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Ha. As if you could ever keep your nose out of other people’s business.
Vy grinned and turned her attention to picking up orders.
* * *
SAM CARMICHAEL, AKA Sam Michaels, watched the waitress walk away, the sway of her nicely rounded hips captivating.
Her nametag read “Violet,” a soft, old-fashioned name for a woman with intelligence and cheekiness snapping in her gaze.
Violet Summer.
One of the five.
No, at last count there were six of them, the people who were reviving his grandfather’s amusement park, the people he’d come here to investigate. Using Gramps’s fairgrounds, five local women planned to stage a fair and a rodeo at the end of the summer. Recently they’d added a newcomer, an accountant, to their team.
They had leased Gramps’s land for one dollar and a handshake.
No contract.
Sam was here to make sure Gramps wasn’t being taken for a ride.
The waitress—a damned good-looking woman with jet hair, clear skin and a retro fifties’ tight bodice and flared skirt—entered the kitchen, cutting off his view of her.
She had purple eyes. No, to be more accurate, he’d say violet, purple softened with a hint of gray. He’d never seen a color like them.
Or maybe he had. Elizabeth Taylor had purple eyes. As a boy, he used to enjoy watching old movies with his mother, but he’d never seen such an unusual color in the flesh before.
Were they real? Could they be contacts?
His fascination with the woman overcame his pique with his daughter’s incessant, grinding resistance.
Chelsea slumped low in the booth across from him.
Sure, divorce took its toll on kids, but it had been a full year since he and Tiffany had signed the papers, and more than a year and a half since Tiff had said, “I’ve met someone else. I want a divorce,” gutting Sam.
Standing, he sighed. Nineteen to twenty months wasn’t nearly long enough to process betrayal and greed. Tiffany’s, not his.
While his daily mantra ran through his head—success is the best revenge—he hung his hat where the waitress had indicated, then returned to his table, nodding to the old guy two booths away eating meat loaf and mashed potatoes.
The man, ancient and wrinkled, eyed him suspiciously.
This diner and the bar at the end of the street called Honey’s Place were the only eating establishments as far as he could tell.
Guess they were stuck with diner food with corny names. World’s Best Cheeseburger...
The diner could have been picked up and plunked down in any fifties’ town. He was surprised there weren’t Elvis and Chuck Berry songs blaring from jukeboxes.
Deep red leather banquettes framed gray Formica tables. Red-and-white-checked cotton place mats sat at the ready.
The paintings on the wall came as a surprise. He expected nostalgic black-and-white photos but instead saw rustic, wild landscapes. Were the artist and scenery local? He couldn’t deny they were good. He also couldn’t deny the scenery around this little town was spectacular.
“Why can’t we use our own names?” Chelsea picked at her peeling nail polish. He wished she’d quit with the unrelieved black. “Why do we have to pretend to be other people?”
“Shush.” Sam shot a glance around the diner. No one seemed to have heard Chelsea’s remark, thank goodness. “We have to be Sam and Chelsea Michaels so I can determine what’s going on about the rodeo.”
“Why don’t you just ask?”
She’s still so young, he reminded himself, and so naive.
“I don’t trust people to be honest.”
“Maybe you should. Maybe we aren’t all the creeps you think we are.”
He stilled. “You actually believe I think you’re a creep?” he whispered, unable to mask the hurt that coursed through him. Hadn’t he proved his love all of the times in her childhood he’d held her and told her how much he loved her?
She shrugged. Love her or not, he’d come to hate her shrugs as much as her eye rolls. Double for the word duh. And d’oh.
The waitress returned. Black eyeliner tilted up at the corners of her eyes and deep red lipstick emphasized lush lips. She fit right in with the decor. Did she have to dress in that fifties’s fashion?
The style suited her spectacular figure, emphasizing generous hips, a tiny waist and full breasts. The lush proportions worked, reminiscent again of Elizabeth Taylor.
Give your head a shake. For Gramps’s sake, it wasn’t wise to find her attractive. She was one of them. Once he determined how the women resurrecting the local fair were ripping off his grandfather, he would shut them down and move back east.
The sooner he could get back to New York to set up his next business venture, the better.
Careful, his rational, less emotional side cautioned. You need to first determine if they are indeed cheating him. But that one-dollar lease disturbed him.
The waitress put his plate in front of him and then Chelsea’s in front of her. He couldn’t smell onions on Chelsea’s burger, but that meant nothing. There were so many scents in the diner he wasn’t sure he would be able to.
Chelsea peeked under the top of the hamburger bun. A tiny, mean-spirited smile that usually meant trouble formed at one corner of her mouth.
Sam braced himself. Where had his sweet daughter gone and who was this stranger now in possession of her body? Apparently, once a girl turned thirteen, demons took over.
He glanced at the waitress. “You wouldn’t happen to know where the closest exorcist lives, would you?”
Violet smiled—even, white teeth framed by cherry red. “We’re plumb out. We burned the last one at the stake with all of our witches a hundred years back.”
Sam stared. She’d gotten his joke! His ex-wife’s reaction had always been a frown because she hadn’t understood his humor. Chelsea used to get his jokes but had become too cool to laugh or even smile. He’d grown used to their negativity. The waitress’s willingness to play along was pure pleasure. He perked up.
