Chapter Two

Saturday morning Mandy was up even earlier than her normal dawn patrol. Not surprising, since she’d tossed and turned most of the night, running through the meeting with Mr. Pickett and Alex over and over in her head and questioning her decision. Opening one eye, she squinted up at the ceiling.

Welcome to day one of home ownership.

Well, co-ownership. With Alex.

Ugh.

Mandy pulled the blanket over her head.

A cold nose nudged her ear, followed by a hungry whimper, forcing Mandy to lower the covers and find Bubba—the small, fuzzy, floppy-eared mutt Gina had adopted from the pound a few weeks prior—staring at her expectantly, tongue lolling as he panted away. She patted her stomach and he hopped up to sit on her.

“What’s the matter, sweetie?” Mandy scratched him behind the ears and laughed when he collapsed in joy. “You need to go outside?”

The magic words had Bubba jumping up and down and turning circles, wagging his tail.

Smiling, she stretched and got up, sliding on her green furry monster slippers before hooking up the dog’s leash and taking him downstairs to potty. Afterward, she returned to the second-floor walk-up and rolled out her small yoga mat in the open space below the large living room window. Mandy folded herself into the lotus position for her daily meditation, careful not to Om too loudly for fear of waking Gina.

Unfortunately, Alex kept interrupting her moment of Zen.

Mainly thoughts about his closed-off demeanor the day before and the way he’d dodged her questions about his injury. He was so different now from the guy she remembered, and that presented an intriguing puzzle that all but begged her to solve it. And therein lay the problem.

There were so many possibilities in trying to figure him out—and so many red flags.

She had enough on her plate these days without adding a trip to the Land of Misfit Men to her agenda. Five more non-relaxing minutes later, she rolled up her mat, then refilled Bubba’s food bowl and started a pot of coffee. The letter from her mother sat on the counter, taunting her. She probably should’ve opened it right away after Mr. Pickett had given it to her, but she’d felt so drained she didn’t have the spoons to open it last night. The wounds from her mom’s passing were still too fresh. Besides, she had a shift at the diner ahead of her to get through and the house to clean up. Whatever was in the letter could wait until her life was back on track again. Then she’d read it and fully process her loss.

Until then, Mandy crossed her arms and waited for the coffee to brew, figuring out her next step. With her audition falling through and her stay in town extended indefinitely because of the house situation, she need another way to supplement her income besides waitressing at The Chipper Chicken. She took a seat at the kitchen table and booted up her laptop, scrolling through the local job boards, hoping to find some leads, but nothing looked promising. Office Assistant? Too boring. Telephone Customer Service Rep? Too stressful. Adult Toy Party Host? Too weird.

Mandy nearly gave up when she spotted the second to last entry on the page:

Reader for children’s group. Part-time afternoons. Some theater experience helpful.

Intrigued, she Googled the place, aptly called the Playground, and discovered its connection to a local organization for the homeless that provided a safe environment for children while their parents gathered the life skills needed to regain their independence.

Good so far.

Plus, the map showed it was in walking distance of both The Chicken and the house.

Check number two in the Pros column.

Add in the fact she’d always loved kids and her acting background and…

We have a winner.

Mandy bookmarked the job posting, then shut down her computer. They accepted applications only in person, according to the website. The place was closed on the weekends, so she’d have to wait until Monday to apply, but having a plan made her feel better.

After fixing a mug of coffee, she shook some fish food into the small glass tank on the counter. The goldfish inside stared out at her, his small cheeks puffing out like tiny balloons. She bent and grinned at her pet. “Rise and shine, Duckie. Time for a new day!”

Twenty minutes later, freshly showered and dressed in her waitress uniform, Mandy stood in the living room once more, twisting her still-damp hair into a tight bun before pinning her pillbox server’s hat atop it like a woebegone gingham tiara.

She tugged on her coat on the way out the door then headed toward Main Street, her breath frosting in the brisk early morning air. She rushed inside the diner with five minutes to spare before her shift started, and the place was filling up already with regulars—the ladies book club, who gossiped more than they read, the high school football coach and his husband, a prominent abstract African American artist who’d shown in galleries across the nation, several local weekend warriors who stopped in each Saturday before hitting the biking trails around the town. After she hung her coat on a peg in the back room and shoved her purse into a locking metal filing cabinet in the manager’s office, she went back out into the hall and stopped short. A new addition to the crowd appeared. Tall, dark, with a duffel bag over one shoulder.

Alex.

