By two o’clock that afternoon, Jasmine had run out of everything and could only offer hamburgers and fries to the customers. At closing time, the café was still full, and she hadn’t even had enough time to stop for a cup of coffee since Flint Walker had arrived at noon.
She left the kitchen long enough to flip the OPEN sign to CLOSED at three o’clock and lock the door. “Flint, would you be the doorman and unlock the door as the folks leave?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded. “And I suppose I should lock it back every time, even if there’s people sitting on the porch waiting to get in?”
“That’s right,” she told him.
He didn’t let the last of the customers out until almost four that afternoon. By then, dark clouds had begun to float in from the southwest. Flint hadn’t believed in signs and omens before, but now he was beginning to wonder if he’d been wrong. First it was the dog, and now dark clouds shifting up toward Ringgold. That usually meant a storm, and he immediately wondered if it could mean he’d made the wrong decision about sticking around in a town so small that if you blinked when you drove through it, you would miss it.
Or run over a dog if you shut your eyes for a second, the aggravating voice in his head said.
Flint shook the silly superstitions out of his head. “Would you have a garage, a storage shed, or somewhere I can unload my things?”
“There are four rooms and a bathroom upstairs. Three bedrooms and a sitting room. You can take your pick of either of the spare bedrooms,” she answered.
“That would be for my clothes and such,” Flint said. “I’ve got a saddle and some things…”
“The garage out back. I keep extra supplies out there, but there’s lots of room for whatever you need to store there, and thanks for all the help this afternoon. I would have had a tough go of it without you,” she said. “The key to the garage is hanging beside the back door.”
“Thanks.” Flint nodded. “Looks like I just might get it all out of the weather in time. Those clouds are bringing rain. I could smell it when I let the last customer out.”
“You go on and get your things unloaded. I’ll start the cleanup, and then we’ll call it a day,” Jasmine said.
“Won’t take fifteen minutes, and then I’ll help you,” Flint threw over his shoulder as he grabbed the key, his coat and hat, and headed out the front door.
Jasmine had just finished taking the last load of dishes to the kitchen when he came in the back door. “Got my truck parked by the garage. All right if I bring in my suitcases by this way?”
“That’s fine,” she answered. “Take them right on upstairs and pick out either room on the right side of the hallway.”
He brought in a couple of suitcases but was only gone a few minutes before he came back down to the kitchen. “So, when you bought this place, did you have to remodel the downstairs part of the house and put in two restrooms?”
“No, the previous owner did that,” Jasmine answered. “I just did some cosmetic touches. Some fresh paint and new tablecloths, mainly.”
Flint rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows and said, “I’ll be glad to rinse the dishes and put them in the dishwasher if you’ll unload that second one. I don’t know where things go, so we can get done faster if we’re organized. Or I can put the chairs on the tables and sweep and mop the dining room floor if you’d rather I do that.”
Wait until Pearl hears that he knows his way around the kitchen and how to mop, Jasmine thought.
“I thought you were a rancher,” she said.
“I am a rancher, but my mama died about ten years ago. Grandpa and I had to learn to do a lot of things when we lost her, so I know how to clean house, how to cook a little, and how to do laundry,” he answered.
“I’m sorry,” Jasmine said. Even though her mother drove her crazy at times, she couldn’t imagine life without her.
“Thanks,” he said with a brief nod. “Now, dishes or mop?”
“Mop, please. The disinfectant spray is in the broom closet…”
“I also know how to clean tables.” He grinned as he opened the door at the end of the cabinets. “But I like ranchin’ a whole lot better than cleaning or dirty laundry.”
“I like cooking better than cleaning,” Jasmine said, “but one goes hand in hand with the other. Are you really going to look at the old Buford ranch?”
“Doesn’t hurt to look, but I doubt that I’ll buy it,” Flint answered. “I’m mad at my cousins for selling the family ranch, and I want to get farther away from them than just one state over.”
“Why didn’t you buy your cousins out?” she asked.
“Money.” He shrugged. “I didn’t have enough by any means, and the bank said no. My cousins didn’t want to split the yearly profits six ways, and besides I don’t think I could have survived paying out that much money that needed to go back into the ranch. So we sold it and split the profit six ways. Do you always give your help free room and board?”
Jasmine nodded. “If they need it, but this is the first time I’ve ever hired a cowboy.”
Flint grinned. “I’m not a bad person. Never even had a parking ticket in my life. I just don’t have to be in a hurry to go north, and my grandpa taught me not to close the door on an opportunity.”
