by Erin Wright
She pulled up into a parking spot in front of Betty’s Diner just as her stomach gurgled loudly. The OPEN sign was off, though, and the lights were too. Jennifer got out and walked up to the front door to stare forlornly at the business hours listed there. Open until two o’clock every afternoon.
Two? What kind of restaurant closes at two?!
Stomach still rumbling loudly, Jennifer climbed into her Honda and did another Google search, this time with urgency tingeing her movements. Surely there was another restaurant in town. Surely…
Nothing.
She drove back to the Drop-Inn, this time looking at the town with fewer stars in her eyes. Somehow, she’d found herself at the ass-end of the earth, where restaurants weren’t even civilized enough to stay open past mid-afternoon. What did people do around here – eat dinner at home every single night? Wasn’t that a little…old-fashioned? Who had time to cook every day, day in and day out?
She pulled up in front of the motel’s lobby and got out, stomping over to the front door with a little less cheer in her step than she’d had before, and woke the blue-haired lady up with an emphatic ring of the bell on the counter. Margaret moseyed on over to the front desk with a cheerful smile, leaving Wheel of Fortune on full blast behind her.
“Yes, dear?” she asked, blinking owlishly at Jenn.
“Do you have the take-out menus for the restaurants here in town?” Jennifer asked, a little desperate at this point. Maybe there was a side street she hadn’t driven down, and a wonderful restaurant would be located there, and it would be open, and for whatever reason, they had simply never registered themselves anywhere online.
That was totally possible.
“Take-out menus?” Margaret blinked again, obviously struggling to comprehend the question. “Betty’s is the best place in town for breakfast and lunch. I don’t know anything about their menus being taken out the front door. I’ve certainly never stolen one. But past two o’clock, you have to drive to Franklin.”
“How far is that?” she asked, choosing to ignore the “stealing” comment. She had food to find, dammit.
“’Bout thirty minutes away. Opposite direction from Boise.”
Which would explain why Jennifer hadn’t spotted it on the way to Sawyer this morning. She checked her phone. It was edging towards 7 p.m. She hadn’t planned on having to commute an hour round-trip just to find food.
“Is there any other place around here that sells food?” she asked, a note of desperation in her voice.
“Well…” the older lady said thoughtfully, “O’Malley’s Bar serves dinner. But only during the fair each year, and that ain’t until next month. You should come back for it. It’s the first weekend of August every year.” She paused, waiting for a response, and Jennifer forced a smile onto her face, her hands balling into fists at her sides. She could tell she was on the verge of hangry, which meant it was about to get ugly. “Oh! There’s the Muffin Man,” Margaret finally continued when Jennifer said nothing. “But it’s just donuts and cakes and it closes at five, so Gage has gone home now. You probably shouldn’t go to his house and ask him to make you food.”
Jennifer just stared at the woman.
I. Will. Kill. You.
“I guess you could probably find something over at Frank’s!” she finished triumphantly, excited to suggest something that was actually open. “It’s on the main road outta town towards Franklin. On the left. Can’t miss it.”
“Thanks,” Jennifer ground out, and practically ran out of the motel office before she found herself spending the night behind bars for homicide.
Turned out, Frank’s was not gourmet food, unless you happened to be a horse. The full name of the business was actually “Frank’s Feed & Fuel,” where they sold bags of alfalfa pellets next to bags of potato chips. Jennifer settled on a thing called a “tortaco,” a fun-sized bag of tortilla chips, and a bottle of generic-brand orange juice.
Returning to her room, she didn’t even try to lie to herself about dinner. There was no way to get excited about a tortaco – whatever the hell that was, and especially not one that looked old enough to vote – and there was certainly nothing fun about the fun-sized bag of greasy chips.
She sank down on the bed, kicking off her heels again, when she realized a major flaw in her shopping trip: She hadn’t managed to get a hold of a bottle of wine anywhere along the way.
Well, she was just too damn tired to go out looking for one now. She’d have to search for a liquor store tomorrow. If the ass-end of the earth had such a thing. She was starting to doubt that it did.
