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He wrinkled his nose and her stomach did that weird electric boogaloo again. ‘Leftover eggs?’
She shrugged and caught his gaze directed right at the three pearly buttons on the bodice of her hideous ensemble. Her cheeks coloured and her heart did a little rhumba to go with the dance her stomach was doing.
‘I think they stick with leftover meat and hash browns. The eggs and toast get consumed at breakfast.’
She rubbed her forehead. Why was she running her mouth to this poor guy?
He didn’t seem to mind, though. ‘And the fruit?’ He smiled at her and she could tell he was now studying her the way she’d been studying him. With interest. Her skin suddenly felt too tight.
‘I’m pretty sure the fruit gets taken home and then thrown out anyway. Poor fruit. But what can you do? It seems to be the fate of diner fruit. Warm orange smiles and wrinkled grapes. It’s sad.’
He chuckled again and closed the menu. ‘You sold me. I’ll take the number one. And skip the fruit.’
She shook her head and tsked at him. ‘Oh, mister, we can’t skip the fruit. That might bring about the apocalypse.’
He nodded. ‘I understand.’
She hurried off to place his order, studiously ignoring the fact that her knees felt like they might buckle and dump her on her ass.
‘He’s a cutie,’ Mrs Kline whispered-shouted as Betsey passed. Betsey cringed. Her chest flushed with heat when she heard him laugh again.
You didn’t say it, she reminded herself. Mrs Kline said it.
‘I need a number one,’ she said to Tony. Then, as an afterthought, ‘Extra fruit.’ This time Betsey was the one to laugh.
Chapter 2 (#uf73d4060-9cff-515c-a40a-e3eb279dec68)
Archie watched her go. She had quite the ass, he thought, as he kept his eyes pinned on her curvy form. Then he felt bad for thinking it. He had no right to even be noticing women right now. His life – the love part and otherwise – had been a trainwreck lately. To notice her might put a curse on her.
‘The curse of Archie Rader,’ he said to himself softly.
‘Who?’ The old woman had a highly complicated bun that appeared to be long braids wound atop her head. Her hair was the colour of fresh snow.
‘What?’
‘Who were you talking to?’ she said.
‘Myself.’ He had to smile at her. She was so obviously nosy and unapologetic about it.
‘And you are?’
He stuck out his hand. ‘Archie Rader.’
‘Madeline Kline.’ She shook with a good amount of strength for a woman he was guessing to be roughly seventy. ‘That was Betsey Smith you were just ogling, by the way.’
‘I wouldn’t call it ogling,’ he said, lying.
‘Really? At eighty-one I’d definitely call it ogling. I’ve seen quite a few ogles in my life.’ She sipped her coffee. ‘What are you doing here in Deep Creek Adjacent?’
‘Pardon?’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Eating. But I meant the Deep Creek Adjacent thing?’
‘Oh, we’re not the actual lake. And not ritzy enough for some of the lake folks to acknowledge us. Inside joke, we’re Deep Creek Adjacent. Of if you’re lazy like a lot of the locals, DCA.’
‘Oh. I see. I’m just passing through. I’m starving and the guy up at the last gas station said to come here to eat.’
‘Ah, that’s Gary. Gary sends everyone here because the owner is his cousin. I swear he gets a kickback.’
‘That’s fascinating, Mrs Kline,’ Betsey said. She set his coffee and orange juice down and cocked a thumb back towards the counter. ‘Go back to your seat.’
‘But Betsey, I was just getting to know Arch–’
‘Mrs Kline, we talked about this.’
The old woman sighed. ‘Fine, fine. I’m going.’
‘Saved by the Betsey,’ he said, studying her warm brown eyes. Her hair was the colour of light coffee with streaks of golden honey. It was a strange colour set off by her dark eyes. ‘Thanks.’
‘No problem. She’d make you unhinge your jaw so she could count your teeth if you let her get away with it.’
He doctored his coffee while she stood there. Then he asked. ‘Any cheap accommodations around here?’
‘Some. Up by the main road. Pay-by-the-night places. But they’re a little…’ She shrugged. ‘Is seedy a word we still use?’
‘We do.’
‘Good, because it is.’ She held out her hand. ‘Betsey Smith.’
‘So I heard. I’m Rader.’
‘That’s not what I heard.’
He put his head down and shook it. ‘Archie Rader, but I go by Rader when I can. I try to anyway.’
‘Why? Archie’s nice.’
‘Archie is a comic-book character.’
‘But he’s also a you.’
Archie sipped his coffee. ‘Who was named after a comic-book character.’
‘Oh.’ She shrugged and smiled. The smile amazed him. It took her already warm and friendly face and transformed it to stunning. ‘Back to the seedy motel then.’
‘Good choice. Change of subject.’
‘How long are you looking to stay?’
The bell dinged loudly and a man barked, ‘Order up, Bets!’
Betsey held up a finger. ‘Hold that answer. That’s your food. You look starved.’ Archie couldn’t help but watch her walk away again. There was a lot of swing on that back porch, as his grandad used to say. He smiled. Then he saw Mrs Kline watching him and witnessing that smile.
She grinned at him and he noticed she was missing a substantial number of teeth.
