“Welcome to Winslow’s Diner, darlin’. I’m Nellie Winslow, and I suspect that you’re new around these parts.”
“How do you know that?” Orla asked in a friendly voice as she tilted her head at the woman and settled into the surprisingly comfortable red booth, dropping her purse on the table next to the small display of Christmas ornaments.
“Because, sugar pie, first off, anybody from around here wouldn’t be caught out in this kinda cold weather dependin’ on that sort of overcoat to keep ‘em warm. They’d know better,” the woman said, her eyes silently condemning the insubstantial black sweater on Orla’s back.
“Atlanta doesn’t get this cold,” Orla mumbled, drawing her overcoat protectively closer to her body.
The waitress went on as if Orla hadn’t spoken. “Second, I own pert near the only decent diner inside a twenty mile radius. I imagine I can name every single person that lives in and around Paradise, and I ain’t never seen hide nor hair of you before. A body would remember those eyes of yours, darlin’. Whiskey colored with flecks of green. If I was as superstitious as my old granny was, I’d say you had witch’s eyes, child. So, tell me… you stayin’ in our little piece of Paradise or are you just a’passin’ through on the way to somewhere else?” the husky-voiced woman asked a tad suspiciously.
Stunned by the woman’s blunt assessment, Orla bit her lip, not quite sure how to answer. In a matter of thirty seconds, this lady had belittled her coat AND her eyes, going so far as to compare her to a witch. Sure, it wasn’t the first time she’d heard somebody talk about her unusual eyes, especially since kids locked up in an orphanage with nothing better to do than torment their less fortunate brethren could be cruel, but she’d never been taunted by a complete stranger. That couldn’t bode well for her, could it?
“I always thought my eyes were sort of unique,” Orla returned with as much dignity as she could muster. “And since unique things are often admired, I’ll simply say thank you for the compliment,” she continued, forcing a smile to her lips and folding her hands together, resting them calmly on the table in front of her. “As for your other question, I’m not quite sure yet if I’ll be staying here.”
“Yep, those eyes are unique alright. Uniquely witchy,” the bold waitress surmised with a hoot of laughter. “Now, child, I’m growin’ grass under my Mary Janes here. You say you don’t know if you’re stayin’. What’s it depend on? Speak up and tell Nellie what’s really worrying you,” the waitress chided, her eyes beginning to twinkle as she saw the blush rising on Orla’s pale cheeks. “I can tell plain as day that you got somethin’ on your mind. I got a way of knowin’ when strangers need an ear.”
“Well, I hope not to just be passing through this place, but I suppose the next few hours will probably decide the answer to that question,” she mumbled, staring down at the Formica topped table and running her fingers against the edge. “This town looks like it would be a nice place to settle down.”
The waitress frowned. “It has its days, but mostly it’s a decent enough little place to live. How’s it that a purty little thing like you came to be here all by herself?” she asked curiously, eyeing Orla critically.
“I thought you said I had witchy eyes,” Orla teased, lifting her head to give the woman a half-smile.
“You do, but that doesn’t make you any less purty,” the woman declared with a shrug of her shoulders. “Just don’t go puttin’ any hexes on me and we’ll get along just fine. Now, why’re you here, honey?”
“Well, I’ve come to Paradise to meet my potential bridegroom. I’m supposed to be married in a few days’ time,” Orla confided a little breathlessly. She still couldn’t get over how fast everything was moving, but when she’d gotten the last letter from her intended containing a bus ticket and proposal, she’d jumped at the chance to change the direction of her future.
“Nellie!” a deep, voice bellowed from the kitchen. “We’re gettin’ backed up back here. Get these orders out to the tables before the food goes stone cold, woman!”
Frowning over her shoulder at the old, grizzly looking cook behind the counter, Nellie frowned. “Hold onto your suspenders, Gus! I’m visitin’ with a brand new addition to our town,” the woman yelled back. “From where I’m standing, I can see that your arms ain’t broke. Carry those plates to the tables your ownself,” she mouthed off to the man.
Orla bit her lip, torn between laughing and flinching, as she watched the old man glower at the waitress.
