LITMIR.BIZ

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walking back into the other room to drape it over a chair. It only seemed sensible to pick up the remaining dishes before heading back to the kitchen.

      Returning, he found that Charlotte had already made order out of chaos, stacking the dirty dishes as they were evidently to be washed. Glassware came first, followed by plates, flatware, serving dishes, utensils and finally pans. The leftover food had disappeared into the refrigerator, from which she turned as he entered the narrow room.

      “I’ll take those,” she said, coming forward.

      He surrendered the two plates and platter, then watched her scrape food scraps into a bucket beneath the sink, which she then sealed with a tightly fitting lid before stacking the dishes with the others. Turning, she placed her back to the counter, her gaze falling to the neatly cuffed sleeves of his stark-white shirt. Her mouth gave a little quirk at one corner as she reached for a pair of yellow vinyl gloves and pulled them on.

      Wordlessly, she turned to the sink now billowing with suds, and reached for a plate on the stack to her right. While she washed and rinsed, Tyler wandered haplessly across the room, taking in a calendar from a local propane company on the side of the refrigerator and a clock shaped like a rooster over the stove. When he turned he saw a cookie jar in the form of an owl on the opposite counter next to a small microwave and a glass-domed container covering three layers of a dark, rich, grainy cake iced with frothy white. Several pieces had already been cut from it.

      “Is that carrot cake?” he asked.

      She sent him an amused glance. “Of course. Want a piece?”

      A hand strayed to his flat middle, but thinking of the extra time on the treadmill required to work that off, he said, “Better not.”

      She hitched a shoulder, handing him a wet plate with one hand and a striped towel with the other. Tyler had hold of them before he knew what was happening, but then he just stood there, confused and out of place.

      Plunging her hands back into the soapy water, she asked smoothly, “Are you going to dry that or just let it drip all over those expensive shoes?”

      He looked down, saw the dark droplets shining on black Italian leather and quickly put the towel to good use.

      “That dish goes in the cabinet behind you,” she told him, a hint of amusement in her tone. “Door on the far right.”

      Stepping across the room, he opened the cabinet, found an empty vertical space separated by dowels and slid the dish into it, noting that two sets of dishes were stored there, cheap dark brown stoneware, chipped in places, and the poor-quality flowered china from which he had eaten.

      He realized at once that she had served him from her good plates. Both embarrassed and gratified, he left the door open and went back for more plates. A short stack of clean, wet dishes stood on the metal countertop beside the sink.

      “Looks like I’m behind,” he admitted unashamedly. “But then, I’ve never done this before.”

      She smiled and added another dish to the pile. “I know.”

      Laughing, he got to work, making small talk as he dried and shelved the dishes. “How does a woman such as yourself come to be working in a motel?”

      Looking out the window, she replied matter-of-factly, “Her parents die and she winds up living with her grandparents, who just happen to own and operate that motel.”

      “My condolences,” he offered softly.

      “It happened a long time ago,” she replied evenly, glancing at him. “I was fourteen.”

      “Eons ago, obviously,” he teased, hoping to lighten the mood. She ducked her head.

      “Thirteen years.”

      That would make her twenty-seven, he calculated, a good age. He remembered it well. Had it only been eight years ago? At the time it had seemed that thirty would never come and his father would live forever. Yet, Comstock Aldrich had died of pancreatic cancer only nine months ago, leaving Tyler to fill his gargantuan shoes at Aldrich & Associates. After only ten months in the job, Tyler felt old and burdened, while Charlotte Jefford seemed refreshingly young and…serene.

      He blinked at that, realizing just how much that calm serenity appealed to him. It fairly radiated from her pores.

      “What about you?” she asked.

      He studiously did not look at her. “Oh, I’m thirty-five, an executive, nothing you’d find interesting, I’m sure. You mentioned brothers. Older or younger?”

      A slight pause made him wonder if she knew that he’d purposefully been less than forthcoming. “Older. Holt’s thirty-six, and Ryan’s thirty-four. Holt was working in the city when our folks passed, and Ryan was in college, so naturally I came here.”

      “The city?”

      “Oklahoma City.”

      “Ah. And these brothers of yours, what do they do?”

      “Well, Holt is a driller, like our daddy was. The price of oil these days keeps him pretty busy. He’s got a little ranch east of town, too. I can’t help worrying some, because that’s how Daddy died.” She looked down at her busy hands, adding softly, “He fell from a derrick.” An instant later, she seemed to throw off the melancholy memory. “But everything’s more modern now, safer, or so Holt says.”

      “I see.”

      “Ryan,” she went on, warming to her subject, “he’s the assistant principal at the high school. He teaches history, too, and coaches just about every sport they offer. Football, baseball, basketball, volleyball, even track.” She gave Tyler a look, saying, “In a small town, you have to do it all.”

      “Sounds like it.”

      “Do you have brothers and sisters?” she asked.

      “One of each. She’s older. He’s younger.” And they hate my guts, Tyler thought, surprised by a stab of regret.

      “Children?”

      He shook his head. “Never married.”

      “Oh. Me, neither.” She shrugged. “You know how it is in a small town, slim pickings.”

      He actually didn’t know, and he didn’t care to know. What he did care about surprised him. Put plainly, he wanted her to like him. He wanted her to like him for himself, not for social status or wealth or any of the other reasons for which everyone else liked him, because he could give them things, because his last name happened to be Aldrich.

      For the first time in his life, it mattered what someone thought of him, someone who didn’t know the Aldrich family, someone without the least claim to influence or wealth, someone willing to invite him, a stranger, to dinner. Someone who would take him at face value.

      It mattered, even if he couldn’t figure out why.

      Charlotte saw her guest to the kitchen door, which opened on the same side of the building as the drive-through, and pointed across the way to his room. After thanking her profusely for the meal, he walked toward his car. Looking in that direction through the screen, she recognized her brother Holt’s late-model, double-cab pickup truck as it turned into the motel lot. The truck swung to the left and stopped nose-in at the end of the building next to the pastor’s sedan.

      “You’re late,” she called as he stepped down from the cab, his gaze aimed at the man now dropping down behind the driver’s wheel of that expensive sports car. Still wearing his work clothes, greasy denim jeans and jacket over a simple gray undershirt, Holt had at least traded his grimy steel-toed boots for his round-toed, everyday cowboy pair.

      Tall and lean, Holt took a great deal after their grandfather in appearance, though with different coloring. A lock of his thick, somewhat shaggy, sandy-brown hair fell over one vibrant green eye, and he impatiently shoved it back with a large, calloused, capable hand as bronzed by the sun as his face was. His long legs and big, booted feet

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