by Susan Stoker
“No, it’s fine,” Calder was quick to reassure her. “I wouldn’t know what to do if I didn’t get to have breakfast with him.”
Billy blushed and bent his head to stare at the tabletop. Calder made a silent vow to praise the boy more often. He tousled his hair and looked back up at Hope. “Three coffees?”
“Of course,” she said, seeming to shake herself out of whatever trance she’d been in. “Cream or sugar?” she asked Dax and TJ.
They both declined and said they took it black, and Hope said she’d be back with their drinks and to take their orders.
When she left, Dax grinned at Calder. “She’s pretty.”
“I know.”
“You realize the second the girls figure out who she is to you, they’re gonna want to meet her,” TJ said.
“Yup.”
“That’s it? Just yup?” Dax asked.
“Yup,” Calder repeated with a grin.
The others smiled back at him. “So, does that mean I can tell Mack tonight?”
Calder quickly shook his head. “I wouldn’t go that far. We haven’t even been on a date yet. Not sure she’s ready for Mackenzie.”
The others chuckled.
Billy pulled on his sleeve and pointed to the paper in front of him. On it, he’d written:
“Tonight what, Buddy?”
Billy painstakingly wrote on the paper again then turned it to face him.
“You think your mom would say yes if I asked her out?” Calder asked.
Billy nodded happily.
“What about you? You want to come too?”
Billy looked surprised for a second, then grinned and nodded.
“I’m not sure she’ll agree, but I’ll ask. And if she says no, you’ll have to work on getting her to say yes the next time I ask, deal?”
Billy smiled even bigger as he nodded. His slightly crooked teeth making him look endearing as hell.
“Here you go,” Hope said as she put three coffees down on the table and a glass of orange juice for Billy.
“Thanks.”
“Thank you.”
“’Preciate it.”
Hope smiled at them all, then pulled out a pen and a pad of paper. “Now, what can I get you for breakfast this morning?”
Calder took the time to drink in the sight of Hope as she took his friends’ orders. She was wearing the same light blue polyester uniform she wore every day. Her hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail and she had no makeup on. Not that she needed it. Calder loved being able to see her freckles and the way she blushed when he complimented her. Her skin was naturally pale, and he wanted to run his fingers down her cheek to see if it was as smooth as it looked. Of course, he hadn’t earned that right yet, but he had high hopes that one of these days he’d get the privilege of touching more than her cheek.
“Billy, do you want pancakes or your special omelet this morning?” Hope asked her son.
He pointed at Dax.
“Omelet?” Hope asked, obviously a pro at interpreting her son’s nonverbal requests.
Billy nodded.
“Okay. Calder? What can I get for you?”
“I’m going to try the special this morning,” he told her.
“Not the omelet?” she teased. “Cook’s not going to know what to do.”
Calder smirked. “I figured I’d try something new. Be brave. You won’t let me down.” His eyes bored into hers, willing her to read between the lines of what he was saying. To know that he’d never let her down either.
She licked her lips nervously but didn’t take her eyes from his.
Billy interrupted the moment by pulling on her dress.
“Yes?” she asked.
Billy pointed across the restaurant at an old man sitting at a table by himself. Hope smiled. “Yes, you can go say hello to Eli. But he’s almost done, so don’t dawdle. Okay?”
With a nod, Billy hopped down from the booth’s bench seat and scampered over to the elderly man who was getting ready to leave. The four adults watched as he patted the man’s hand then gave him a hug.
“He’s a good kid,” Dax noted.
“Yup,” Hope said without hesitation.
Wanting to get the awkwardness out of the way while Billy was otherwise occupied, Calder reached out and took Hope’s hand in his, both for support and to keep her from bolting, as he said, “Hope, TJ is engaged to Milena Reinhardt.”
She jerked, and Calder felt her tug at her hand, but he refused to let go. He’d known that learning TJ was with Milena would make her nervous and uneasy, but he wanted to make sure she knew that no one held any ill will toward her or her son.
“Easy,” TJ said, leaning back in his seat, putting a few more inches between them. “I’m sorry that your son was involved in that fucked-up situation with that asshole, Jonathan Jones. Only a lowlife like him would see nothing wrong in using a child to force someone else to give him what he wanted. Is Billy doing okay?”
Calder answered for Hope. “As you can see, he’s bright and happy, but he hasn’t spoken since he was kidnapped.”
“Shit,” TJ muttered.
“The doctors say it’s not anything physical. They think it’s a mental thing,” Hope said, and Calder felt her hand relaxing in his.
“Trauma,” Dax stated. “I’ve seen it happen before. You just keep on loving him, Hope, and he’ll be fine.”
“I hope so,” she whispered.
“I know so,” Calder said as he brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed the back of it.
She stared at him with eyes so wide, he could see the whites all the way around her irises.
“One more thing…” Calder said, not taking his eyes from hers.
“Shit. What now?” she whispered.
Calder couldn’t help but smile. She was funny, even if she wasn’t trying to be. “Dax and TJ are cops. No—please don’t pull away. Listen to me.”