…

Alex observed the hive of activity from his curved corner booth, hunched behind a copy of the Tribune, his bag on the floor between his feet. He’d checked out of the hotel early and hoped to get a jump on the day’s cleaning at the house. But on the shuttle ride over, he’d spotted Mandy and against his better judgment had followed her—knowing it wasn’t a good idea, knowing it couldn’t lead anywhere safe.

Never mind the delicious smells wafting from the kitchen.

“Morning.” Mandy set a glass of ice water in front of him. “Surprised to see you here.”

He ignored her implied question and focused on the menu instead. “What’s good?”

“Besides me?” she asked, raising a brow at him over the top of her order pad.

Her snarky sense of humor always used to make him laugh, but his ability to banter had been another unfortunate casualty of the shooting. He flipped to the next page of the menu without really looking at it. Between the conversations around him and his pounding pulse, his concentration was shot. “Just give me coffee, black, please.”

“All righty.” She grabbed a steaming pot from a nearby station then returned with a plain white mug. “Our special today is homemade brioche French toast and applewood-smoked bacon, locally sourced.” She leaned in closer, her voice dropping, and his throat dried at her nearness. “Not to hurry you along, but the manager gets irritated with campers.”

“Campers?” he managed to say, the word squeaking out like an old floorboard.

“People who take up tables without actually ordering anything.”

“Oh.” If that wasn’t a cosmic nudge to get going, Alex didn’t know what was. He coughed and frowned at the menu again. “Fine. I’ll have the special then.”

Alex slumped behind his paper as she walked away, doing his best to refocus his attention on the latest stock reports, tugging at the collar of his crewneck pullover and chugging down half his glass of water in one gulp. The aromas of sweet pastries and fried pork made his stomach growl. Back in Chicago he used to love eating out on Saturday mornings. He and Felicity used to go to a little bistro down from his apartment. They’d had the best crepes in town. But his appetite soon disappeared at the memory of his ex-fiancée and the life they had planned before the shooting. A hollow pit opened inside him, and his leg ached. She’d left him once the anxiety became too much. He couldn’t blame her. That wasn’t what she’d signed up for.

Wasn’t what he’d signed up for, either, but he was stuck with it.

So yeah. He was making the best of a bad deal.

The house would help with that, he hoped. Work always cleared his head and centered him in the past. He prayed it would do the trick now, too. Alex picked up his paper again, more as a shield against the curious looks from the people sitting around him than to read.

Mandy slid a plate in front of him a few minutes later, her voice overly cheerful as she said, “Can I get you anything else right now?”

“Uh, no. Thanks.” He set the Tribune aside and for the first time since his arrival, really looked at her. Dark circles shadowed the smooth skin beneath her eyes, and the diner’s humid air had curled a few wisps of hair around her face. An unexpected urge to brush those damp tendrils away from her pink cheeks had him clenching his fists at his sides. He had no business touching Mandy like that. Not now. Not ever.

She tilted her head, her gaze narrowing on him a moment before she shrugged. “Enjoy.”

Hands shaking, Alex watched her walk away then unwrapped his silverware and placed the napkin across his lap. The food looked good and tasted even better. The French toast melted in his mouth, all buttery goodness and maple sweet, with the bacon its perfect salty foil. His appetite returned full force, and he devoured it like a starved hamster. Once his plate was clean, he washed it down with black coffee, full and content for the first time in recent memory.

Mandy checked in with him a short time later. “How was it?”

Alex shifted his attention to the window across the way and the gathering line of people waiting to get inside. The silence grew and expectation clogged his throat. But the more he pressured himself the more the words refused to come. The clack of dinnerware snapped his attention back to Mandy once more. Finally, he managed to say, “Great, thank you.”

“Glad you liked it.” She finished clearing his table. “Be right back with your check.”

“Uh, sure,” he mumbled, straightening.

When she returned to place his bill in front of him, her arm brushed his and Alex shivered. For some weird reason, he’d become far too attuned to her since yesterday, and that was trouble. It took his frazzled brain a moment to realize she’d spoken again. “Sorry?”

“I said I can take that whenever you’re ready.”

“Oh, okay.” He dug out his wallet to hand her a twenty.

“Hey, Mandy. Get a move on,” a hulking guy in a grease-stained gray apron yelled from the kitchen. “You got other tables waiting.”

“On it,” she called back, flashing Alex a quick smile. “Let me get your change…”

Another waitress walked by with a huge tray of food just as the guy in the booth next to Alex’s stood. The two collided and dishes crashed to the floor. Alex was on his feet so fast his table nearly tipped. Heart racing faster than a thoroughbred, he grabbed his bag and rushed toward the exit, calling over his shoulder, “Give it to me later.”