“Morning, Sam.” She smiled, plunking the plastic bin on the table and quickly and efficiently filling it with the stacks of dirty dishes from the booth’s previous occupants. “I’ll have this cleared off in a sec.” She leaned across the table and pulled two laminated menus from behind a chrome napkin dispenser, handing one first to Maddie and then to Sam.

  “‘Morning, Caroline.” Sam smiled back. “Don’t know if you remember Madigan Moran, Frank’s daughter?”

  “The famous artist?” Caroline fixed a stare on Maddie with unabashed interest. “Haven’t seen you since you were a little girl.”

  “More of a struggling artist, I’m afraid.” Maddie offered her a shy smile, having no recollection of the woman at all.

  “Not according to Frank. Sorry about your dad, honey. We sure do miss him. Turkey club and root beer float twice a week. Meat loaf every Sunday. Such a shame you were out of the country and had to miss the funeral, but I’m sure he’d understand. What with your career and all.”

  “What—” Sam kicked Maddie’s shin lightly under the table. Out of the country? The closest she’d ever come to being out of the country was a vacation at Point Pleasant Beach when she swam out past the buoy and had to be rescued by the lifeguard from a rip current trying to carry her out to sea. Where had the woman gotten the idea she wasn’t at the funeral because she was out of the country? And what did she mean not according to Frank? Had her father actually bragged to people about her? Great. Now she had a reputation to live up to. Well, she wouldn’t be here long enough for it to matter. Caroline, the waitress, continued to regard her expectantly.

  “Oh, err, thank you. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be here,” Maddie replied quietly.

  “Frank was a helluva guy, he would have understood, like I said. Well, I’ll give you a couple minutes to check out the menu,” Caroline offered, cracking her gum. “Sam, you having your usual?”

  “Sounds good.” Sam snapped his menu closed and tucked it back behind the napkins.

  “What’s your usual?” Maddie asked curiously, scanning the menu quickly.

  “Grilled cheese with bacon and tomato on french toast, fries with beef gravy on the side, and a chocolate milkshake.” He grinned like a little boy who’d been handed a bag of candy.

  “Do you ever actually hear your arteries screaming while you eat?” Maddie raised a brow. She snapped the menu closed and tucked it in with Sam’s. “I’ll have the same.”

  “Easy-peasy.” Caroline jotted the order on her notepad, heaved the bin off the table with one beefy arm, and reached into the pocket of her apron to swipe a damp rag over the tabletop with the other. “I’ll be back with your drinks. Nice to meet you, Madigan.”

  “Nice to meet you too,” Maddie responded politely. As soon as the woman was out of earshot, she leaned across the table and whispered to Sam. “Out of the country? Where would anyone get the idea I wasn’t at the funeral because I was out of the country?”

  Sam fixed his gaze somewhere over her head and tugged at the neck of his shirt as a dark flush crept up his neck and into his face. Maddie continued to stare at him with her brows raised.

  “Well,” he began uncomfortably, “I might have told people something to that effect.”

  “What in the hell for?” Maddie demanded hotly.

  “People in this town liked your father, Madigan,” Sam explained in a low tone. “They felt bad when he died. They wouldn’t understand a daughter who didn’t show for her father’s funeral. Frank wouldn’t have wanted you to be judged by people before they got a chance to know you.”

  “Well, anyone who still remembers me or what my life was like when my father was drinking sure as hell shouldn’t judge me. Why? Why would you care what people thought of me, Sam? It seems to me like you have less reason than anyone to give a flying fig about my reputation,” Maddie asked suspiciously. People weren’t nice without an ulterior motive in her experience. Nonetheless, she wanted Sam to be someone she could still take at face value. It made no sense, but there it was.

  “Even at his worst, your father was a functional alcoholic, Maddie. He paid his bills, held down a job, never caused a scene in public. Sure, maybe a few people knew he liked to have one too many, but most people had no idea what your day-to-day life was really like. Anyway, I didn’t do it for you, I did it for your father. He wanted you to have a life here if you wanted one. How well do you think that would have worked out if people had a reason to dislike you before you ever arrived?”

  “What about you? What did you think of a daughter who didn’t show for her father’s funeral?”

  “I knew the truth,” he said quietly. “I understood what you’d been through with him, maybe better than most.”

  “You think I’m a terrible person,” Maddie announced with certainty.

  “No, I don’t think you’re a terrible person. I think you’re a person who did what she felt she needed to do,” Sam sighed. “That’s all anybody can do, I guess.”

  “Well, thank you. I know you didn’t do it for me, but it was good of you to worry about my father.”

  “I told you, I liked your father. I owed him. The least I could do was give you a chance to make your own impression for his sake.”

  “Well, it might make a difference if I was staying, but I’m not.”

  “You can hardly call twenty-four hours giving the place a chance.”

  “A chance for what? He wanted me to have security? Okay, I get it now, and I appreciate it. If I sell the house and bank the money, I have that same security, right? I don’t need much. Besides, what would I do here?” Maddie sighed and looked around. Pine Grove hadn’t changed much from the town she remembered, and something about it tugged at her heart despite her automatic protestations.

