But that wasn’t something she could just come out and say right off the bat.
To be honest, there wasn’t a single thing she could share with these people about her last five years without either lying or humiliating herself.
“I’ve got to be getting back,” Cody said. “See you next Sunday.” The last sentence was addressed to both her and his brother just before he made his way back to the sheriff’s office.
One step past the diner’s threshold, she found herself hesitating to continue going. That was when she felt Connor taking her arm.
“It’ll be all right,” he said softly but with even more conviction. Then he added an order: “Breathe.”
She could do that much, Amy thought, but she doubted it was going to be all right no matter what Connor told her.
“Come sit at the counter,” Miss Joan called out, beckoning them to the front of the diner and patting the space she had selected for Amy. “Right up here where I can take a good look at you,” she instructed as if she hadn’t already scrutinized every inch of Amy twice over.
The space Miss Joan indicated would keep her directly under the older woman’s watchful eye.
It also would keep anyone from approaching her with any invasive, probing questions or any harsh criticism. No one would dare do that to a person who was so obviously tucked under Miss Joan’s protective wing.
“You take a drop of coffee in your cream, if I remember,” Miss Joan said for form’s sake—there was no if about it. Miss Joan never forgot anything. She poured a cup and set it before Amy. “And I just had a fresh batch of fries made less than five minutes ago,” she told her as she placed a large order of fries in between Amy and Connor.
Steam was wafting enticingly from the offering.
“Well?” Miss Joan said, her hands on her hips as she waited for Amy to make a move. “Dig in before they get cold.”
Amy did as Miss Joan urged and found, as the first fry disappeared between her lips, that it was hard not to smile. Not just at the taste, but at the memories that seemed to simultaneously burst on her brain as flavor burst along her tongue.
“There’s more where that came from,” Miss Joan told her as she moved toward another customer at the far end of the counter. “I’ll be back to refill your cups and your plate,” she promised, nodding at Connor.
The woman’s unspoken instruction to him was clear. He was not to let Amy move until she’d finished what was on her plate.
“You’re smiling,” he observed, looking at Amy.
“Self-defense,” she answered. “I think if I didn’t, she’d start shooting questions at me.” She looked down at the plate and the fries, which were quickly disappearing. “Her fries were always my favorite thing to eat. Nobody else makes fries like she does,” Amy said nostalgically. “I don’t know what it is that she does to them, but they definitely taste different.” Two more fries disappeared between her lips.
“I always thought it was Angel’s doing,” Connor said, referring to the short-order cook Miss Joan had taken in several years ago and kept on at the diner even after Angel had married Gabriel Rodriquez.
But Amy shook her head. “No, she made them,” she told Connor. “I saw her making them. I came in to the diner one afternoon, almost in tears because I was afraid I was going to fail my math course, and if I did that, I wouldn’t be able to graduate. Miss Joan made me tell her what was wrong and then she said she knew what would cheer me up. I remember just mumbling something at her, saying something like ‘Yeah, sure,’ because even miserable, I knew you didn’t argue with Miss Joan.
“And then she went in the kitchen and I could see her slicing up these potatoes, dusting this seasoning on them and then putting everything into the deep fryer. Ten minutes later, she had me smiling.” Her mouth curved now, as she remembered the occasion. “I went on to not just pass that test but I got an eighty-nine on it. Miss Joan claimed there was something special in the fries that opened up my mind so I could use it to its full potential. Her words, not mine.”
Amy laughed at herself. “I believed her, so much so that every time I had to take a test, the day before the test, I’d come in and ask Miss Joan for a plate of her ‘special’ fries. I know there was nothing magical about them, it was all the power of suggestion, but they did taste wonderful and I always felt better after having a serving.”
Looking down at the plate, she realized that she’d taken the last fry.
“You want this?” she asked almost sheepishly, holding it up to Connor.
But he shook his head. “It’s all yours,” Connor told her.
As if on cue, Miss Joan made her way over to them again. She eyed the empty plate with smug satisfaction. “Want me to whip up another order?” the diner owner asked Amy.
Amy shook her head emphatically. “No. I’m stuffed, really. Thank you, though.”
Miss Joan snorted as she gave her a disparaging look. “You eat like a bird.”
“Birds actually eat quite a bit,” Amy said. “They have to. They use up all that energy, constantly flying around.”
“Not like some people I know who use up all their energy making up excuses,” Miss Joan countered, looking at her pointedly. “All right,” she agreed with a sigh. “Then you’ll take an order of fries to go.”
It wasn’t a suggestion. The next moment, Miss Joan reached beneath the counter and produced a sealed foam container. She placed it on the counter in front of Amy.
“You had it ready for me?” Amy asked, surprised. “How did you know?”
The woman’s thin lips moved to form the semblance of a smile for exactly half a second.