Optimism. It was also a thing. Just not a right-now thing.
As she crunched into the tortaco, she looked over at her phone, exhaustion seeping out of every pore. She’d call Bonnie tomorrow. Although friends were there to listen and commiserate, there was only so much complaining someone should have to listen to, and Jennifer was pretty sure that tonight, she’d be serving up an overly large portion.
She’d call her bestie tomorrow, when she could be more positive. No reason to ruin Bonnie’s night, too.
With that, she flicked on the grainy TV and settled back to watch reruns of Home Improvement and eat greasy chips.
Yup, living the life.
Chapter 9
Jennifer
At 6:30 a.m., the alarm on her phone went off, and Jennifer blearily beat it into submission. No one should have to be awake at this time of day – it should be positively unlawful, actually – but she managed to push herself out of bed anyway. She wasn’t about to give Mr. Miller a reason to make another snarky comment by being late to work. She’d get out to the Miller farm at 8 o’clock on the dot if it killed her.
As she studied the motel room’s coffee pot, flicking the power switch off and on forlornly, it finally penetrated her non-caffeinated brain that it was totally refusing to turn on or do anything even remotely useful – like, say, make coffee.
Getting to work on time just might kill her after all.
After a hot shower, she felt slightly better about the world – although things were relative at this point – and got dressed. She pulled on her standard audit outfit: A black pencil skirt, black shirt, and black heels. It was hard enough to have farmers take her seriously; dressing the part could only help. It was a little on the severe side, but hey, at least it was professional.
She headed out the door, patting herself on the back for still being on time, despite the lack of caffeine, when she saw the rain that was pelting down. Dammit. Her mind flashed back to the long gravel “driveway” out to the Miller farm, and gulped. Hard. She drove a Honda Civic, not a Jeep 4x4.
Tossing her laptop bag into the passenger seat, she headed straight for the farm, deciding to forgo her planned stop for coffee at the Muffin Man. With muddy roads, she’d have to take it slow, and coffee just wasn’t meant to be. She could totally live without it for one day.
Maybe.
The rain started coming down harder, and Jennifer slowed down even more, inching along as she switched her wipers into top speed, hunching forward and peering through the front windshield. She was gripping the steering wheel for all she was worth, praying that she wouldn’t end up in the ditch on the way out to the farm. That’s all this audit needed – her car having to be towed out of a ditch.
Cursing a blue streak, she pulled up in front of the Miller farmhouse, the clock on her dashboard blinking 8:09. She was late. If it wasn’t for the rain…
But as Greg always said, people wanted results, not excuses. And this morning, all she had was excuses.
She peered through the sheets of rain coming down to spot Mr. Miller on the covered front porch, watching her, coffee cup in hand. Dammmmmmiiittttttt. She’d been hoping she’d be able to sneak inside and he wouldn’t notice her tardiness.
Well, no hope for that now. With a huge sigh, she grabbed her laptop bag and swung out of the Honda, planting her feet firmly in a giant puddle, water splashing up her legs and filling up the soles of her
high heels.
Of course it did.
She wanted nothing more in that moment than to swing her feet back inside the car, put it in drive, and go back to Boise. Forget this whole thing had ever happened.
Hmmmm…scratch that. She wanted coffee slightly more than that.
Which…Carmelita was her closest source of the stuff, dammit all, so if for no other reason than the pursuit of caffeine, Jennifer made herself get out of her car, sling her bag over her shoulder, and stride up to the front porch as if nothing were wrong. As if her shoes weren’t squelching with water and mud with every step, with more rain pouring down on her as she went.
Under the cover of the porch stood a dry and smirking Mr. Miller, holding his coffee cup that proudly proclaimed “This Ain’t My First Rodeo” in one hand, while holding his other arm up in front of his face to ostentatiously check his watch.
