She sucked in a breath. The idea of losing the diner—of failing Jacob Sullivan—was like a punch to the gut. But what choice did she have? “I promise.”
She gave him a fierce hug, hating how small he’d started to feel in her arms. No matter what it took, she would find a solution to this problem. The Sunshine Diner would not fail.
Chapter Two
Ethan Hammersmith sat on the bed at his temporary accommodation—a rundown inn on the outskirts of a town called Forever Falls—while he sorted through his meager possessions. A traveler’s backpack filled with a few changes of clothes, hiking boots, his passport, a document wallet, phone, and some toiletries.
If only people from his previous life could see him now. A year and a half ago, his family had nicknamed him “the suit” for his fancy corporate IT job and the penthouse apartment he lived in back in Melbourne, Australia. They’d stirred him up about his taste for top-shelf booze and for his desire to always have the latest tech gadget.
The biggest concern he’d had was chasing yet another promotion while planning a wedding. He’d worked long hours, always tethered to his laptop, a phone pressed permanently against his ear as he’d guided multimillion-dollar technology projects to success. He’d had a beautiful fiancée, a home with a view of the glittering city skyline, and the false sense of security that his life would proceed exactly as he had planned it.
Get married. Make partner at his firm. Have a few kids. Grow old and happy.
Simple, right?
But then one fateful day started a domino effect of changes that had taken every truth Ethan knew and ripped them all to shreds.
Now he was here, sitting on a faded quilt blanket and staring out into a green field in the middle of nowhere, small-town America. In the distance, the sound of cows mingled with birds chirping. It was sunny, and bright light streamed into the room, creating some pleasing warmth in the damp chill that the old building seemed to encourage.
Spread across the bed was all of Ethan’s research. A notebook with a single name scrawled across the inside cover—Matthew Brewer—and the details of twenty-five men bearing that name whose deaths spanned the last five years. He’d printed out their obituaries and had visited the locations mentioned—two towns in Connecticut, one in Pennsylvania, another in Missouri, two in Nevada, another in New Mexico. Now he was in Massachusetts.
Ethan had spent the past year hunting for the man who’d given him life. Hunting for his real father.
But he was running out of options. After twelve months of traveling and researching and living day to day, there were five obituaries left. So far, he’d turned up nothing. It was difficult without much to go on besides a name, age, and a date range for the man’s death, but Ethan wasn’t going to stop until he found out where he came from. Until he closed the circle of lies he’d been fed since he was a baby.
A sharp knock at the door startled Ethan out of his thoughts, and he quickly scooped his papers back into the document folder, stashing it under the mattress of the bed as he’d done at each and every place he’d visited. He kept the obituary notice he’d found from Forever Falls and tucked it back into his wallet. Then he pushed up from the bed and crossed the small room in two and a half strides, opening the door.
“G’mornin’,” he said.
“Good morning,” Lottie May replied. The older woman ran the inn, and when he’d arrived two days ago, she’d agreed to trade room and board for his assistance, helping her with odd jobs.
She was all of five-foot-nothing, with tightly curled gray hair and sharp blue eyes. Ethan had quickly come to know her as a resolutely practical woman whose bark appeared worse than her bite. She lived exclusively in thick fisherman-style jumpers—sorry, sweaters as the Americans called them—and overalls.
“I need you to run me a few errands today,” she said, motioning for Ethan to follow her.
He nodded and locked the door behind him. The hallway of the inn was in bad need of a facelift—the wallpaper was peeling in spots and had faded where the windows let in rectangular shafts of light. Floorboards creaked beneath their feet as they walked and the old staircase groaned as they descended. Unfortunately Ethan wasn’t confident that Lottie’s business was doing well enough for the investment the inn required, at least based on a few comments she’d made.
“I’ve got those two parcels there that need to go to the post office, and then I need you to go and see Harold at the hardware store. Here’s a list.” Lottie handed him a piece of paper, which had some random bits and bobs scrawled in hard-to-read handwriting. “Make sure he gives you the local discount, okay? I don’t want him charging me extra on account of you being my proxy.”
“Sure thing, Mrs. May.”
“I told ya, it’s Lottie. I’ve never been a Mrs. anything.” Her raspy voice held a note of steel underneath it. “Now, you all good? I’m having some visitors over for lunch, so don’t feel that you need to rush back.”
Ethan made the decision not to ask what all that was about. Getting involved in other people’s business wasn’t part of his plan, and he wasn’t about to knock back some free time. He’d looked up the address of the town’s funeral home earlier that morning, and that would be his first port of call as soon as the errands were run and he got something to eat.
“No worries. I can amuse myself.” He scooped up the parcels and headed toward the front door, pausing to pull on his coat.
As he exited through the front of the inn, he felt the heat of the older woman’s gaze burning a hole in his back. She hadn’t asked him any questions since he’d arrived, looking for work and a place to sleep. But something gave Ethan the impression that not much got past Lottie May, and while she might be keeping her mouth shut when it came to any suspicions or thoughts she had, that didn’t mean she wasn’t keeping an eye on him.
