, strawberry-blond hair slicked and spiked up, and way-too-white teeth.
“Alan!” I said in a pretend excited tone. “Why—are you in the bakery window?”
Alan Bowman. Town narcissist. Asshole. Blowhard. Graduated with me, and probably never knew it until I took over the diner from my dad.
He tugged on his collar as if that was supposed to tell me something.
“I’m the manager,” he said proudly. “And the owner.”
“Of the—” I shook my head before I said something offensive. There was nothing wrong with managing a food establishment. I’d done it most of my adult life. But Alan Bowman was not someone I’d ever imagine stooping to do such menial work. He dabbled in beekeeping for a time, or so I’d heard, but mostly he made his money in investments. Above and below the table. He tried to swindle Nick’s wife out of her inheritance over the summer and had laid low ever since. “I didn’t realize you were a baker.”
“Oh, I’m not,” Alan said, laughing.
“So—what made you decide to—get in the bakery business?” I asked, my fingers pulling up the neckline of my shirt as his eyes fell there.
“Well, with all the flashy new businesses going up down here, it would be dumb not to grab a piece of the pie,” he said, flashing teeth. “So to speak. Anything up on Main is yesterday’s news now.”
On Main. Where my diner was. Nice. “Really?”
“Not talking about your little place, of course,” he amended with a wink.
I smiled. “Of course.”
“How’s your dad doing?” he asked, for one split second appearing to care. “Last time I talked to him—damn it must have been almost a year ago. You know, when he was having those financial issues,” he said in a lowered voice.
I held my smile perfectly, thanks to a lifetime of practice. Tried not to think too hard on just what financial issues Alan Bowman assisted my dad with.
“He’s fine,” I lied. What did it matter? “How’s your buddy, the ex-mayor?” I asked. “You know, since he went all rogue on Bash’s bees?”
Alan’s expression tightened a little. “I think he’s good,” he said, glancing around as if the next topic—any topic—could be floating by to grab. “He’s kind of kept to himself.”
“Oh really?” I said. “I see Dean in the diner all the time looking like Grizzly Adams and talking to himself. But I guess stealing your friend’s livelihood and then pulling a flare gun on him can send you a little over the edge.”
Alan was nodding and smiling which was really just a show of teeth.
“And you?” he said, tilting his head. “I heard—”
“Angel is about to start driving,” I interjected, grabbing her hand and yanking her closer.
“Oh wow, seriously,” Angel said under her breath.
Alan leaned down to see Angel. “Sweet little Angel Food Cake is old enough to drive?”
Angel’s pretty little lined eyes said so many not sweet, crass, and rude things he’d never know about before she gave a snarky smile.
“Hi,” she said, lifting her hand in a limp wave.
“My goodness,” he said. “I remember when your mother was pregnant with you. Has it been that many years?”
I narrowed my eyes at him, thinking bullshit as loudly as my thoughts would manage. If it weren’t for Bash and I being friends and my running the diner, Alan Bowman wouldn’t even know my name.
“Oh, hey Bash.”
My head jerked back to the right as dark hair and striking blue eyes were suddenly filling the passenger window. The same eyes I’d seen in my dream last night. That had burned right through me as I’d rushed into a room three months ago not knowing what to expect and flung myself into his arms in eternal relief that he wasn’t shot. Or flared. The same eyes that went impossibly dark as I’d pulled back and—kissed him. That had closed as he kissed me back and—
The same eyes that had looked at me earlier this morning right before he possibly screwed me over.
I swallowed hard over the flips my stomach was doing and held my chin up as Angel lowered the window and they did their finger-knuckle-knock-front-back goofy little hand jive thing they’d done since she was six.
“Allie,” he said, a hint of a kind-of-sad, kind-of-amused smile in his expression.
“Bash.”
My heart broke a little more.