At the Next Table

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At the Next Table Page 3

by Leanne Davis


  “Oh, come on! Every regular has to at some point, but every visitor must. I mean, it’s so there to be said.”

  “No. Born and raised here, and I’ve never heard it.”

  “Well, then, I guess I’m quite clever.” I grin again, full-on teeth and dimple showing.

  He finally… oh, he takes so long, but finally tilts one corner of his mouth upward. “You’re not clever. Not at all. That’s the worst pun I’ve ever heard, and that’s why no one else says it.”

  This guy is a tough nut to crack, but I almost got a smile. And I engaged him away from his Harper-at-this-table obsession for a few moments. I glance at my phone. Eight minutes to be exact, so it’s now seven forty-seven. He notices and his gaze shoots up to me. “Does that say… seven forty-seven?”

  Oh dear, his schedule is off. After his intensity so far, I actually hesitate to answer. His psychosis is far worse than I predicted, and I’m worried I’ll set him off without the proper knowledge of this. But finally I shake my head. “Nope. Just turned seven forty-eight.”

  He seems to shudder and release a breath. He then flops back on the chair as if he just got done running a twenty-mile race. Wow, this guy. “Huh. I guess… wow. I guess, I’ll be going.” He all but bounds to his feet, coffee cups in hand. I stare up, shocked he’d come, sat, barely spoke, fidgeted and grumbled, and then… just like that he’s okay?

  “Oh. Okay, Holden. The table isn’t important now?”

  “No.” He turns and then stops to look over his shoulder. “Hey… thanks…” he adds with the smallest nod. He turns forward, tosses his cups, and strides out the door and down the sidewalk until he’s gone from my view.

  I stare after him, slack-jawed and in shock. What the frick-frock-fuck was that? He ended up thanking me? For what? Every miserable moment he sat kitty-corner with me? Wow. Just wow. I can’t make heads or tails of the guy. He’s got significant issues of some sort, all tied up into this table, his drinks, the name Harper, and now me.

  It started out because his brown-haired, dark-eyed scruffy face caught my attention. Hot guys will do that to me, especially when added to the country boy style… and yet, he’s painstakingly neat and clean. It all makes an interesting contradiction. All the surprises in the details of him were what made me stare harder and caught my interest even more.

  But now as I’ve witnessed this table thing, the issues almost supersede the attractiveness. Why exactly did he end our interaction with a ‘thanks’? What, exactly, was he thanking me for? Changing it up? Maybe he knows it’s a deranged routine, and that he should stop this repetitive behavior, but he’s afraid to. Maybe he just needs someone to say, ‘stop.’

  Maybe he realizes he needs to chill, and maybe I’m just the person to help him do so. Maybe everyone else ignoring his odd behavior works to enable it. Maybe he’s relieved someone is finally stepping in and insisting he be different. Maybe. All I know is, my morning is off to a strange start.

  I get to Lover’s Landing extra early the next morning in case he’s decided to try and beat me there. But no. He comes in at the exact same damn time. Seven thirty-five… but there is one change in his usual actions. He lifts his gaze to ‘his’ special little table and checks to see if it’s empty. Or if I’m there. I choose to believe he’s checking for me. And, hell yeah. I’m right there. Sitting in Harper’s chair. I smile and give him a little flutter of my fingers. Oh, I know what I’ve done. I let him know with a casual smirk that I know what I’ve done. He frowns as he gets into line. He faces forward without reacting, but he does turn back toward me one time, eyebrows drawn together as if he’s trying to figure out what to do. And why I’m there.

  Normal people wanting to avoid someone would simply walk out of the place or go to another table. But my sweet, OCD Cowboy? Nope. He’s too stuck on his routine. Stuck in life period, I’m guessing, by his loyalty to his morning coffee routine, since it’s the routine that compels him, not the coffee he doesn’t drink.

  I smile winningly as he approaches, his gaze weary and mouth tight. “You should have known after the stink you made yesterday, I’d have to sit here. It was a bit like you challenged me to.”

  He doesn’t smile winningly in return, narrowing his eyes at me instead. “Some might have gathered they irritated me and not sat here for that reason.”

