by Morgana Best
I shrugged. Maybe it was because this time we weren’t meeting up in a hurried and frenzied state to discuss the latest happenings in our war against the nuns. That’s what I felt as though I were in, a war. I knew the fake nuns, apart from Sister Maria, were men. I knew they were bank robbers. Adam did too. And so we were waging a war against them, doing everything that two people who knew the truth could, even though everything else seemed to stand in our way.
But here was a time between battles. That’s what war is, wasn’t it? A series of battles makes up a war. You win some, you lose some, but in the end the war ends, and one side is left standing. I was determined to be that side. I was determined to win. So our meetings were mostly hurried, Adam calling me, or me calling Adam, telling each other something we had learned — a quick pick up in front of my apartment, and then a hurried meal as we sped to some destination, as we tried to trap the bank robbers.
Today it was different. The war wasn’t over, but a battle had been won, and there would be respite, and it seemed, celebration.
Breakfast had been Adam’s idea. “Come eat with me tomorrow morning,” he had said, and it hadn’t been a question, and even if it had, I would have told him yes. There wasn’t anything to go over, not this morning. No new information. No new happenings. One of the gang members had been caught, and a murderer had been taken off the streets. It was a time of celebration, and Adam and I were going to celebrate together.
Of course, that made sense. I knew that. We were in this together, and only had each other. But it felt like something more. I thought back to the other week, when Adam and I had almost kissed. One of my naughty cats had gotten in the way of that, and the desire had given way to awkwardness. Adam had not tried again since. Would he kiss me today? My heart raced ninety to the dozen at the thought.
I thought the outfit I was wearing now looked the best. Simple, just jeans and a cute top. I considered heels for a minute, but decided on black flats. I looked for the umpteenth time at the clock on my cell phone. He would be picking me up in five minutes.
I rushed to brush my teeth again, and made sure my hair was dry from my shower earlier. After a quick stop at the cats’ bowls in the kitchen to spill some food into each, I was heading downstairs.
As I stepped onto the sidewalk, he was just pulling up, a smile on his face as he leaned over and threw the door open for me. He looked amazing, of course. His teeth were perfect and white, his hair looked nice, and he wore a gray polo shirt which somehow made his eyes seem ten times brighter than normal.
“Hungry?” he asked as I climbed in and shut the door. I pulled on my seat belt and nodded.
“Yes.”
“It’s a bit of a drive, all right? I thought it would be fun to get out of town.”
“Okay,” I said. “Sounds like a plan.”
We listened to music as we drove, Adam reaching out to scroll through an older model iPod which was plugged into the dash as he played song after song, bands he liked, and songs I had never heard before. I wasn’t much of a music person, but it seemed as though he was. He spoke with great knowledge about various bands, and seemed excited to be sharing his favorites with me. I found myself smiling so much that my cheeks began to hurt.
We drove along the highway, and then passed a few more towns without any sign of stopping. When the car finally slowed, there was nothing in front of us besides a grungy looking truck stop gas station in a large lot next to a long and low white building. It had the word ‘Restaurant’ written in blue capital letters over the glass front doors.
“I know it doesn’t look like much, but let me tell you they have omelets here the size of the moon. It’s a little secret place that I’ve fallen in love with. It’s well worth the drive.”
There were a few trucks and cars near the gas station, but the parking spaces in front of the restaurant were clear, though there were three cars parked along the side of the building.
“It looks like a pretty big secret,” I said with a smile.
Adam laughed. “I asked you on the breakfast date,” he said, “so I get to pick.”
The butterflies whirled in my stomach again. He had called this a ‘date’. “Fair enough,” I managed to say.
“I guess there’s a slight chance eating in this place will make you sick, but like I said, the omelets are kind of worth the risk.”
I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not until he laughed. I frowned at him in mock annoyance.
When he held the door open for me and I stepped inside, I was pleasantly surprised. The place was spic and span, no doubt due to the fact that if the waitresses weren’t cleaning, there was simply nothing else to do. The floors shone white, and the formica-covered table tops were bright in an alternating pattern of pink, blue, and yellow. The booths along the side were sparkling clean.
There was a long counter on the other side of the room, with swiveling red topped stools for patrons. There seemed to only be one waitress now, standing at the counter in front of a large man with a long beard. I guessed was a trucker. I assumed his truck was on the other side of the lot, near the gas pumps. He had a plate of eggs and bacon in front of him, and a steaming mug of coffee.
A cook could be seen through a window cut into the car wall, working on something on the stove there, and a young guy was washing the far corner of the floor with a mop.
When the waitress saw us, she turned and grabbed a coffee pot from the counter behind her. “Sit anywhere,” she said.
Adam led me to a nearby booth and we sat. There were two white coffee cups in front of us and Adam flipped his over as the waitress approached.
“Hey, Ethel,” he said.
“Hey, finally found a friend I see.”
“Very funny.”
Ethel filled Adam’s cup and then turned to Rose. “Coffee?”
“Oh, yes please,” I said, hurrying to flip over my cup.
Ethel filled it. “I know he wants a tomato and cheese omelet, but what can I get you?”
I smiled. “I’ll have the same. I heard these things were good.”
“He eats enough to know. Adam here is keeping us afloat single handedly.”
We all laughed and then Ethel went off to relay the order to the cook in the kitchen.
“I thought maybe we could stop by Mrs. Sutton’s grave,” Adam said when the waitress was gone. “Since they got him,” he added, meaning the man who had killed her.
“I would like that,” I said with a nod.
“Kind of a weird date I know.”