Hope stopped trying to yank her hand away, and he saw her eyes dart to the men on the other side of the booth before coming back to his. She took a step away from them, which brought her closer to Calder.
“They’re good men,” he told her. “The best. They’d no sooner hurt a woman or child than I would. You can trust them just as much as you trust me. They aren’t him, honey.”
He watched as Hope took a deep breath then nodded. He was impressed with the way she’d controlled her fear.
“Dax is a Texas Ranger and TJ works for the highway patrol. I trust them with my life.”
“Texas Ranger?” Hope asked quietly. “Do you wear the cowboy hat and everything?”
Dax chuckled. “Yes, ma’am.”
Hope licked her lips then pressed them together before saying, “Thank you both for what you do. I know it can’t be easy.”
Calder wanted to stand up and hug Hope so badly. She was being extremely brave, considering what he’d learned about her ex. He’d had Cruz do some discrete inquiries about the douchebag. He was a city cop in Seattle who had a few reprimands in his file, but nothing serious enough to get him fired.
It was no wonder she was nervous around law enforcement. After reading the report Cruz had given him on the number of times Hope had gone to the emergency room for broken bones and “accidents,” he’d understood what had made Hope flee across the country with only her little boy and what she could carry on her back. Thinking about it made Calder want to fly to Washington and confront Earle Thyne in person—and teach him what it felt like to be on the receiving end of flying fists.
“You gonna stand there all day or what?” Hannah said under her breath as she walked by the table.
Calder saw Dax’s and TJ’s jaws tighten, but Hope merely turned her head and said, “Of course not,” before she turned back to the table.
“I need to get your orders turned in and get back to work, but I have to say…I know that just because one person isn’t nice, doesn’t automatically mean everyone who does a similar job is the same way. But my son has had a rough young life. Fi
rst, he was scared to death of my ex. Earle had no problem yelling at him when he touched his police stuff. Then he was kidnapped and stuffed in a closet in an abandoned building. Don’t scare him. He’s just starting to become the little boy he was before I made the biggest mistake of my life by hooking up with my ex. I don’t want him to turn back into the scared little boy who wouldn’t dare leave my side to say hello to a lonely old man.”
“He’s safe with us,” TJ said immediately. “I have a two-and-a-half-year-old son myself. If Jeremiah Jones had his way, he would’ve taken him across the border and raised him to be just like him, a perverted asshole who preys on children. I would sooner kick my own ass than do anything to scare your son.”
“And I don’t have kids yet, but you need to know that Calder is like our brother. We’d do anything for him. Anything. He’s been there for us when we’ve needed him, and if he ever needs us, we’ll be there in a heartbeat. Any friend of his is a friend of ours. Including you.”
Hope cleared her throat twice before she croaked, “Thanks.”
“And also,” Dax added, “Calder has kept you under wraps, but I can guarantee after we get home to our women, they’re gonna want to know everything about breakfast…and about you and Billy. Don’t be surprised if a group of women show up sooner rather than later for lunch, asking to sit in your section.”
He smiled when he said it but Hope still looked surprised.
“Why?”
“Because…” Calder said, deciding enough was enough. His friends meant well, but they were freaking Hope out, and he hated that. “They just can’t help themselves. They’re happy, and they want everyone else to be happy too. Besides, once they hear how awesome Billy is, they won’t be able to stay away.”
Hope nodded but still looked confused. Finally, she gamely said, “Billy is pretty awesome.”
Calder kissed the back of her hand again then gently shooed her away. “Go on. You’ve got work to do and the others are glaring at you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. They’re always glaring at me,” Hope said matter-of-factly. “Let me know if you guys need anything else.”
With that, she turned and headed for the drink station.
“I like her,” Dax said.
“Me two,” TJ echoed.
“Me three,” Calder agreed.
All three chuckled.
Hope tried to get her heart rate down as she walked toward the drink station to grab a pot of coffee and make the rounds of her tables with refills.
Tori and Hannah were standing there laughing. When she approached, Tori said, “Look! old man Eli actually gave me a tip today!” She was holding up two one-dollar bills. “He’s still a cheapskate, but at least I got some cash this time.”
“Ooooh, you’re soooooo rich,” Hannah said, laughing.
Hope looked over and saw Eli leaving. She waved at him, and he winked in return then shuffled out the door.
“I thought I was going to have to seat him in my area today, but luckily I was full,” Hannah said. “So you got him, Tori. Sucker.”
Hope frowned. They were always so mean to poor Eli. She swore that the two waitresses didn’t have a compassionate bone in their bodies.
“The only reason he gave me cash is because I saw him give the stupid scratch-off to the brat,” Tori said.
“I’ve asked you not to talk about my son like that,” Hope reprimanded. She hated when Tori called her son names. It wasn’t normal that he was always hanging around the diner, but he was anything but a brat. He was well behaved and never got in the way.
Turning her back on the two women, Hope got to work making sure her customers were happy and didn’t need anything. She thought about Eli. He was eccentric, that was for sure, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a good person. Or that he didn’t have feelings. There were times when she really, really needed cash, but she’d never take that out on Eli. She knew he loved giving the lottery tickets as tips.