Nellie turned back to Orla and grinned. “Don’t worry yourself, honey. That’s my old man. It won’t be the first time he’s had to wait a table while I visited with a new friend. Now, tell me. You’re here to get married? Usually, I hear about any upcoming nuptials months in advance. I been workin’ these tables since 1942 and Nellie’s Diner is somethin’ of a town staple. A regular social hotspot, I tell you. Especially bein’ as the only places people have to do any kind of socializin’ in Paradise is here, the church, or the gas station down the road. It has a soda fountain, but they don’t do real food like I do,” she informed Orla rather haughtily, waving her hand as if she was displaying a royal palace. “Heck, if you wanna see a picture show, you gotta drive all the way to Knoxville. Anyway,” the waitress continued, her aged voice crackling as she idly adjusted the plastic poinsettia attached to her faded nametag, “I usually know all the happenings in town, and I’ve not heard a word ‘bout any weddings coming up. Tell me, who’re you here to marry, girl?”
Looking up at the woman, Orla breathed a quick prayer as she focused hopeful eyes on Nellie. “His name is Jethro McKinnon. His letters shared that he was a farmer somewhere close to town.”
~~***~~
She thought the older woman was going to hyperventilate. Or have a seizure. Or both.
And the concerned looks from the two other waitresses working inside the restaurant and the curious stares of the other patrons surrounding them only served to make a bad situation feel a whole lot worse.
“Big, bad Jeth- Jethro McKinnon? Married. To a woman? That Mc-McKinnon man wed to an innocent little bird like y-you? Oh, Lord! Sweet baby Jesus, take me home now because I’ve heard it all!” the older woman gasped between fits of deep, raucous laughter.
Orla stared at the crowing, red-faced waitress who was currently bent at the waist with her wrinkled hands braced on her knees, shaking her head. Taking a deep breath, she tried to swallow past the lump swelling in her throat. Eyes filling with angry tears, she felt her body growing stiffer and stiffer as her own irritation and embarrassment multiplied the longer Nellie laughed at her. Orla wasn’t sure what was so hilarious about the idea of her marrying Jethro, but the longer the older woman guffawed, the more her stomach sank toward her toes. “I’m not sure what you find so funny here! There’s surely no reason to cackle so. I’m a perfectly decent young woman of high moral character!” She bit her rebuke out sharply, uncaring that the woman was her elder. She’d always hated when the girls at school had made fun and laughed at her. Being parentless, she’d suffered more than her fair share of snide jokes made at her expense. She thought she’d left all that pettiness behind when she’d graduated and become an adult. However, if this woman’s belly laughs were any indication, hatefulness was alive and well in Paradise County.
Well, she didn’t need to sit here and be humiliated. This Nellie woman might own her own business and be quite a bit older than her, but her actions were proving that she was certainly no better than Orla. Squaring her shoulders, Orla began to scoot out of the booth. She’d simply find a bathroom and a bite to eat somewhere else ... like maybe that little gas station the still-laughing hyena of a waitress had mentioned.
“Oh, honey,” the older woman finally managed to say, catching Orla’s thin arm when the young lady would have bolted from the diner. “I’m not laughing at you, sweetheart,” she assured Orla gently, patting her hand as the younger woman subsided back into the booth. “It’s just that if you actually knew Jethro McKinnon, you’d understan
d why I’m braying like a donkey. That man… he’s just not suitable husband material. Despite his sweet step-mamma’s efforts to tame him over the years, that man is still half a heartbeat away from bein’ a bona fide caveman. I swear, he’s part growling grizzly bear with a sore paw, part roaring lion without an off switch, and a hundred percent ornery jackass. Not even prayers offered at the upcoming Christmas service could change him. Trust me, sweetie, there’s been a mistake. Believe me, you do NOT want to set your matrimonial cap for Jethro McKinnon. I don’t care how much money the snarling beast of a man possesses; marriage to him wouldn’t be worth the headache. Honestly, why else do you think a thirty-one year old man hasn’t found a bride by now?”
“Thirty- one?” Orla echoed faintly. “He’s thirty-one?” The longer Nellie talked, the less this man sounded like the one she’d been corresponding with for weeks. Why, her Jethro, was sweet and soft-spoken, and certainly not as old as thirty-one. No. Her Jethro was nothing like the animal the older woman was describing.