“You almost made it,” he said as he lowered the cup. Was there a hint of…amusement in his voice? He was probably laughing at her stepping into a puddle so large, the federal government was – at this very moment – making plans to put it into new maps for the area as a place to go fishing.
“Yeah, well, I tried,” Jennifer grumbled as she clomped up the porch steps. She shifted from foot to foot, miserable and cold and wet. This was not how she’d envisioned the morning going.
He shrugged. “This place isn’t exactly built for Honda Civics. I suppose I can overlook it just this once.”
Jennifer swallowed hard – he was trying to be nice, but on the other hand, she didn’t really appreciate his condescending attitude in deigning to overlook her faults just this one time.
She swallowed her pride, nodded her acceptance, and headed inside, kicking her high heels off at the front door. She was pretty sure Carmelita wouldn’t want her tracking mud through the house, although her pantyhose was only marginally cleaner than her shoes.
Speaking of…Carmelita came bustling in, and with one look at her sodden appearance, clucked her tongue in sympathy. “Let me find a towel for you. Do not move.”
She headed back into the bowels of the house, talking to herself as she went, as Mr. Miller came inside. Trying to get out of the way, Jennifer stepped to the side, but she misjudged which direction he was going and they collided instead. Jennifer flushed a deep red as she tried to scurry out of his way yet again. He stood there for a moment, just staring at her, and she finally burst out, “What?! I’ll get to the audit in just a minute, I promise. I know I’m late. Carmelita wants me to wait—”
“No, it isn’t that,” he interrupted, holding up a hand and stopping her. “It’s just that I want to get to the coat closet behind you.” He pointed over her shoulder at the alcove of coats that she’d been inadvertently guarding.
“Oh. Right.” She sent him a weak smile as she moved out of his way yet again.
This was going to be the longest two weeks of her life, no doubt about it.
Chapter 10
Stetson
So, he was kinda an asshole.
He knew it, and wasn’t surprised by it. He owned that title and ran with it…most of the time.
He’d intentionally taken his coffee outside that morning, ostensibly to enjoy the patter of rain on the covered porch and look out over his family’s farm, but in reality, because he wanted to see if the thief really would show up on time. He wanted to rub it in her face when she didn’t.
And even though she had been late, when she’d stepped out of her car and right into that giant puddle, he’d been entertained instead of pissed. He should’ve been mad that she was wasting time – not treating his case with the respect that it deserved. Instead…
Well, it was hard to be mad at a drowned rat, and especially a drowned rat in a very nice skirt.
Muttering curses he didn’t dare say within Carmelita’s hearing, Stetson headed to the barn. The hired hands had vaccinated the calves yesterday under the direction of Christian, everyone was fed, and with this rain pouring down, it wasn’t a terrific day to be outside anyway. He needed to replace that section of fence out in the triangle pasture before some cow figured out that she could push her way through, but…
Not today.
He found himself in front of Grandpa’s tractor, staring at it contemplatively. If he just did a full tune-up and replaced the valve cover gaskets, he could probably have it running by the end of the day. He looked at the tires, worn and beat up, but still holding together. They could probably stand to be replaced, but who had money to spend on nostalgia? He’d make do with the old tires for a while. See what happened with this audit, then decide.
The audit…
Stetson wrenched at a bolt a little too hard, the screech of abused, rusty metal giving way echoing in the barn’s rafters, but he couldn’t make himself care. No matter how cute the thief was and how adorable she looked, her soaked hair hanging in her eyes, she was still the enemy, and he would do well to remember that.
Chapter 11
Jennifer
She poured over the documents in front of her, trying to piece the complex business together. Mr. Miller seemed to be quite unusual compared to the other farmers that Intermountain Bank lended to, in that he didn’t seem to focus on one or two crops or animals, but rather was doing All of the Above.
Hay, cows, corn, wheat…most farmers were monolithic in their approach to farming, choosing to do one or two things really, really well, rather than trying to do a lot of things mostly well. It meant the risks were higher – if it was a bad potato year and that’s all the farmer had planted, well, they were shit out of luck – but it was also easier to maintain and keep up on. Less specialized machinery, less moving parts to keep track of, less complexity overall.
