"What?" Jess was suddenly alert. "What are you talking about?"
"When she came to see me in the hospital she asked me if I was a mobster," he answered.
"Oh pooh," she said. "That's nonsense. You're mysterious ... yes ... but I'm sure you're a very nice man."
"That's another thing," said Kris as Lou Anne approached the table for the sixth time. "I managed to meet the two most beautiful women in the whole town, within twenty-four hours of getting here. This has all the makings of a great romance novel."
Lou Anne poured his coffee cup full again, while Jess covered hers with her hand. She smiled at both of them.
"Isn't he the charmer," giggled Lou Anne. "And intelligent too. Who would have thought a stranger would have such good judgment?"
None of them noticed that three booths over, Clyde Watson was paying off a losing bet that the stranger would end up with coffee in his lap for flirting with Lulu, while Buzz Wilder grinned and took his money.
* * *
Lou Anne appeared one last time, the check in her hand. She slid into the booth across from Kris, bumping Jess's hip with her own to make her friend move inward.
"I'm on break," she said, handing him the check. "So what are your plans?"
"Jessica has agreed to drop me off at my rental house," he said. "After that ... I have no idea."
"Wait a minute," said Lou Anne. "I can see about a dozen flaws in that plan." She ticked them off on her fingers. "First, you have no transportation. Second, you have no food. Third, you have no clothes. Where did you get those clothes?" she asked curiously.
"Salvation Army," he said. "They donated them to me. It was really nice of them."
Lou Anne turned to her friend. "You can't just dump him."
"I don't know what else to do, Lulu!" exclaimed Jess. "I've got stuff to do today and I have to go in early tonight because Sandy is puking her guts out all over the place and we're short staffed."
"We can't just abandon him," said the waitress.
"You've done plenty for me," said Kris. "You saved my life. I'm the one who owes you."
"Yeah, sure," said Lou Anne, waving a hand. "When you're rich and famous and on the best seller list, you can pay me back." She stiffened. "Hey! What if you are rich and famous and on the best seller list?"
"Don't think so," said Kris. "That cop said he checked and nobody's ever heard of me."
"Oh." Lou Anne's slump, and the disappointment in her voice made him smile.
"Don't worry," he said. "With thoughts of you two to motivate me, I should be able to write something that will make every woman who reads it blush and have to go change her ... " He stopped suddenly, and blushed himself. "Sorry."
"You're very naughty, aren't you," said Lou Anne archly, and in a tone that made it perfectly clear it was a statement, rather than a question. Then she grinned. "So you're a romance novelist?"
"I don't actually know," he sighed. "But why not? It can't be all that hard. Some steamy looks, a few stolen kisses, a little intrigue with handsome men and beautiful women ... "
"I don't know," said Lou Anne. "I like reading that trash and I'm still a pretty demanding reader too. I know within the first five or six pages if I'm going to finish it. There's a lot of junk out there."
"Well then, perhaps you'll lend a little editorial support to my venture," suggested Kris. "You know, keep me going in the right direction?"
"Me?" Lou Anne's smile was brilliant.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," said Jess, her voice petulant. "I saw him first, Lulu. You might have saved his life, but I gave him a sponge bath. We've already been intimate." She grinned as the man across from her turned red again.
"You," said Lou Anne, turning to her friend, "were going to just abandon the poor man in a strange place, if I might remind you."
"I can't help it!" objected Jess. "I told you. I have stuff to do." She looked at her watch. "In fact, you took so long to serve us breakfast that I'm going to be late getting to the bank and I have to talk to them this morning!"
Lou Anne grinned. "Don't tell me you bounced another check."
"It's not funny!" complained Jess.
"You'd have money if you quit giving it all to the bank in penalty fees," said Lou Anne. "I wish you'd let me teach you how to balance your checkbook."
"I know how to balance my checkbook." Jessica pouted. "I just don't do it ... that's all. I'm very busy."
"Yeah," laughed Lou Anne. "Busy going to the bank all the time to explain why you keep bouncing checks."
"This will be the last time," stated Jessica firmly. "I promise, okay? Now, I have to go. Can you take care of Kris?"
"Me?" squealed Lou Anne. "I have to get some sleep and pick up Ambrose!"
"Well, you can't just abandon him," said Jess, pushing Lou Anne out of the booth and putting on her coat. "You said so yourself."
"You just did!" snarled Lou Anne.
"Ladies, please," said Kris. "I'll manage. I'm a big boy. I can take care of myself."
Lou Anne turned on him. "Really? And how are you going to manage that? You don't even know where you live!"
"Bye!" yipped Jessica.
"Hey!" yelled Lou Anne.