…
Ethan had never resented his name until the first Thor movie came out. Then the fact that he bore a striking resemblance to the lead actor and had the word “hammer” in his name became something of a joke. That he could laugh off. But when he packed his bags and headed to the U.S., it became more of an issue.
Because now people noticed his accent, too.
And they were looking at Ethan like he wasn’t Ethan at all. Oh no, apparently it had gotten around the picturesque town of Forever Falls that Chris Hemsworth was there scouting a movie location. Now people had started approaching him for autographs, no matter how much he protested.
This was precisely how a man who was six feet three inches and built like a brick shithouse, as his father used to say, came to be hiding from a group of women who barely looked like they could lift a slab of beer between them.
But size, Ethan had come to realize, had nothing to do with fear.
He pressed his back against the side of the brick building, hoping that the group of women who’d been tailing him would pass right by the alley so he could get on with his day. Not to mention get some breakfast so his stomach would stop growling. Was that too much to ask? All he wanted was a little peace and quiet.
His plans to slink around Forever Falls, gathering information unnoticed, had been blown sky high the first day he’d set foot into the town. Despite the out-of-the-way accommodation and dressing to blend in, a single woman with an iPhone had ruined everything.
What the hell would Chris Hemsworth be doing here of all places? Sure, it was a cute town and he could see how in summer it would be very attractive to tourists. But currently it was at the tail end of winter, half the businesses were shut and waiting out the slow season, and the ground was covered in slushy gray remnants of snow. Oh, and it was colder than a polar bear’s toenail.
Not exactly the destination for a box office star.
“I swear, I thought I saw him turn down here.” One of the female voices sounded from the end of the alley.
“Maybe he went into the post off
ice,” another woman replied. “Damn. I was really hoping to get a closer look at him. I’ve been stalking his Instagram and he hasn’t posted a story in over a week. Well, not one that he filmed himself anyway.”
“See!” the first voice said. “I told you. It’s definitely him.”
Ethan rolled his eyes. For a moment he thought about approaching the women to clear things up, but what good would it do? How did the old saying go? The lady doth protest too much? Well, in this case it would be more like the doppelgänger doth protest too much.
At least if he failed in his mission here, then he had a fall back option: Chris Hemsworth impersonator. Luckily his mother had been born over on this side of the world, which had afforded him an American passport to travel on. Maybe he could move to New York, set up camp at Times Square, and grow his hair long. He’d probably make more than what he did now, traveling from town to town doing menial labor.
It was a good thing his former career had left him with a big fat nest egg, or none of this would have been feasible.
“Come on, I’m starving,” one of the women complained. “Let’s get bagels. I’m sure we’ll find him later. I promised Micah I’d get him to autograph the Thor comic I got him for Christmas.”
With deflated agreement, the women moved on and Ethan breathed a sigh of relief. Uncomfortable situation averted. Now all he had to do was make it two streets down to the diner so he could get breakfast.
Ethan walked to the edge of the alley and poked his head out to make sure the women were gone. Thankfully, it looked like they had disappeared into the bakery. Walking with intention, Ethan kept his head down and hurried along the town’s main street toward the diner. It was fairly quiet, and he wove a path to avoid the clumps of half-melted snow.
The Sunshine Diner sat on the corner of Main Street and a smaller road that was lined with towering, leafless trees. The building itself was quaint, and like every other one around here, it looked as though it had leaped right off a painting. Strong and squat, it had red bricks and a colorful blue-and-yellow striped awning, with fairy lights glittering in the front window and a decorated chalkboard sign on the sidewalk, proclaiming a menu special of a spring fruits parfait with a side of cinnamon toast.
Ethan planted a hand on the black wood and glass door, pushing it open and breathing a sigh of relief at the comforting smells of bacon and coffee emanating from inside. The diner wasn’t a fancy establishment, by any means. But they had a cozy booth right in the back corner that looked as though it would afford him a modicum of privacy.
If the eggs were good, that would be a bonus.
The diner was empty, bar one lone patron reading a newspaper, so Ethan headed over and took a seat.
A second later, a woman appeared at his table, notepad in hand. “Hi there, welcome to the Sunshine Diner.”
She was striking. He couldn’t exactly call her pretty—because such a word implied delicacy and there was nothing delicate about this woman. She had a lion’s mane of ginger curls, penetrating dark brown eyes, fair skin and stark freckles that were like paint flicked across a blank canvas.
Hell, scratch striking. This woman was downright arresting.
“Hi,” he replied, finding himself a little tongue-tied. It had been a long bloody time since a woman had stolen the words right out of his mouth.
“Would you like a menu or do you know what you’re having?” She wore a bright yellow apron with Sunshine Diner embroidered across the chest, along with the cutesy logo of a cartoon sun and clouds.
“Eggs and toast would be good, sunny side up.”
She smiled. “No hesitation, you must be hungry.”
“Where I’m from we say ‘I’m so hungry I could eat the crotch from a low-flying duck,’” he said with a wink.
The woman laughed, and it was a beautiful and unexpected raspy sound. “That’s very creative. British?”
“Australian.”
She nodded. “Want any coffee to go with your breakfast?”