  “Or some might realize you needed the distraction and even thanked me for it. And some might realize you are way too attached to this table.”

  “Thanked you for what, exactly?”

  “Distracting you from the terribleness of being alone on Valentine’s Day.”

  “Who says I was alone?”

  I shrug and smile knowingly. “Well, duh. I don’t believe someone in a healthy, happy relationship would be so unhappy, and mostly? You wouldn’t have sat with me.”

  “I didn’t sit with you. You stayed here.”

  “At the table I had first. The one that’s important to you for some reason. Care to share that reason?” I smile, crossing my arms over my chest, my suit jacket straining on my elbows. The conservative black blazer covers my dark red blouse with a daring V-neck and a perfect-length pendant dangling between my breasts. Something to hopefully draw his eye, but still subtle enough to be professional and classy.

  “I don’t. No.” He, too, crosses his arms over his chest. But the semi-annoyed, haunted look is gone. He’s too irritated by me to hold onto it. I’ve made it my goal to make Holden quit looking so tragic, and I love nothing more than succeeding at my goal.

  I wave at the cups. “Care to tell me why you don’t drink them? It’s almost ten bucks a day you’re wasting.”

  “I don’t care to.”

  “Of course not. You got it all handled, huh? Well, then… what the hell do you do in this town?”

  “Do…”

  “For a job? Fun? Entertainment?”

  His lips twitch. “Things to do while in Love?”

  I whip my gaze up to his. I’m so happy and surprised I almost applaud his remark. “You just made a joke. Off of mine! You were listening to me.”

  “You going to clap for me now?” He scowls, and there is something gravelly and deep about his tone that makes it all sexy-grumpy, even in his annoyance. “I’m not an idiot. I just didn’t feel like talking to you yesterday… or today, really.”

  “But you are,” I point out, beaming at him. I’m proud he is almost trying to interact with me, and in doing so it’s totally and fully changing his morning. Maybe even his life.

  He shrugs. “When in Love…”

  “Again! Yes. When in Love, you gotta do what those in Love do! I love it. It should be the town’s tagline. Now, for real. Tell me you’re a cowboy. Please. I have to know if I’m right.”

  “And if I’m not? Maybe I just like to wear the boots.”

  “Maybe.” I deflate. “But you move like one. What else would you do?”

  He sighs. “I work with cattle. Cowboy, but not like riding a horse around wrangling them up all day. I spend a lot of the day feeding, fixing fences, taking care of the herd. It’s grunt work in a ranch setting.”

  “But a real-life cowboy?”

  “Again, don’t clap for me. Have you never met one?” He shifts in his seat, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table and pushing his two drinks off to the side of him. Interesting, because before today, he’d stare at them, moody and contemplative, for ten minutes. Now he’s not even noticing them. Maybe my distracting him helps the OCD, like diverting it toward something more productive and more important like human interaction.

  “No. Born and raised in the city.” I shut my leather-bound folder to protect the precious papers I wasn’t reading anyway. I stayed up until midnight making sure I had the information down cold, ready to speak with the mayor before my meeting with the city council later today. I’m putting my folder away when he finally speaks.

  “Which city?”

  I pause from where I’m leaning down to set my folder in my briefcase and glance up
over the edge of the table. He actually spoke and initiated conversation!

  I straighten up. “Seattle. Born and raised.”

  “So you’re obviously not a cowboy. What is it you do?”

  I cringe. “You sure you’re ready for this?”

  He snorts. “How bad can it be?”

  “Oh, bad. Bad and terrible. You’ll hate me, but remember you liked me to start.”

  He rolls his eyes at my bald-faced lie. “I have nowhere to start from with how I feel about you. What do you do?”

  “Okay, I’m the lawyer with River Runs Wild.” I scrunch up my shoulders and duck my face, as if expecting him to hit me. Exaggerated, of course, hoping to soften the image he’ll have of a corporate lawyer here to run roughshod over the small town, city counsel and citizens alike, that doesn’t want the theme park and hotel resort coming in to ruin their pristine rural countryside.

  Eyes shut tight, I peek out after an extended second of silence. He’s… scowling at me. But there is a twitch of his mouth. “The water park thing?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “No one native to Love wants that eyesore here.”