“Is that what this is? A date?” I spoke without thinking, and then silently chastised myself.
Adam smiled his lopsided grin. “I figured if I kept calling it a date that it would make it one,” he said.
I tried not to show how pleased I was. “Okay, it’s a date.”
Adam laughed and poured some sugar into his coffee. “Do you go on many breakfast dates first thing in the morning?”
“I don’t go on many dates, period,” I said truthfully as I reached for a couple of small plastic cups of creamer that were kept in a small soup bowl on the edge of the table.
“The exciting world of furniture and chalk paint keeps you busy?”
“Something like that.”
“So all it took was some bank robbers to get us out of our dateless funks.”
“Hey, I never said I was in a funk,” I said. The conversation went on, and it was all just so refreshing. We spoke about the case of course. I told Adam all about Mrs. Sutton, and what a wonderful woman she had been.
For once, our conversation was not dominated by the stressful feeling of failure, of struggling to stay afloat in the tide of evil. We’d had a solid win, and we were happy.
Breakfast came quickly, a massive yellow omelet and a pile of fried potatoes, with smaller plates of toast. I watched as Adam put butter and syrup on his omelet.
We ate and talked and laughed some more. When the food was gone, we sat for a while longer and drank a few more cups of coff
ee. Adam left money for the bill and a tip after an hour or so of chit chat, and we got up to leave.
Adam stopped me with a hand to my arm as we were crossing the parking lot to the Jeep.
“Hey, I just wanted to say, I’m glad you’re okay,” he said. “With that night, the cold, I was worried about you. I realized that you — um, you mean something to me. I mean, I knew you did before that, but then I really knew,” he finished awkwardly.
I smiled, turning up my face to his. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me. We hugged for a moment, and then we pulled away a little.
“Thank you for everything,” I said softly.
“Thank you,” Adam said with a laugh. Our faces were close to one another, and when he spoke, I could feel his breath on my lips — I could smell his toothpaste and the syrup and the coffee. We were going to kiss. I stood on my tiptoes, his lips nearing mine.
Just then, a booming honk blared through the air and I jumped. Adam and I turned to see a massive truck idling ten feet away, waiting for us to move so he could pass through the parking lot. We couldn’t help but laugh as we hurried to the Jeep. And as much as I didn’t want it to be so, the moment had passed once more. First a cat, and then a truck.
We rode to the cemetery, where we spent some time with Mrs. Sutton. Then Adam dropped me off at home, and I pecked him on the cheek before climbing out of his Jeep. I stood on the sidewalk and watched him drive away.
I was happy. I didn’t know what else I was feeling, but I knew I was happy. We had won the battle. We had almost kissed again. We were making a dent in the bad guys. We would win the war. And soon, nothing would be in the way — not bank robbers, not cats, not trucks. We would make sure that all the nuns were arrested, and then we could focus on other things. And I was pretty sure that the other things would turn out to be each other.
* * * * The End * * * *
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Next Book in this Series.
Book THREE in The Deadly Habit Cozy Mystery series.
A Murder of Nun.
The police find one of the nuns murdered in the pawnbroker’s store, and Bunny is caught standing over the victim, holding a knife. All the evidence points to Bunny, but Rose and her friends are certain who the culprits are.
Can Rose and Adam prove Bunny's innocence before the real killers come looking for them?
And now that the nuns have turned on one of their own, can Rose stay out of harm's way while taking down another member of the Shadow Gang?
Other books by Morgana Best.
You might also like Morgana Best’s #1 Best-selling and Kindle All-Star Award recipient series, Sibyl Potts Cozy Mystery Series.
A Cereal Killer (A Sibyl Potts Cozy Mystery, Book ONE)
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Sybil Potts has moved to the pleasant town of Little Tatterford, eager to find a life of peace and quiet after her stressful divorce.
With minutes of arriving in town, she sees a dead body and finds she is surrounded by eccentric people: the English gentleman, Mr. Buttons, who serves everyone tea and cucumber sandwiches, and her landlord, Cressida Upthorpe, who is convinced that her fat cat, Lord Farringdon, speaks to her.
Yet Sibyl herself has a secret to keep.
How will Sybil’s secret put her at odds with Blake Wessley, the exasperated police officer who is trying to solve the murder?
Halloween release! Coming 1 November 2015!
Miss Spelled (The Kitchen Witch Book 1)
Amelia Spelled has had a bad week. Her boyfriend dumps her when she inadvertently gives him food poisoning; her workplace, a telecommunications center, fires all their staff as they are outsourcing offshore, and she is evicted due to smoke damage resulting from her failed attempts at baking. Amelia thinks her luck has changed when she inherits her aunt’s store and beautiful Victorian house.
Yet has Amelia jumped out of the frying pan into the fire? The store is a cake store, and her aunt was a witch. To add to the mix, the house has secrets all of its own.
When a man is murdered in the cake store, will Amelia be able to cook up a way to solve the crime? Will her spells prove as bad as her baking?
About Morgana Best.
#1 Best-selling Cozy Mystery author, Morgana Best, lives in a small, historic, former gold mining town in the middle of nowhere in Australia. She is owned by one highly demanding, rescued cat who is half Chinchilla, and two less demanding dogs, a chocolate Labrador and a rescued Dingo, as well as two rescued Dorper sheep, the ram Herbert and his wether friend Bertie.
Morgana is a former college professor who now writes full time. Her subject was grammar. Morgana was a published author of dry academic books under a pen name, but abandoned academia to write cozy mysteries.
In her spare time, Morgana loves to read cozy mysteries, repurpose furniture, and renovate her old house. She is vegan.