Bets were made left and right as the other customers looked on with interest.
"See you later!" called Jessica. "Thanks for breakfast, Kris."
"But ... " Lou Anne turned to look at Kris. "Oh!" she snarled, stamping one foot.
"Could I get some coffee over here?" complained a trucker, who had never been in The Early Girl before.
More bets were made and the clink of silverware almost stopped as the regulars waited for things to play out.
* * *
To the disgust of four patrons, Lou Anne did not explode or make anyone suffer her wrath. She picked up Kris' bill and held out her hand, waiting while he pulled out the twenty from his wallet and laid it there. Then she turned on her heel and went to the register, making change, which she promptly put in her apron pocket. She made a trip to the trucker's table, taking him his coffee and his check. Then she went to a line of pegs on the wall at the end of the service lane and took down her stained jacket.
"I'm leaving, Hank!" she yelled.
"You've got twenty minutes left!" he objected. "And you just took a break."
"I'm leaving, Hank!" she yelled again. "I have this ... problem."
She turned and stared at Kris.
"Really," he said, shrugging. "You don't have to ... "
She held up one hand, as if she were a traffic cop showing him the stop sign. His mouth snapped shut.
"Are you ready to go?" she asked sweetly.
"Better do it, man," came suggestions from three different booths nearby.
Kris craned his neck to see who had spoken, but all the men were busy with their meals. He winced as partially healed muscle strains in his neck made themselves known. One man glanced up and jerked his head toward Lou Anne. Then he was eating again, as if nothing had happened.
Kris stood up. "Really, Lou Anne, I ... "
"Get your coat!" she snapped.
There was a low murmur from the booths behind Kris. He was quite sure he heard a male voice say, "Get moving bud!" and another one say, "No fair!" He leaned over and picked up his coat, not sure what to think. He'd taken only two steps towards the waitress when she turned and strode out of the diner.
She didn't hold the door open for him.
Chapter Nine
Men were pressed up against the glass of the front windows as Lou Anne put her car in reverse and backed up.
"Damn!" said Randy Thornton and handed a dollar to Butch Flannery. "He actually made it into the car!"
"Keep watching!" yelled Tim Clark. "She's going to kick him out within two blocks."
"Bull!" snorted the Reverend William Hoskins, minister of the Third Avenue United Church of Christ. "She's an angel of mercy. I think our Lulu will take good care of the poor man." He watched as Lou Anne's car made it to the street light at the corner of Hickory and
Madison, and held out his hand to Tim. Tim sighed and put a dollar in it.
"Don't you go to hell for betting?" complained Tim. "Or for saying bull?"
"Wasn't really a bet," said Reverend Hoskins. "I knew what she'd do." He smiled. "And bull is just a vigorous way of saying nonsense."
"Who do you suppose he really is?" asked Joe Peters, who had also lost money that morning.
"What's the skinny on him?" asked Phil Zucker. "I didn't hear about it yet."
"Turned up half dead over on Hopkins Lane," said Hank, who was watching with the rest of them. "He was lying in the snow, all by hisself, all torn up. Lulu put him in her car and took him to the emergency room."
"That little slip of a girl muscled him into her car?" Phil sounded doubtful.
"An angel of mercy," sighed Reverend Hoskins. "God gives strength to those in need."
Several men groaned at the impromptu sermon and there was a generalized movement back to their tables and meals.
"I heard he don't know who he is and can't remember nothing," said Gerald Witherspoon.
"One of us should have gone with her," said Tim Clark. "What if he tries to hurt her?"
"I'll take that bet," laughed Hank. "How much you want to lose, Tim?"
"I'm just saying," said Tim, picking up his fork. "Maybe he's fooling about not being able to remember anything."
"We'll just have to keep a watchful eye on him," said the preacher.
"How we gonna do that?" asked Phil.
"You all heard the man. He's got no car and no clothes. We'll just have to be neighborly and check in on him once in a while. I'm sure all you men have something you're not using that could make his life a little better."
"But he's an outsider!" complained Gerald.
Reverend Hoskins' voice was stern. "He's a man lost in the wilderness, Gerry, and he's with a young woman we all care a great deal for. It's our Christian duty to keep an eye on both of them." He smiled. "Besides, she just won me a dollar. I owe her."
* * *
The young woman the preacher was talking about was driving along, staring at the road ahead and not talking.
"Thank you," said Kris, trying to lighten the mood.
"Don't thank me yet," said Lou Anne. "We're taking a little detour before I take you home."
"Oh?"
"We're going to pick up my son and you're going to baby-sit him while I get some sleep. Then I'll take you shopping, to get the essentials, and then I'll take you home."