‘Behave, Mrs Kline,’ Betsey said on her way back to his table.
‘I’m not the one checking out your ass,’ Mrs Kline said.
‘Sorry,’ Archie said when Betsey set his plate down.
‘For her or for checking out my ass?’
‘If I lie and say I wasn’t looking would it earn me points?’ He bit into a piece of bacon and it only accented how hungry he was. He hadn’t realised.
‘No. But admitting you were would earn you some. I think it’s been a long time since someone’s checked out my ass.’ She leaned against the bench opposite him and watched him eat.
‘I doubt that. I think they’re just more skilled at hiding it than me.’
She smiled at that. ‘Anyway, how long you looking to stay?’
It was Archie’s turn to shrug. ‘I have no clue. I’m sort of rambling. Found myself suddenly without a home or a job or even a temporary place. So yeah…just the kind of guy you want checking out your ass, right?’
She crossed her arms over her chest and a small frown twisted her lips in the most adorable way. He wondered what it was like to kiss Betsey. And then reminded himself it was a dangerous thought to be having. Emotional ties to people weren’t exactly his thing right now.
‘Everyone has crappy times in life,’ she said. ‘If you have any interest in staying here I wouldn’t recommend the one-night-seedy-hotel route.’
‘No?’
‘No. I think you should come home with me,’ she said.
He almost spit out his coffee but settled on choking on it instead.
She held up her hands saying softly, ‘Put your hands up, put your hands up,’ as if he were a child. Another endearing quality of pretty Betsey.
When he could breathe again she laughed softly. ‘I know how that sounded. I meant to my trailer park. We’re not far from here and Mr Booth, he owns the place, is looking for a handyman. Our last one…well, he died.’
‘It’s not a haunted trailer park, is it?’
At the counter Mrs Kline snorted with laughter. She wasn’t very subtle with her eavesdropping, Archie thought.
‘No. It’s just he was old. Anyway, we need a new one and it comes with employee quarters.’ The last two words were accompanied by air quotes.
‘Air quotes make me nervous,’ he said.
She snickered. ‘They should. It’s an ancient trailer with bare necessities but it’s a paying job and it’s better than living in your truck, right?’
He eyed his truck. On its last legs, floor full of rust holes, running on fumes half the time and threatening to die the other half.
Then he looked at Betsey. Wouldn’t be so bad to have her as a neighbour. Not from what he could see.
‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘Sounds like you could use a stroke of good luck. Even if it’s modest.’
He nodded. ‘Sounds good. What makes you so sure your trailer-park owner will hire me?’
She winked. ‘He asked if I’d help find somebody. I just found somebody.’
Chapter 3 (#uf73d4060-9cff-515c-a40a-e3eb279dec68)
‘What if I’m an axe murderer?’ he asked, finishing off his first egg in a big bite.
‘You don’t look like one,’ Betsey said.
He was teasing her. It did strange things to her insides. It had been a long time since a man had flirted with her or teased her. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. It had been a long time since a man whom she welcomed advances from had done any of those things. Mostly it was guys she considered like a brother or an uncle or a dad. But this man…she’d noticed him before he’d even come in and she couldn’t quite help noticing him over and over again. Every time she turned away and then looked back, her stomach did that strange dropping thing that was both exhilarating and terrifying.
‘Maybe I’m one too. One axe murderer would have nothing to fear from another, now would she? Clearly if I can wield an axe I can take you.’
‘I like the sound of you taking me,’ he said softly.
When her face coloured, she put her hands to her cheeks. ‘Wow –’
‘Sorry, sorry,’ he said. ‘But touché. What time do you get off your shift, Bets–’
‘Betsey, Jesus Christ, order up! Flirt on your own time.’
She turned even hotter and brighter red, she could tell. ‘I get off in an hour. Sorry. I have to –’
He waved her off and she fled, grateful that he couldn’t see her face any more. She was fairly certain it was somewhere around the colour of Santa’s suit.
When she got close to the order window, Tony leaned in and growled, ‘Knock it off.’
She gulped and grabbed her plate from the steel shelf. At the last second Tony’s hand shot out and he held her in place. ‘But you could do worse, kid. I think we’d all like to see you go out on a date.’
That was worse than him barking at her. His encouragement tinged with a touch of pity. This pseudo-family she’d managed to create for herself was wonderful and full of life and…nosy as hell.
‘OK. I mean yes. I –’
‘You haven’t had a date in ages…’ He was about to go on, she could tell.
‘I haven’t found a nice guy, Tony,’ she sighed. ‘Now let me get my order out before it comes back to you for being cold.’
He released her immediately because nothing stuck in Tony’s craw worse than food being returned.
She hustled to the man who’d ordered the fried chicken plate and delivered his food. Her eyes, traitorous things that they were, kept wanting to dart over and check out Archie. When she did let them wander in his general direction he was still polishing off his number one breakfast. And watching her, of course.
A sharp burst of electric attraction rattled her bones and she hoped no one could see how shamelessly interested she was. It had been ages since her last date, because either men seemed to not fit into her life or they saw her – once they realised who she was – as a sideshow freak. An attraction to be shown to the world. She didn’t need that. She’d rather be alone.