  “Of course not. It’s commercial and suburban and brings crowds and traffic, and it is a bit of an eyesore. You know they gimmick it up to look like a jungle with the waterslides being wild rivers and waterfalls, hence the River Runs Wild theme name.”

  “Yes, even cow-hick me deduced that.

  “So, of course you don’t want it here.”

  “But you’ll make it happen?”

  I shrug. “I’ll make sure it’s legal and we… they follow all the rules. It’s not a done deal yet. There’s a lot of environmental impact stuff for the initial permitting we… they are working through.”

  I glance his way and see his eyebrows are raised as he’s studying me with a strange expression on his face. Unclear why he’s looking at me like that I grumble, “What?”

  “You speaking lawyer-talk doesn’t sound anything like right before that with all your clever Love puns… even though, FYI, they weren’t clever.”

  “Well, no one really likes lawyers except other lawyers. I can’t go around sounding like that, or no one would ever talk to me. You wouldn’t have. I make sure to share some of my personality. But you don’t seem too put out with my tasks here. Or at least your reaction isn’t. So you aren’t against it?” My eyes widen with hopefulness. Most of Love’s citizens closed themselves off and scowled before my very eyes when they found out who I am and why I’m here.

  “Oh, I completely detest the idea. It’s on the southeast edge of The Klendon ranch, where I work. I’d get to stare at it while I’m tending cattle. Not exactly the setting one pictures, to see waterslides and hotels and restaurants and paved parking lots just past where cattle are grazing. I think old Burt Hanson should be shot for selling his ranch out to it.”

  My heart dips, face falling. Yep, back to being the hated, big-city lawyer, here to ruin the small town values and ambiance. “Well, then, I suppose you and Harper will be changing tables.”

  He snorts. “Me and Harper? You think I have coffee with a cup?”

  “I honestly don’t know, Holden… whoever. You want to explain it?”

  “To the big-city lawyer hell bent on destroying what’s left of small-town America? No, thank you. But I don’t talk to the cup.”

  I snicker. “You seemed to want it to have a seat. So, Harper… an ex?”

  His narrowed gaze turns sharp. There’s no way he’s going to answer me. But to my shock, causing me to literally almost fall out of my chair, he says simply, “Yes.”

  “It ended badly.”

  “The worst.”

  “But you don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Nope.”

  It makes me snort and laugh. “That’s not a very profound answer to something that seems to rule your life.”

  “I’m not going to talk about this with a stranger.”

  I tap my fingertips back and forth on the table top. “But you’ll sit with a stranger just so you can be at the same table your ex used to sit at with you?”

  Nothing. No answer, just a single eyebrow raise. Hmm. Still, I feel like I’ve made huge progress. He spoke, he asked me a few questions, and he admitted Harper isn’t a cup!

  “Do you want to yell at me about the water park instead?”

  “I’d be more likely to do that than talk about Harper.”

  “Fair enough. Go ahead, I can handle it.”

  “Why would anyone want this negativity as a job?”

  I press my lips together to stay quiet. He’s waiting expectantly. “Alicia?” His deep tone working over my name sends shivers down my arms. Oh my God, I love the sound of it on this guy’s mouth. He’s so different than anyone I’ve ever met. From looks, to occupation, to how the man sits down to coffee. He’s odd and strange—and hot and grumpy—and interesting. And hell yeah, do I like him saying my name.

  I let out a huge exhale. “Well, I guess we might as well end this little chit-chat session now.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You’ll detest me when I answer your question.”

  “Try me.”

  Shaking my head, I fling my shoulders up in a shrug of defeat. He’ll hate me after this anyway. “I’m excellent at arguing. I like to win them. I can argue sides whether I agree with them or not. And win, a lot. I… I make a lot of money doing it, and I really love the money. A lot.” I scrunch up my face again, as if I’m afraid he’ll spit on me in disgust or something equally as demonstrative of how selfish and awful it makes me sound. Instead, he suddenly laughs. It’s a first from him, and it makes my eyelids flip open. Wow, I didn’t expect him to laugh, to lean back and seem… amused by me. I amused him and almost got a smile off him.

  “So you’re a cold-blooded, bloodsucking ambulance chaser, just in nicer clothes?”