"You're taking me to your house?" His voice rose. "Isn't that a little dangerous?"
She looked over at him. Her hair covered her right eye, but the other one seemed to bore into his insides. "And why would it be dangerous?" she asked. "You said yourself, you're not a mobster."
"Well I'm not," he said. "But we just met. You're being awfully trusting."
"If I find out I can't trust you, I'll just cut your balls off," she said carelessly.
"What?" His voice held shock.
"Aren't you being awfully trusting?" she said, glancing at him.
* * *
They picked up Ambrose, which surprised Roslynn, of course. Ambrose didn't seem surprised, though, and got down to the business of being curious about Kris immediately. Roslynn was curious too, but not quite so openly. Her raised eyebrow expressed it to her charge's mother.
"It's a long story," said Lou Anne, picking up Ambrose and hugging him. "I'll tell you all about it later."
"I can't wait," said Roslynn, meaning it.
In the car Ambrose kept up a stream of questions from his car seat. He wanted to know who Kris was and why his face had all those marks on it and where he lived and if he had a little boy too. Kris turned around and talked to the boy, explaining that he couldn't remember very much because he'd been in an accident.
"Your mommy helped me," he said. "She took me to the hospital."
"The adventure!" shouted Ambrose. "Mommy told me about it! I made you a card."
Lou Anne reached for the card, which was still in a tray under the dashboard, and handed it to Kris. Then she let them discuss the card and drove, wondering if she really was being foolish to take this unknown man to her home and trust him with her son. She slowed as she came to the place where she'd picked Kris up, and rolled to a stop.
"This is where I found you," she said.
He looked around and shrugged his shoulders. "If you say so."
They went on, while Kris continued to talk to Ambrose, telling him everything he could remember, with the exception of running over a man in a city somewhere. He was just finishing his story of getting served breakfast by Ambrose's mother when they pulled up to the house.
* * *
Lou Anne lay in bed. She couldn't sleep, even though she was tired. Her son was out there in the living room with a strange man. She'd tried to tell herself it was fine, that she had no reason to believe he was anything other than a nice man with amnesia ... but she still couldn't sleep. Even taking the keys to the car into the bedroom with her hadn't helped.
She got up, put on her robe, and went to the door silently. She eased it open and then crept down the hallway until she could peek into the living room. She could hear Kris' voice.
He was sitting on the couch, with Ambrose sitting next to him. They were reading a book. Kris read a line and Ambrose corrected him. At four, Ambrose knew what the book said, even if he couldn't quite read every single word without help.
"You're pretty smart," said Kris.
"Yup," said Ambrose, as if that were common knowledge. "Read some more. I'll help you when you need it."
It all looked so normal to Lou Anne. She felt her muscles relax and turned around. She had to get some sleep, then she could figure out what to do about the man who fate had decided to drop into her life.
* * *
She woke five hours later, knowing she'd heard a shout, and got up immediately. She almost ran to the living room, tying the belt of her robe around her as she went.
She found them in the tiny dining room and gawked. Her old computer, which had been sitting in a box waiting to be taken to the recycling center, had been set up on the table. Kris was sitting in a chair, with Ambrose in another chair beside him. Kris' fingers flew across the keyboard, while Ambrose talked.
"And then the robot stepped on the house - smash!" yelled Ambrose.
"Keep it down!" cautioned Kris. "Remember, your mother is still sleeping."
"No she's not," said Ambrose, pointing. "She's right there." He jumped off the chair and ran to get a hug.
"Hi," said Kris. "We're writing a story."
"I thought that thing was broken," she said.
"I think the connection on one of the cards was just corroded or something," he said. "I took the liberty of playing around with it. I didn't figure you wanted me messing with the new one." He glanced over at the computer Lou Anne had upgraded to.
"You fixed it?"
"It booted up," he said, shrugging. "I figured I'd try writing something. Ambrose was helping me. He's got a very vivid imagination for a four year old."
"Kris is writing me a book!" announced Ambrose.
"Well, a story anyway," said Kris, smiling.
"And I told him what to write," said Ambrose proudly.
"Well good for you!" said Lou Anne, roughing up his hair. "Now, I need to get you some lunch, then we're all going shopping and I'm going to take Kris to his new house. How does that sound?"
"Yay!" said Ambrose, jumping up and down.
* * *
"We've got a lot of stuff," said Kris, looking at the shopping cart, which was mostly full.
"Without a car you're going to have to survive on your own for a while," said Lou Anne. "Jess and I will check in on you, but it won't be every day. When you get the phone hooked up you can just call one of us when you need to go somewhere. Besides, you need to stay there most of the time. You have a book to write."
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