She jerked her chin toward his daughter. “It’s surprising what a good cheeseburger will do to expel demons.”
Chelsea took her time looking over the waitress insolently. Apparently, once she’d become a teenager, she’d lost all of the good manners that had been drummed into her throughout her short childhood.
“You dress funny,” she said with a snicker.
“Chelsea!”
Violet leaned one hand on the table and rested her other on her hip. “So do you.”
Chelsea scowled. “You’re only a waitress. You can’t talk to me like that.”
“When you are rude to me, I can respond in any way I please. If you don’t like it, you can leave. Are you going to eat your meal or should I take it away?”
“I’ll eat.” Sam detected grudging respect in Chelsea’s tone.
The waitress straightened away from the table. “Take the silver spoon out of your mouth first so you don’t choke.”
A grudging smile bloomed on Chelsea’s face.
How did the woman know they had money? To fit in, Sam had dressed down in denim and a plaid shirt, along with cowboy boots and hat.
Chelsea wore black punk. What about them said money? Nothing, as far as he could tell. He had to be more careful. The woman’s intuition disturbed him and he struck out at her.
“I asked you to load her burger with onions.” He hadn’t really wanted the waitress to, but Chelsea had many lessons to learn and Sam had no patience left for teaching them. Every stop on this ill-conceived trip, every mile of highway traveled across country and every single black inch of asphalt navigated had been littered with heartache for both of them. When all roads had steep uphill pitches, all you wanted was to roll backward and give up.
He wished he could turn back time and start over with his daughter.
Violet flipped her violet gaze on Sam. “Do you want her to eat or not?”
“At this point, I don’t much care,” he groused. Tired, hungry and out of patience, he wished he was back home in Manhattan where he belonged.
“Mom says I shouldn’t eat too much,” his child piped up. “She says I’m too fat.”
“You’re not fat!” Sam hadn’t meant to raise his voice, but Tiffany’s complaints about Chelsea had worn him thin. “You’re perfect, okay?”
“You should eat, kid.” The waitress smelled like fried food and roses.
Sam held his breath. Nobody called Chelsea a kid and got away with it. On her young, chubby face, thunder started to build.
Then Violet added, “It takes a lot of calories to feed that much ’tude.”
Chelsea burst out laughing, stunning Sam. His daughter, who hadn’t laughed in months, who hadn’t given him a genuine smile in twice that long, picked up her burger and happily bit into it.
Violet sauntered away while Sam envisioned himself getting down on his knees and kissing her feet...and every inch of her calves. She had great calves, strong but feminine.
She returned with their drinks.
“Has anyone ever mentioned that your name matches your eyes?” They were gorgeous.
“Nope. Not once. That’s a new one.” She slapped cream and sugar onto the table in front of him.
His jaw hardened. She had no right to treat him badly. It was just mild harmless flirtation. “You’ve got a lot of attitude.” He didn’t like sarcasm. Didn’t like people treating him badly. Back home—
Well, he wasn’t back home, was he?
“Let me speak to the manager,” he ordered.
“That would be me.”
“Okay, then. Is the owner in?”
She tapped one red-tipped fingernail against her chin. “Let me think. Yes. That would also be me.”
Chelsea giggled.
Good Lord. Two against one. “You don’t know much about business and good customer service, do you?”
He’d meant to put her in her place, but she turned to the customers in the large room and called out, “Does anyone have trouble with how I run my business?”
One and all shook their heads no.
Damn. He hadn’t meant to draw attention.
“Do I give good customer service or not?”
“Good service, Vy,” the old guy two tables down yelled. “Love the mashed potatoes. What did you say you put in them?”
“Garlic, Lester. That’s why they’re called garlic mashed potatoes.”
“Makes sense.” Lester nodded. “Like ’em. Refill my coffee when you get a minute?”
“Sure thing. I’ll get right on it as soon as I can get away from this table.”
Heat in Sam’s cheeks burned. His daughter watched him with a mocking smile. The townspeople watched him curiously. Great. He’d wanted to avoid drawing attention to himself, but here he was center stage because of this bad-tempered woman.
She presented her back to him and walked away.
“All I did was be nice to her,” he mumbled while he doctored his coffee.
“You gave her your fake, cheesy grin, Dad. You were flirting with her badly.”
He pinned his daughter with a hard glare. “What do you know about flirting?”
She rolled her eyes. Sick of the action, he pulled out of his pocket a small change purse he’d picked up at a souvenir shop on the way. “You rolled your eyes. Pay up.”
“Daaad.”
“Pay up.” He held out the purse. “Now.”
She took a quarter out of her pink knapsack and dropped it into the change purse.
“It’s getting heavy,” he remarked.
“You’re mean to take money away from your daughter. I’m only thirteen years old!”
“Thirteen going on twenty. Your mother gave you all kinds of money before we left. I give you a good allowance. You ain’t starving, kid.”
“Aren’t. It’s aren’t starving. Just because we’re in this tiny town doesn’t mean you have to speak like the locals.”