He didn’t have a ton of money, lived off social security, but he always went out of his way to be nice to Hope. The least she could do was humor him about the lottery tickets. It was obvious he saw them as harmless fun. Every time he came in, he’d ask the waitresses who’d last served him if the ticket he’d given them was a big winner, and every time, when it wasn’t, he’d look extremely sad.
When Donna had won that twenty bucks, Hope swore the old man smiled for days after. He wasn’t jealous that she got the money and not him, he was genuinely happy that he’d given her something that paid off.
Making a mental note to come up with another math lesson with the scratch-off ticket her son had gotten from Eli, Hope smiled at one of her regular customers as she refilled his coffee cup.
Glimpsing Billy returning to the men sitting in her section, Hope’s thoughts turned to Calder and his friends. Meeting Dax and TJ had been daunting, more so when he’d told her they were cops, but she’d clearly come a long way since Earle. She couldn’t say she was all that thrilled being around law enforcement, but she knew that not everyone was like her ex.
She’d stayed with him way longer than she should have. When she’d tried to leave him the first time, he’d tracked her down and literally dragged her and Billy back to his house, where he’d proceeded to beat the shit out of her and told her there was no way she was leaving him.
She’d pretended to be cowed and repentant, but secretly began plotting her escape. With no friends, and her family having washed their hands of her, she was on her own. She’d managed to get out with the basic necessities for her and Billy by pretending she was going to the grocery store. She’d ditched the car in the parking lot, because Earle had a tracker on it so he could yell at her if she went anywhere he didn’t approve of, and they’d hopped on a bus. She and Billy had switched buses so many times, she couldn’t even remember what cities they’d been in. She’d had the vague thought to head to Mexico, but she’d run out of money in San Antonio.
At thirty-two, Hope sometimes felt more like eighty-two. She was exhausted, and many nights she wanted to simply give up…but then she’d glance at Billy, and remember that whatever she did would forever affect her son. So, she kept on going. One day at a time, one dollar at a time.
Billy was getting better. She could feel it. He smiled more. His mouth actually moved when he was writing something out on paper, and she could tell he was getting more and more impatient with not being able to communicate what he wanted, when he wanted. She figured if she didn’t push, he’d start speaking again on his own.
At least she hoped so.
By the time the cook rang the bell announcing that an order was up, Hope already felt a little better about Calder’s friends. They were handsome men, that was for sure, and it was obvious how much they cared about their fiancées. And knowing that TJ had a son, and seeing the pride in his eyes, went a long way toward making her less nervous around them.
When she made her way back to their table, she saw Billy had four badges on the table in front of him. Two were in the shape of a star—his and Calder’s medical examiner badges—and the other two were round, one with an outline of the state of Texas in the middle and the other with a star. He was examining each of them intently and running his finger over the words on each.
“Breakfast is ready,” she said cheerily as she set the tray down on the table next to them. She began to pass out the plates and told Billy, “Give the badges back. It’s time to eat.”
He looked up at her impatiently and shook his head.
“Billy,” Hope warned.
Her son shook his head again and pressed his lips together stubbornly.
She opened her mouth to reprimand him once more, but Calder spoke before she could.
“How’re you gonna grow big and strong if you don’t eat breakfast?” he asked. “Our badges will be there when you’re done eating.”
Billy looked up at Calder, then down at the badges again.
Hope could practically hear his mind working. They’
d had to leave his toys behind time and time again. She only had room to carry the basic necessities. He’d been sad each time, but hadn’t ever protested too hard. But he’d obviously been affected more than she’d thought.
Then slowly, one by one, he picked up each of the badges and put them on the seat between him and Calder, as if that could keep them safe. He lined them up, alternating between a round one and a star one. Then, finally satisfied, he looked up at Hope and waited for her to place his plate in front of him.
There were a lot of things she wanted to say to her son. She wanted to promise that he wouldn’t have to give up anything he loved again. That he’d always be safe by her side. That they’d move into an apartment soon. That he’d get to go back to school soon. But she couldn’t guarantee any of that. The only thing she could promise was that she’d always love him, and she’d put him first in her life. But at seven, he probably didn’t care much about that.
Sighing, she tried to smile at the group. “Enjoy. Let me know if you need anything else.”
She turned to leave when Calder said, “Wait.”
She faced the table again.
Calder looked down at Billy and said, “You owe your mom an apology, Buddy.”
Hope could only stare at him in shock as he continued speaking.
“You were rude to her, and she didn’t deserve it. I know you were happy playing with our badges, but that’s no reason to glare at your mom. You should always respect her—always.”
Further breaking her heart, Billy looked confused.
Calder put his hand on Billy’s shoulder and looked him straight in the eye as he spoke. “I know you haven’t had the best examples of how a man should treat a woman, but I’ve been coming here for a month now. You ever hear me raise my voice to your mom? Or any of the other waitresses?”
Billy shook his head.
“When I was reading the newspaper that one day, and your mom brought our breakfast over, did I glare at her and tell her I wasn’t done reading, and she should come back later?”
Billy again shook his head.