“Don’t you know, girl? I know everything,” the woman told her with an intense sense of satisfaction. “Okay, you can go home.” She leveled a sharp look at Amy. “But I want to see that baby of yours before another week is out.”
“Was that an order or a warning?” Amy asked Connor after he had settled up with the cashier and they made their way out of the diner, down the diner’s steps.
“Both” was his guess. His truck was parked close to the door. He’d moved it once it was clear they were eating at the diner. Connor opened the passenger door for her. “I’m going to drop you off at the ranch,” he told her.
He made it sound as if he wasn’t coming in with her. “Aren’t you going to stay at the ranch?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said. “But first I’ve got an errand to run.”
As far as she knew, errands brought people back into Forever. “You mean you’re coming back to town?” she asked him.
“No” was all Connor would tell her in response.
* * *
THE TRIP BACK to the ranch was a quiet one.
Connor was being mysterious about this “errand” of his, Amy thought, but she didn’t feel she had the right to pry and ask questions. She was his guest, a guest who had practically pushed herself into his house. That gave her no right to ask questions or to interfere in his life, at least not any more than she felt she already had.
So she kept to herself the questions that were popping up in her head and multiplying like amorous rabbits hopped up on steroids.
The fact that she found herself suddenly wondering if Connor was seeing someone he had been neglecting because of her was a notion she had to keep to herself.
But the thought of Connor driving off to see a girlfriend had her feeling agitated and tied her stomach up in knots.
Amy found herself wanting to sit down somewhere secluded with the second order of Miss Joan’s special fries.
Or even a third.
C’mon. Grow up, Amy silently ordered as she forced herself to seek out Rita in an effort to distract herself—and to behave like a responsible mother.
“Did he give you any trouble?” she asked the woman as she walked into the
kitchen. Jamie was nearby in the cradle, asleep.
“Far less trouble than the grown-ups in this house,” Rita informed her. The woman stopped chopping carrots to take a closer look at her face. “Is everything all right, Miss Amy?” she asked.
“Everything’s fine,” Amy answered automatically and maybe a bit too quickly.
The last thing she felt like doing was elaborating on what was gnawing away at her. Besides, Rita’s loyalty would be to Connor, not to her. She wouldn’t be able to get any information out of the woman.
Rita regarded her skeptically, obviously not convinced that everything was fine.
“Where is Mr. Connor?” the housekeeper wanted to know.
Amy shrugged. “He said he had to run an errand,” she said.
She should have known that wouldn’t be enough for the housekeeper. “What kind of an errand?” Rita asked.
“He didn’t say and I didn’t ask.” At least she didn’t have to lie to the woman. The woman obviously could see through lies. “I’m going to go see if Jamie needs anything,” she said by way of excusing herself from the woman.
Or trying to.
Rita raised her voice the second she turned away from the housekeeper. “I changed him ten minutes ago and he ate half an hour ago. He fell asleep in my arms, and as you can see, he is still sleeping, but you are free to stand over him and wait for him to wake up,” Rita told her.
“I think I’ll just go into my room for a few minutes,” Amy said.
“Or you could stay here and help me with dinner.”
Very quietly, Amy went to the cabinet and opened the cutlery drawer directly beneath it. Finding what she was looking for, she pulled out a long knife and took it to the counter.
Rita slid a second cutting board in her direction without even glancing up. Obligingly, Amy stood beside the housekeeper and began chopping carrots.
Chapter Ten
Jamie slept through all the chopping, completely oblivious to the sound created by knives meeting wooden cutting boards. He continued sleeping as Rita, with Amy’s help, finished preparing all the ingredients that she needed to make the beef stew that Connor favored.
Combining the ingredients, Rita put everything in an oversize pot and had it simmering on the back burner of the stove.
Rita had begun clearing the counter, putting things away into the pantry, while Amy had just sunk down in a chair at the table, when they suddenly heard a loud commotion coming from the living room.
As did Jamie.
The noise woke the baby up and he quickly made his displeasure known by immediately putting his newly rested lungs to work.
Amy was instantly on her feet and heading toward the cradle. Since she was closer, Rita got there ahead of her and picked Jamie up.
Patting the baby on his little back and murmuring something in Spanish softly in his ear, the housekeeper turned to face her.
“I will take care of him. You go see why Mr. Connor is making all that noise.”
“How do you know it’s Connor?” Amy asked, already crossing the kitchen on her way toward the living room.
“Because if he was a thief, he would be quieter about breaking in,” Rita answered without so much as a hint of a smile.
The first thing Amy saw when she reached the entrance to the living room was Connor with his arms wrapped around a tall, rope-bound evergreen. He was plainly struggling to drag the tree farther into the room without damaging anything in his path.
From her vantage point, it looked to her as if Connor was dancing with the tree and the tree looked as if it might be leading.
“Connor?” Amy asked uncertainly, coming closer to him and the tree. “What are you doing?”