  “The same things you do now. Work, paint,” Sam returned reasonably. “Attack attractive men with improvised weapons.”

  Maddie smiled automatically and shook her head without looking at him. She couldn’t abandon her life and move to Pine Grove because…well, she couldn’t, that’s all. She turned back to Sam and cleared her throat.

  “How did he die, Sam?” She’d been telling herself it didn’t matter from the moment she heard the news, but she suddenly had to ask, even though she feared the answer. Sam sighed and sat back against the booth staring down at the tabletop.

  “I went over to work on the house and found him in his bed. I like to think it was peaceful. He looked like he’d fallen asleep, and just never woke up. We both knew it was only a matter of time. Even though he’d stopped drinking, he’d already done the damage to his liver. When the liver isn’t working, the blood finds another route, usually through veins that can’t take the pressure. Sometimes they rupture and bleed.”

  “Didn’t they know that could happen?”

  Sam nodded.

  “Yes. He had a small bleeding episode about two years ago. The doctor recommended a shunt procedure to insert a tube and reduce the pressure.”

  “It didn’t work?”

  “He refused to have it done.”

  “Maybe if I’d come sooner…” Maddie began in a strangled voice. “Maybe…” Maybe if she’d been willing to give him another chance, he would have tried harder to save his own life. Maybe she could have given him a reason to fight. Maybe…

  “Look, Maddie, any regrets you have about your relationship with Frank…that’s something you have to come to terms with on your own. But this? Not something you need to lose sleep over. You coming back might have given him a little more peace of mind at the end, but I doubt it would have changed the outcome. The shunt reduces the pressure, but it leads to a shitload of other complications. It’s not a cure, it’s a last ditch effort. Frank fought hard to get his life back and decided he’d rather have his wits about him for whatever time he had left. If you remember anything about the man he was before the booze, you know he would have made the same decision whether you were here or not.”

  Maddie traced a pattern on the table with her fingertip and nodded slowly. The man her father had been would have made the same choice. But it was painful to remember that man because it forced her to face the loss. It was easier to remember the man she’d grown to resent, but the more she learned, the harder it became.

  “You keep saying you owed my father. Owed him for what? Why did he specify in his will that I had to at least visit the place again before selling?” She looked up and met Sam’s gaze, surprising a flash of sympathy in those deep, blue eyes.

  “He helped me through a bad patch once.” Sam leaned back in the booth as Caroline approached. “And he wanted you to visit before selling because he hoped you’d come to love it here again as much as he did and decide to stay.”

  Any further interrogation was temporarily halted by the arrival of their milkshakes. Caroline placed a tall, aluminum shaker in front of each of them. A thin coating of ice clung to the sides and small rivulets of condensation streaked their way to the tabletop to form a ring of moisture at the base. The shake was so thick that the straw stood on its own when Maddie unwrapped it and poked it in. It took a bit of effort to suck the thick, frosty concoction into her mouth, but when she got her first good taste, she closed her eyes and let out a moan of sheer delight. Sam didn’t bother with a straw and simply grabbed the large, frosty container, brought it to his lips, and took a huge gulp Maddie knew would have given her instant brain freeze. He seemed completely unaffected as he observed her obvious pleasure. Clearly, he was not a milkshake virgin.

  “Oh my God,” she moaned again. “How did I live here all those years and never have one of these? What do they put in these things? This is fantastic!”

  “Didn’t have them back then. Caroline worked here as a waitress, and then she bought the place when old man Herron died. She changed the entire menu. The milkshake is her own concoction. Uses dark chocolate gelato instead of ice cream and half-heavy cream instead of milk. Rumor has it there’s some other deep, dark, family-secret ingredient, but no one’s ever figured out what it is,” he whispered before swallowing another large mouthful.

  “I think maybe I could live on these,” she sighed, dipping in a spoon to help her along.

  “What were you saying earlier about screaming arteries?” Sam asked with a teasing glint in his eyes.

  “I didn’t say I would, I said I could.”

  “Not to mention what a steady diet of those would do to your rather remarkable figure.”

  “So you’ve graduated from bad pick-up lines to backhanded compliments?”

  “Is it an improvement?”

  “Haven’t decided.” Maddie smirked and let her gaze wander, wondering what was taking their order so long to arrive. She’d been hungry to begin with and the pervasive smell of food only aggravated her grumbling tummy. The crowd wasn’t thinning at all. In fact, a small knot of people had congregated by the door waiting for tables and occasionally glanced impatiently at their watches. Caroline dashed between the tables like a madwoman; taking orders, slinging plates, and trying to bus and clean the tables all at once. Damp wisps of canary yellow hair had escaped from her hairnet and clung moistly to her neck and forehead. Her jaws worked her gum a mile a minute and her smile appeared forced as she tried to do it all and keep everyone happy. Her eyes broadcast her desperation. Maddie knew that look. She’d worked short on more than one occasion herself.

  “Doesn’t she have any help?” Maddie wrinkled her forehead in concern. Orders piled up in the window between the kitchen and the dining room. At least four cluttered tables needed clearing. Three people tried to flag the harried woman down for drink refills and a couple of others were demanding their checks.

