LITMIR.BIZ

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that she’s not due back from her honeymoon until tomorrow. You’re filling in.”

      He drummed his thumb on the counter, a sure sign that he was frustrated. “She hated that she was going to be gone. I promised her that I had this.”

      When her twin sister, Summer, had married handsome Bray Hollister, the love of her life, several months earlier, they’d postponed their honeymoon until Summer’s kids could take a week off school. Bray had made the honeymoon arrangements and Summer hadn’t had the heart to tell him that she wanted to be back in Ravesville a day earlier.

      But her twin had felt terrible about it. She and Trish had discussed it. Trish had assured her it was fine. Summer had wisely not mentioned that she intended to draft her own replacement.

      “Come on. Your sister is going to be mad at me if I don’t get this right,” Milo said, proving that he was willing to play upon every emotion.

      “Are you scared of her or her tough-guy husband?”

      “Both.”

      She smiled at him. Milo wasn’t afraid of anything. Over the years he’d been at the café, they’d had more than one disruptive customer. It was bound to happen, especially in a café that attracted one-timers, the people driving through on their way somewhere else. In those instances, with a minimum of fuss and mess, Milo would have his arm around the customer, gently pushing him out of the café, with a stern warning not to bother to come back.

      He was prepared to defend them. One time when he’d been lying on the kitchen floor, fixing a temperamental fryer, she’d spied an ankle holster. She knew as an ex-con he likely wasn’t supposed to have a gun. She also believed that he carried it purely for protection. For himself. For her and Summer. When he realized that she’d seen the gun, he challenged her. “You have a problem with this?” he said.

      She didn’t really like guns. When she’d been married to Rafe, he’d owned one and had insisted that she learn to shoot it. Had said that he wanted her to learn for safety reasons, that if there was a gun in the house, every adult needed to know how to use it safely. She’d gone along with his wishes and had got good enough that she was confident that she wouldn’t shoot her own foot off. So when Milo asked, she’d shaken her head. “No problem here.”

      He’d smiled and gone back to fixing the fryer. As she walked past, he muttered, “Always did think she was a smart girl.”

      Now she stared at the man who’d become much more friend than employee. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

      He studied her. Kept drumming his thumb. The poor digit was going to be bruised. “I suspect Rafe would want you to keep living,” he said finally.

      “How do you know? You never met him,” she challenged, her words clipped. She could usually count on Milo not to offer advice. It was always a rare reprieve and it made her mad that even that had changed.

      “I...I just think he would. People have to go on. Even when it’s hard.”

      He probably knew something about that. After all, he’d survived prison. “I know you mean well,” she said, her tone kinder than before. “I’ve actually taken that advice,” she added hesitantly.

      “How so?”

      “I signed up for an online dating site,” she said.

      Thumb stopped, head jerked up. “You never said anything about that.”

      She hadn’t. To anyone, not even Summer.

      “Any matches?” he asked.

      “One that looks interesting,” she admitted. “We’ve been emailing back and forth for a couple of weeks.”

      “You need to be careful with sites like that,” Milo said, his voice heavy with concern. “Why don’t you give me this guy’s name? I’ll check him out for you.”

      She could do that or she could call Chase Hollister, Bray’s brother, who’d taken over the role of Ravesville chief of police recently, and ask him to run a check. “I haven’t said that I’ll meet him yet,” she said. “If I do that, I’ll decide then whether he needs to submit his fingerprints. In triplicate, of course. Maybe give a blood sample.”

      He smiled, as much as Milo ever did. “I realize you’re not the foolish type, Trish. But I care about you. A lot of people do.”

      “I know. And believe me, it helps. Now, let’s finish up here. I want to go home. It’s been good to have Raney and Nalana Hollister here to help in Summer’s absence, but it’s still been extra work. I just want to go home and take a hot shower and crawl into bed.”

      “You’re still planning to take a few days off next week.”

      “I am. Payback.”

      “Summer will be delighted. You never take time off.”

      She rarely did. And on the occasional day that she did play hooky, she generally worked in her yard, which had a never-ending supply of projects. Weeds to pull. Plants to move. Trees to trim.

      But this time, she was doing none of that. She felt a little guilty about not confiding in Milo, but he worried way too much about her and Summer.

      “Maybe we could go fishing one day,” he said. “I could teach you a few things.”

      She held up a hand. “I do not want to hear one more time about that bass you caught.”

      He tossed his head and laughed. “It’s not bragging when a man has pictures.”

      “I suppose not. I’ll let you know if I’m available to be humiliated,” she added, picking up a fork.

      He looked at her pile of silverware. “I’ve got one more load of dishes and then the garbage. Will you be ready in ten minutes?”

      When it was just the two of them at the end of the night, he always insisted that they leave together. “You bet,” she said and watched him walk back to the kitchen.

      She glanced out the front windows of the Wright Here, Wright Now Café. All the parking spaces in front of the café were empty. The town got quiet fast, even on a pretty spring evening. Tulips had bloomed last week in the flower box in front of the law office across the street, and now they were dancing in the light wind.

      Didn’t matter how unbearable the winter was, those flowers always came back. And she had, too. Yes, she’d suffered a great loss. But she had much to be thankful for. A wonderful sister. Her nephew, Keagan, and her sweet little niece, Adie. Her new brother-in-law, who made sure she knew that every one of the Hollisters considered her family.

      And now that she was almost thirty-eight years old, it was time to get on with her life.

      A soft sob escaped and she looked around the empty café, grateful that no one was there to witness her lapse. Most of the time she was able to fool people. She could laugh and joke with the best of them. Only a precious few knew how much she mourned Rafe, who’d had the bad luck to go on a stupid float trip with his buddies. Only a precious few knew that sometimes she would go to the river and stare at the murky depths, so angry that it had taken her husband from her, not even generous enough to give her back a body to bury.

      She rolled the last knife, fork and spoon and gently laid the napkin on the top of the stack. Then she carefully slid the tray of rolled silverware under the counter, where it would be easy to grab in the morning. Tables would fill up fast. She loved it when the place was really busy, when there were customers to wait on, tables to clear and money to take at the cash register. She loved the noise and the energy of people enjoying a good meal.

      And while the café had a very different feel at the end of the day, when it was empty and quiet, it was satisfying to sit on a counter stool and look around at the clean floor, the shiny counters, the freshly washed pie case and know that she and Summer had built this from practically nothing.

      They had purchased the café more than five years earlier.

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