Which made Mr. Miller’s choice to do it all fairly unusual.
She wondered for a moment why Mr. Miller was choosing this particular path to go down, and even contemplated finding him to ask him just that, when she heard a soft knock at the office door. She stood up and turned around rather than risk trying to rotate in the Fainting Goat Chair – as she’d come to call it in her mind – when she saw Carmelita at the door.
“I thought you could use some coffee,” she said in her light Hispanic accent, holding a rose-patterned mug out to Jennifer.
“Oh yes, please!” Jennifer said delightedly, taking the cup into her hands and breathing in deep. “Thank you. The coffeemaker was broken in the motel room this morning, so I honestly haven’t been able to properly wake up yet.” She took a deep sip of the rich, dark brown ambrosia and heaved a sigh of pure pleasure.
“Did you eat breakfast?” the housekeeper asked, her brow wrinkling with worry. “You are too skinny – you must eat more.”
As if on cue, her stomach let out a loud rumble. Jennifer didn’t tend to eat a lot in the mornings, but dinner last night had left a lot to be desired, and apparently, her stomach was in full revolt over that fact. She grimaced and Carmelita laughed.
“You come eat. I will make you breakfast.” She turned and headed back down the hallway without waiting for a response. Jennifer hurried after her, coffee cup in hand.
“But Mr. Miller will be upset,” she protested, even as her stomach let out another rumble. Shut up. It was not helping matters. “He said lunch only.”
“My Stetson does not tell me who I will feed in my kitchen,” the housekeeper said as they got to the kitchen and she began pulling out bowls and ingredients, setting to work on making enough food for a small army. “If he wants me to cook for him, then he will allow me to cook for others, too. He likes my tamales too much to tell me no.” She winked at Jennifer as she put some sausages in the pan to fry.
Jennifer laughed a little at that, taking another sip of her coffee as she tried to wake up. “How long have you worked for the Millers?”
“Oh, too many years to count,” Carmelita said with a laugh. “Stetson’s grandfather hired me when I was just a girl – only 19 – and I have been here ever since. The boys joke that I am an inheri
tance – passed down from father to son – but then I tell them that I am the best thing they could inherit.” She chuckled. “Stetson was only a boy when his momma died, so I love him the most, but do not tell the others I said that. Like a good mother hen, I must pretend I love them all equally.”
Jennifer let out a bark of laughter at that, and then a sigh of joy when Carmelita slid a plate of waffles, eggs, and sausage in front of her. It looked like enough food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but she doubted Carmelita would listen to her protests, so she just dug in instead. “How old was Stetson when Mrs. Miller passed away?”
“Only twelve. Just a baby, really. Wyatt had already left the house and Declan, too. It was just Stetson’s mom, dad, Stetson, and me here. To lose Mrs. Miller…it was very hard for everyone.”
Jennifer nodded slowly, trying to wrap her mind around the idea of a skinny, pre-teen fumbling around, a little lost in the world and not sure where to turn to. His anger began to make sense, even if Jennifer didn’t appreciate it being directed at her.
“So, do you have any family of your own?” Jennifer asked, wanting to change the subject. Contemplating a prepubescent boy without a mother made Mr. Miller too likable. Too human. It was easier to keep him at a distance instead.
Carmelita laughed and shook her head. “I have a few sisters but they are married with children of their own. I had a man propose once, but I did not want to leave the Miller Farm, and he would not move here. So, it was not meant to be.” She shrugged practically as she cleaned up from breakfast. “I am not so sad about this. The Millers are my family in my heart. I just wish that…”
“Wish what?” Mr. Miller asked in his deep voice, and Jennifer froze. She hadn’t heard him coming in. How had she missed his cowboy boots on the hardwood floors? She whipped around in her chair and stared up at him, her fork still on its way to her mouth. Realizing how ridiculous she looked, she quickly put it down, wanting to follow it and hide underneath the table.