“Yes, ma’am. He surely is. I changed that rascal’s diapers myself,” Nellie announced with a decisive nod, her eyes widening as she apparently noticed the surprise on young Orla’s face. “What?” You mean to say that you didn’t know how old your beau was?”
“Well, not his exact age. I mean, his letters indicated he was older than me. I just assumed there were only a few years between us,” Orla confided in a strangled whisper. Hells bells! Her future husband had over a whole decade’s experience on her. What in the world about her would attract a worldly, well-off man like him? “Why hasn’t he wed before now then?” she asked without realizing she’d spoken out loud.
Nellie was quick with an answer to her question, however. “Oh, many a girl around these parts have tried to lasso Jethro’s heart, but that surly demeanor of his runs all decent women right off his scent once they get a whiff of how crabby he is for two thirds the day.”
“What’s he doin’ for the other third?” Orla asked shakily.
“Oh, he’s sleepin’. Collectin’ his strength so he can keep his title as the world’s most boorish bachelor and all such manner of things. Truly, ‘bout the only time I’ve heard him stay civil for more than fifteen minutes is the hour long sermon we all sit through once a week at the church. And maybe once or twice a year when he’s paying his respects at his dear departed momma and daddy’s grave or something such. Otherwise, he’s blunt as a hammer and speaks with a tongue sharper than any knife you’ll ever come across.”
“He’s that bad?” Orla breathed, her stomach pitching as she listened to the woman’s description of her future spouse. Holy hickory stumps, but this man was gonna hate her. The way it sounded, her future groom would be about as friendly as the lion was toward the gazelle. And from what she remembered from her school books, it never ended well for the poor gazelle.
“Well, not all that bad, I’spose. He comes from a right nice family. But, child, Jethro McKinnon isn’t just any old farmer. He’s the farmer in these parts. Leastways, he is since his daddy died. The McKinnon brood is flush with cash and owns a huge spread that extends way up in the mountains. And the icing on the cake is that your man is quite a looker, that’s for sure.”
“A looker, you say?” Orla echoed faintly as she fought her mounting anxiety. What the heck did she care about looks? She was passable pretty, but she knew from experience that looks only ran skin deep and would fade over time. It’s what a person carried around inside their soul that made them a truly good person. Of course, when a man had limited finer qualities, an old maid had to latch onto what she could and pray it’d be enough to see her through the bad times.
“Oh, our Jethro’s got these piercing blue eyes that could make a gal melt down to her skivvies if he took a notion to look on her with anything other than disgust and impatience. And he’s a big ‘un, too. Six and a half feet of pure strappin’ muscle, but shouldn’t you already know all this if you’re to be his bride? You say y’all been correspondin’ by letter?” Nellie questioned curiously.
Orla licked her dry lips nervously as she felt the other woman’s keen eyes boring into her. “Yes. I…well, I haven’t technically met him yet, but his notes have all just been so vivid and friendly. You see, we met through a personal advertisement that I replied to in the Atlanta Constitution two months ago. We’ve been exchanging a letter a week for the last eight weeks. I even sent him a picture of myself, though I never did receive one from him. Still, I just can’t imagine that the man you’re describing and the man I’ve been corresponding with and agreed to marry are the same gentleman,” she worried out loud, biting her lower lip as she looked down at Jethro’s most recent letter.
“I’ve never known Jethro to ever take the time to write anything longer than his name on a check. Do you mind if I see one of those letters?” Nellie asked nosily, eying the wrinkled envelope in Orla’s hand.
Eyeing the other woman, Orla wondered if the waitress thought she was lying about everything. Eager to prove herself, she wordlessly held out the hand holding her crumpled proposal and watched as the older woman took her envelope and slid out the note inside, unfolding it and scanning it with twinkling eyes.
“Jethro sure does have pretty, flowing handwriting,” Nellie noted wryly, her lips twitching with amusement. “Nothing like the chicken scratch most men have.”