  Sam craned his neck and swiveled his head from side to side. “Doesn’t appear so. Someone must have called in sick. There’s never only one waitress at lunchtime.”

  Maddie’s fingers drummed restlessly on the tabletop as she watched Caroline. Spooning a large portion of milkshake into her mouth to hold her over, she slid out of the booth.

  “Be right back,” she promised.

  “Hey, where are you going?”

  Maddie walked to the end of the bar and checked behind it. The gray bins were exactly where she’d expected them to be. There was a sink next to the stack of bins and she grabbed a dishcloth, rinsed it under the water, and squeezed out the excess. She grabbed a bin and headed for a table. She made short work of clearing the dishes and wiping the surface before moving on to the next. When the bin was filled, she pushed the swinging door to the kitchen open with her backside and set the dirty dishes on the first counter she saw. Then she grabbed another bin and repeated the process. Once she cleared all the cluttered tables, she started on the drink refills. To her relief, she noticed the tables had small enameled numbers on the base. Should make it easy to match with the orders. She moved to the kitchen window and grabbed a check from the metal carousel. She checked the items, matched them to the plates waiting under the heat lamps, and loaded them onto a tray. Then she started delivering food to the hungry customers. She grabbed her order and Sam’s then deposited them on their table. She paused to take another gulp of her milkshake and gobble down a couple fries dipped in gravy.

  “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Sam asked in a deceptively mild tone that did little to hide his amusement.

  Maddie dragged her forearm across her moist brow wishing she’d left her hair tied back. “Helping? Don’t wait for me. Go ahead and eat. I’ll be right back.”

  Caroline noticed the cleared tables and stopped in her tracks when she saw Maddie in action. She caught her eye and offered her a grateful smile. Maddie smiled back. Within ten minutes, order had been restored, everyone was taken care of, and the weary waitress with the Big Bird hair had things well in control. Maddie lifted her hair off the back of her neck to cool herself and slid back into the booth opposite Sam.

  She noticed that with the exception of a couple fries, his food remained untouched. He’d waited for her, anyway.

  “I told you to go ahead and eat,” she protested. “Now your food is cold.”

  “So is yours,” he observed pointedly.

  “I’m so hungry at this point I doubt I’ll taste it anyway. There must be a microwave in the kitchen. Let me see if they’ll reheat it for you.” She reached for his plate and he slid it to the side.

  “Sit down and eat, Madigan. I’m good.”

  ****

  Cold food wasn’t a concern for Sam, but the overwhelming attraction he was feeling toward Madigan Moran sure as hell was. He wanted to cling to his expectations and preconceived notions of what the woman who walked out on him would be like, but she contradicted them at every turn. In his mind, he had her all figured out, but his heart and his gut were ignoring his head. And he knew better than to listen to either of those things. They’d steered him wrong before and cost him nearly everything. He wasn’t about to make the same mistake again.

  Chapter Five

  Maddie and Sam consumed their lukewarm food, making polite small talk in between bites about people she’d known or gone to high school with. Maddie learned the few friends she’d briefly considered touching base with had brushed off the dust of small town life and moved away long ago. She swallowed the fleeting sense of disappointment along with the last mouthful of her milkshake. After all, she’d left too, right?

  Sam had no sooner mopped up the remaining gravy and popped the last fry into his mouth when Caroline approached the table with two enormous pieces of white layer cake covered in buttercream and coconut, and two fragrant, steaming mugs of coffee.

  “Caroline, you are a goddess,” Sam exhaled on an appreciative sigh.

  “Common knowledge, honey,” she concurred with a chuckle. She turned to Maddie with a grateful smile. “But this girl? She is an angel. Thanks for your help, doll. I was about ready to blow an aneurysm.”

  “Been there, done that.” Maddie laughed. “I recognized the look.”

  “Well, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. On the house.” She set the cake on the table with a flourish.

  “Oh, but…” Maddie began.

  “That’s not necessary, Caroline,” Sam protested.

  “Hey, Pretty Boy, my restaurant, my rules.” Caroline’s penciled brows drew together. “Gloria not only called off this morning, she called back later to say she quit. Kids! No work ethic or sense of responsibility anymore. This week is going to be hell. Brenda is picking up some extra shifts, but it’s hard for her with the baby and all.”

  As Caroline talked, Maddie’s fingers began drumming insistently on the table again, and Sam glanced over wondering what was brewing in that beautiful head of hers. He’d damn near swallowed his teeth when she suddenly hopped up and simply went to work. She’d seemed so timid and self-conscious when they first walked in, but when Caroline was drowning, Maddie was the only one who dove in to offer her a life preserver without a second thought.

  “Caroline,” Maddie drawled in a thoughtful tone. “I’m going to be here for the next few weeks anyway, and I don’t have all that much to do at the house to get it ready for sale. I’m not used to sitting around and twiddling my thumbs, and I don’t think I’ll be very good at it.”

  “How do you know what you have to do to get the house ready for sale? You haven’t even started yet. Hell, you’ve barely worked up the courage to go upstairs,” Sam mumbled with an audible snort.

 

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