  I sigh. “I kinda am.” It’s such a common stereotype.

  “But smart.”

  “I’m smart.” I say it with a deep, resounding disappointment in my voice.

  “And with those smarts you went to law school?”

  Glum now, I nod. “Yep. University of Washington Law School.”

  “And now you’ve come here to ruin our town?”

  “Yes—well, no. It’ll be a huge boost for tourism, even for places like this coffee house. But I know that’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull to say out loud around you Love citizens. Harold, you know, Betty’s husband? He won’t even hardly speak to me. She seemed to forgive me when she figured out exactly who I am and why I’m here, but Harold? Snubs me with a stern look of disgust. What no one wants to hear is that their quaint town isn’t able to fully sustain themselves. But think of some of the empty storefronts. This park would eventually bring enough traffic to probably get them reopened. A bigger tax base makes more to spend, and hell, the kids will love it. No pun even. It’s something harmless and safe to do. Year round passes are cheap for locals, and teens can hang out there instead of… what? Going and tipping your cows over?”

  He’s leaning back and evaluating me as I ramble on, trying to get him to see the need and brilliance of this park. This park I defend and will succeed in bringing to town.

  “Tip cows over? You think that’s a popular pastime? Cliché much?”

  “Ambulance chaser?” I tip my head in response, eyebrows cocked in annoyance. Come on! He’s as buried in stereotypes as I am.

  He lets out a real laugh. Out loud. It’s nice, a manly chuckle kind of sound. But odder still, I notice Betty watching us, tilting her head and then smiling right at Holden as he laughs. Her expression is puzzled in confusion and then changes to pleasure. I feel a blossoming warmth in my chest, because I think Holden-the-cowboy doesn’t laugh or smile much anymore.

  And being in such a small town, he matters to others.

  “All right, Seattle. You know shit about my life and I know shit about yours, but I need to tell you I don’t tip cows.”
>
  “I don’t chase ambulances.”

  He glances up toward the clock hanging over the counter. Suddenly, he stands, chair scraping. “I gotta go.” And that quickly, the nice little island of fun and teasing, and maybe almost flirting, ends. He’s serious, gruff, and sweeping his still full cups into his arms. He turns, flips them into the garbage, and is… gone. In the few seconds I’d tried to rise up and put my hand out to shake his hand—or at least say goodbye, or something—he’s gone, dashing through the front door. Striding down the sidewalk, he pauses at the street corner longer than seems necessary before he finally crosses it and disappears. I glance around. There are others enjoying their morning, a buzz of clientele all melting together to form a pleasant ambiance. Feeling deflated, I slowly sink to my chair, though it almost seems unreasonable. He’s a guy I don’t know at all. He’s odd and strange and kind of grumpy, but there’s something about him. Something I can’t articulate, and it draws me to him.

  And I think I’ll be back to see him tomorrow. And I’ll see him in Harper’s chair.

  I sigh, gathering my briefcase and purse, and exit the small lovely coffee house and start toward city hall to get to work.

  Chapter 3

  HOLDEN

  And so goes the start of nearly a month of mornings. I go into Lover’s Landing, the same as I have since Harper died, and now? There is Alicia, sitting in Harper’s chair, totally waiting for me. The odd part? I start to not mind. I almost find her to be a decent distraction from the usual crippling guilt and sadness that fills me when I stare at Harper’s empty chair.

  But now Alicia sits in it. And it’s become tolerable.

  It’s because she’s so damn different. I chant that to myself. Those differences are the only reason I sit at our table—the table Harper and I shared—and almost enjoy another woman’s company. But Alicia Anderson is the polar opposite of all that was my wife, so it’s impossible to consider them even on the same playing field. Alicia’s crazy tall, with forever long legs, bright red hair, and intelligent and humor-filled blue eyes. There’s an ease about her that makes it so I’m sure she’s never met a stranger. She’s bold and brassy. Funny and smart. A lawyer. Bringing that god-awful themed water park to our humble town. Ugh. No. It is worse than any huge discount store. It is an eyesore and no one wants it. I’d be the town pariah if anyone thought I liked the lawyer responsible for it.

 

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