“Yes, please.” He’d kill for a decent Melbourne espresso right now, but the filtered stuff would have to do. That’s what they served at most places in this part of the world. “I’ll take some milk with it.”
“Sure thing.”
Ethan hadn’t exactly wanted to prolong any conversation since he’d arrived on U.S. soil, but the intriguing redheaded woman had him wanting to know more. Her name badge had “Monroe” printed in neat letters. “Monroe, pretty name.”
“I begged my mom to change it,” she said with a rueful smile and a shake of her head. “But that would have ruined her theme.”
Ethan raised an eyebrow. “Theme?”
“Yeah, I’m Monroe named after Marilyn. My older sister is Loren named after Sophia, and my younger sister is Taylor named after Elizabeth. It’s a thing.”
“Wow, she must have really liked those old movies.”
“Couldn’t get enough of them.” A wistful smile crossed her lips. “I grew up watching things that were a minimum of forty years old. I couldn’t tell you a damn thing about 90s culture, but if you want me to recite The Birds line by line I can totally do it.”
“That’s quite a talent.”
“Most useless talent in the existence of talents.” Monroe jotted his order down on her notepad. Then she paused, her pen hovering for a moment before she looked back down at him. “What’s your name?”
“Ethan.”
She scrunched up her nose. “You look like someone, but I can’t place my finger on it.”
Before Ethan could open his mouth to ask a probing question, a woman who looked to be in her late twenties approached the table, a little boy of about three by her side. He hadn’t noticed them enter the diner, because he was facing away from the door. The woman had blond hair pulled into a bouncy ponytail and wore the kind of outfit that looked like athletic wear but was far too neat to have actually been used for working out.
“Excuse me,” she said with a sheepish smile. “I’m so sorry to interrupt your breakfast, but my son is a huge fan.”
She shoved the little boy forward, who looked up at him with huge unblinking blue eyes. The kid stuck his thumb into his mouth and continued to stare while Ethan scrubbed a hand over his face. This was getting ridiculous.
“I’m not—”
“Oh, we know. You were never here.” The woman tapped the side of her nose to indicate she’d keep a secret. “But my boy, Mason, would absolutely love your autograph.”
Mason continued to stare, and Ethan was pretty sure the kid was a cover for the woman to approach the table. Maybe he should learn how to sign Chris Hemsworth’s name and get it over with.
Bad idea. That’s only going to encourage more people to bother you.
Monroe was looking at him strangely, like something had clicked in her head.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you both,” Ethan replied. “But I’m not who you think I am.”
The woman didn’t look discouraged in the slightest. There was a determined set to the way she made eye contact with him, like she wasn’t used to hearing the word no. He’d bet money that she’d been raised by a “no is a jumping off point for negotiations” type.
“I give you my word,” Ethan said. “I’m not a movie star. I’m just a regular guy who’s passing through town.”
Kinda. Okay, so maybe Ethan had a few white lies of his own, and that made him feel guilty as hell. But it was necessary at the moment, and these lies wouldn’t hurt anybody.
“Look, I know Chris Hemsworth wouldn’t actually come here,” the woman said, her voice low. “Trust me, even normal people don’t want to stay in this town, so there’s no way some Hollywood star would be here. But my son pointed at you on the street and said Thor. You wouldn’t disappoint him, would you?”
The entitlement in her voice got under Ethan’s skin. This was ridiculous—he didn’t
owe this woman anything. He opened his mouth to protest once more, but Monroe cut in first. “Peony, if you don’t leave my customer alone, I’ll have to ask you to go.”
Peony looked toward Monroe with such derision that a lesser person might have flinched. But not Monroe. She stood with her shoulders squared and her deep, dark eyes unwavering.
“I don’t have to listen to you,” Peony replied with a heavy dose of snark. “I know you’re only the manager. Mr. Sullivan still owns this place and my mom is still his doctor. So if you kick me out, I’ll make sure your freckly ass gets fired.”
“Try me.” Monroe crossed her arms over her chest.
Peony’s mouth popped open. “You’re serious.”
“As a heart attack.”
Peony shook her head. “You’re such a—”
“Mom?” The little boy looked up at his mother and she bent down to scoop him up, cradling him against her chest and shooting both Ethan and Monroe a nasty look before she turned on her heel and walked right out of the diner.
Monroe rolled her eyes. “She hasn’t changed a bit since high school.”
Okay, so Monroe went to high school here. He’d pegged her for a local, but he was still pleased to have confirmation.
“I don’t know what else I can tell these people.” Ethan shook his head. “I’m not going to pretend to be someone I’m not.”
Lord knew he’d been doing that all his life without even knowing it.
Ethan was about to thank Monroe, but she had already started walking across the floor of the diner, long red hair bouncing with each step. Against every sensible thought in his head, all of which told him there was no point getting to know anybody in this town unless it served his purpose, Ethan was officially intrigued by the fierce redhead.
Luckily for him, Monroe was a local. Which might mean she may also have information that he needed. Information that could end his year-long search for the truth of who he was. Information that might finally put his ghosts to rest.
Forever Starts Now Page 2