If he turned around, Connor had a feeling that he would wind up pulling the muscles in his neck, so for now he gave his answer still looking at the tree.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” he said. “I’m trying to bring a Christmas tree into the house without losing all the needles before I can actually get to put the tree up.”
Amy hurried over to grab the bottom of the tree. Lifting it off the floor, she helped Connor carry the tree the rest of the way into the room.
“You cut down a tree?” she asked him, surprised. He hadn’t said anything about putting up a Christmas tree in the ranch house.
“Well, trying to pull it out by its roots wasn’t working out, so yes, I cut the tree down,” Connor deadpanned, measuring out his words and trying not to pant.
“Why didn’t you tell me this was the errand you were running?” she asked. “I would have gone with you to help.”
He paused for a second to look over his shoulder and make sure they were heading in the right direction.
“Amy, in case you failed to notice, you’re a hundred and three pounds and no match for a tree. I couldn’t pick both you and the tree up at the same time.”
Her end of the tree was getting heavy, but she was determined to hold it up, especially after what Connor had just said.
“I’m not the weakling you think I am,” she informed him crisply, doing her best not to pant. “Where are we taking this, anyway?”
“Well, I was seriously thinking of taking the tree for a walk, but for now, let’s just set the end down here,” he told her. Backing up to the corner, he leaned the tree precariously against the wall as best he could. “I’m leaving the tree against this corner while I go get the Christmas tree stand out of the attic.”
Amy got in front of him quickly, stopping him in his tracks.
“You’re winded,” she said. “Tell me where to find the tree stand and I’ll go bring it down for you.”
Connor shook his head. “It would take me longer to give you the directions than it would to go fetch it myself.”
But Amy refused to budge as she looked at him impatiently. “I’m not entirely clueless, Connor. I can follow directions.”
“No, you’re not clueless at all,” he was quick to agree. And then he sighed and capitulated. “Okay, you win. The tree stand should be right in front of the boxes of Christmas decorations. There should be a broken cuckoo clock right next to it.”
Amy nodded. “Okay, got it.”
He caught her hand for a moment. “Are you sure you want to go crawling around in the attic?”
She flashed him a smile. “I’m sure.”
“Don’t forget to watch out for the spiders,” he called after her.
She knew Connor was saying that just to get her to change her mind about climbing into the attic—or at least she hoped so.
“The spiders are going to have to watch out for me,” she fired back over her shoulder as she continued walking out of the room.
With a sigh, Connor settled back on the sofa and waited for her to come back. He had to admit, it felt good to rest.
* * *
IT WAS TAKING too long, Connor thought.
He glanced at his watch. It shouldn’t have taken Amy longer than ten minutes to climb into the attic, find the tree stand and climb back down again. It was going on almost twice that length of time and she hadn’t come back downstairs yet.
“Damn,” he muttered under his breath as he got up off the sofa. He should have put his foot down and told her he was going to get the tree stand.
What if she had gotten bit by some rare spider in the attic? Or possibly by a mouse or a rat? And now that he thought of it, there were all kinds of things haphazardly piled up in the attic. What if she’d tugged on the stand and caused a whole bunch of boxes to topple on her?
All sorts of scenarios went through his head by the time Connor got to the drop-down stairs that fed into the attic. Rather than call out her name, he saved his breath and just started climbing up.
If anything had happened to her, it was all on him. He had to
learn how to say no to Amy.
Scanning the dimly lit area the moment he poked his head up inside the attic, he saw her. Amy was sitting cross-legged on the floor, her back partially to him, the Christmas stand sitting right next to her.
But it wasn’t the stand that had her attention. It was the huge, dusty album in her hands. She was paging through the pictures in it.
Connor slowly exhaled, releasing the tidal wave of tension that had been building up within him. She wasn’t hurt; she was just distracted. Climbing up the rest of the way into the attic, he approached her, doing his best not to startle her.
“What are you looking at?” he asked her.
Ordinarily, Amy would have jumped, surprised to hear someone talking to her when she thought she was completely alone. But for some reason, in this instance, the sound of Connor’s voice felt appropriate, blending in with the photographs she was looking at.
“The past,” Amy answered, then became a little more specific. “Our past. I’d forgotten how cute you looked in high school. Cute and serious.” She beckoned him over to her so he could see what she was looking at. She held up the album so he could get a better view. “You looked so very determined, like you were ready to take on the world the second they handed you your diploma.”
Connor sat down next to her, peering at the photographs. “I was,” he said. And then he reflected on how losing his father had changed everything for him as well as for his brothers and sister. “And I did. Just not the way I thought I was going to,” he confessed.
Instinctively she knew what he was referring to. There was a time when she and Connor were pretty in sync with one another, sharing thoughts, ending each other’s sentences. Why hadn’t she seen that for what it was worth? If she had, then Clay wouldn’t have dazzled and blinded her the way he had.
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