“Yes, I bragged on his penmanship to my roommate before moving out. She said it looked like a woman’s handwriting, but I think she was just jealous and angry that she had to find a new girl to share her apartment with,” Orla shared softly, peering over Nellie’s arm to gaze at the most important correspondence of her young life.
“Hmmm, I’m sure that’s the reason,” Nellie remarked, coughing into her hand to hide her laughter. Staring down at the letter in her hand, the old woman fought a smile. “It’s amazing, really. Jethro’s handwriting looks just like Lydia’s, his stepmother,” she remarked, watching Orla’s face carefully.
“Are they close?” Orla asked curiously, not catching onto what the other woman was trying to impart to her. “My letters indicated they were.”
“Lydia and Jethro? Lord, yes. That entire family is tighter than ticks on a donkey’s ass. It’s a lot smaller than any of them like, but Big Pete – Jethro’s daddy – was taken to his eternal rest year before last.”
“Yes, one of his letters mentioned his father had passed of a heart attack,” Orla murmured, her heart clenching as she recalled her own late parents. Losing them had been the most horrible thing to ever happen to her, and their passing still was a raw, aching wound on her heart. She and Jethro would have that much in common at least.
“Yes, right there in the middle of the tobacco field. He died farming the land he loved so much. The only thing he loved more than that farm was his family.”
“He sounds like he was a wonderful man. I wish I could have met him,” Orla replied wistfully, imagining how wonderful it must have been for Jethro to have grown up with parents to love and be loved by. He’d had somewhere to belong in a way she never had. But she hoped she would. Soon.
“One of the very best.” Nellie agreed with a nod and a sad smile. “When Big Pete left our earthly realm, I think he took most of Miss Lydia’s heart with him. She’s been doing poorly ever since that day. I think she’s just hanging on now for her youngest boy, and the cancer isn’t gonna let her do that for long. But she loves that boy of hers so much.”
“Hawthorne, right?” Orla said, remembering the name because it was unusual. “That’s Jethro’s brother, isn’t it?”
“Well, yeah, though I wouldn’t let little Hawk hear you call him that. He hates that name. His momma read The Scarlet Letter in high school and just loved it. Went and decided to use the author’s last name for her son’s Christian name. She said the first name of Nigel was too sissy for a McKinnon boy, but she thought Hawthorne worked just fine,” Nellie explained, rolling her eyes. “Poor old Pete couldn’t talk her out of it. Personally, I think both t
hose names are a little too nancy boy for a McKinnon child, but since he was her first baby and her already crossed the forty mark, she was gonna get her way no matter what. Thankfully, his daddy and Jethro started calling the baby Hawk on the day he was born and the nickname has stuck like glue. Lydia’s the only one that calls the boy Hawthorne.”
Orla smiled. “I sort of like it. It stands out.”
“Yes, I’m sure Hawk would just love it if his name stood out in his class at school. He’s only twelve, and kids are cruel.”
Didn’t she just know it, Orla thought as she suppressed a shiver. The orphanage where she’d landed when her parents died had been clean and dry, but it definitely hadn’t been a place for wimps and whiners. Shaking off her dark thoughts, she concentrated on Nellie. “He’s the baby, too, right?” Orla asked.
“He is now,” Nellie acknowledged quietly with a slight nod. “Lydia and Pete lost a little girl to influenza when she was three. They never tried again after that. There was only a year or so between Hawk and little Caroline,” the waitress confided in a whisper.
Orla’s throat tightened as she digested news of that tragedy. “That’s awful. I had no idea,” she whispered. “Jethro never mentioned anything in his letters about that. I did know about Mrs. McKinnon’s illness, but I didn’t know how serious it was.”
“Yes, well, I don’t imagine that little one’s passing is something any of them feel comfortable discussing. And we were all hoping Lydia would get better, but she just seems to be growing weaker with every sundown. At any rate, Jethro’s family is his one saving grace. He’d do most anything for any one of them. The man himself, though…well, I suspect he’s gonna be an acquired taste.” Staring at Orla, Nellie smiled. “But, there’s something about you, girl… I can tell, you just might be what the Good Lord ordered for Jethro McKinnon.”
Wed by Wednesday (Passion in Paradise #4.5) Page 2