He systematically cleaned each table, set the chairs up, and then swept the floor before he brought out the mop. By the time she had the kitchen ready for the morning rush, he was done. Jasmine glanced up at the clock to see that it was only five thirty. These past few days she hadn’t finished the cleanup until sometime around six, and that was with getting all the customers out by three.
“So, what now?” Flint dumped the dirty mop water and used bleach to take care of the mop.
“Now we leave this behind us and go upstairs to relax. I’m used to having leftovers for supper. I haven’t eaten all day, but I’m almost too tired to chew. I’ll probably just grab a toaster pastry,” she said.
“I’ve got a better idea.” Flint went to the dining room, brought two chairs into the kitchen, and set them beside the worktable. “You sit down right here, and I’ll make you my famous omelet.”
“Are you serious?” Jasmine’s eyes grew wide.
“Yep,” Flint said as he filled a glass with ice and sweet tea and put it on the table. “I’ve worked up an appetite this afternoon too. I haven’t taken time to draw a good breath since noon, and you’ve been at it since six this morning. My biscuits could be used for hockey pucks, so we’ll have toast.” He took eggs, onions, peppers, cheese, and bacon from the refrigerator.
Jasmine sank down into one of the chairs and kicked her shoes off under the table. She wasn’t sure if she was the luckiest woman on earth or right the opposite. Flint had been a great help all afternoon, and now he was making supper for them. Most of her waitresses left as soon as they flipped the OPEN sign on the door over to CLOSED. But the downside of having really good help was that it made her wish she was keeping the café.
The grill had cooled down. Rather than fire it up again, he set a cast-iron skillet on the stove, and with the ease of someone who knew his way around a kitchen, he fried the bacon first, then used the grease to make the omelet. When it was done, he sprinkled cheese on top, added crumbled bacon and a handful of diced tomatoes, then put the lid on it and set it at the back of the stove. While the cheese melted, he made them each two pieces of toast.
“You’re pretty good at that,” she said.
“I do a good job on this, chili, and bologna sandwiches. Grandpa did a lot of the cooking, and just so you know, I can make thwock biscuits in a pinch.” He grinned.
“What kind of biscuits is that?” she asked.
“The kind you buy in round tubes, peel off a bit of the paper on the outside, and then thwock them on the edge of the cabinet.” He chuckled. “But even then, I burn them if I’m not real careful.”
Jasmine laughed with him. “Then I’ll take care of the biscuits for the breakfast run in the morning.”
When the toast was done, he buttered it, put in two more slices, and carried the skillet to the table. “Just sit still. I’ll get plates and silverware for us. Do you want jelly or picante?”
“Grape jelly for my toast. Picante for the omelet.” She hadn’t been waited on in forever. The last time she had even had a blind date, the guy had taken her to an all-you-can-eat buffet, and that had been six months ago.
The aroma of bacon, slightly warmed tomatoes, and onions wafted across the kitchen when he removed the skillet lid. She inhaled deeply, enjoying the mere smell of food that she didn’t have to cook.
“Supper is served. Pass your plate, madam,” Flint said.
He cleans. He cooks. He even serves, she thought. Why is he not married?
“Do you do this for your girlfriend?” Jasmine asked.
“No girlfriend in the picture. No marriage in the past. Grandpa kept telling me I was letting all the good ones get past me,” he answered as he slid half the huge omelet onto her plate.
She took a bite and decided it tasted too good to cover with picante. “Very good,” she muttered.
“Thank you,” he said. “How about you? How it is that a woman who can cook like you do and who is as gorgeous as you are isn’t married?”
“Haven’t had time to put into a serious relationship,” she admitted. “My friend Pearl reminds me daily that my biological clock is ticking.”
“Guess we’ve got that in common,” he said. “I was too busy running a ranch, one that my cousins didn’t do jack squat to build up and yet got their portion of the inheritance.”
“Didn’t your grandpa have a will?” Jasmine asked.
“He just never got around to making one,” Flint answered. “He always swore he was going to live to be a hundred, and he kept talking about consulting with the lawyer, but…” He shrugged.
“How many kids did he have?” Jasmine could have listened to him talk all night. That deep Louisiana drawl was every bit as sexy as he was.
“Four,” Flint answered. “My mama was the oldest, and then three boys who couldn’t wait to get off the ranch. Two of them went to the army. One of those died in the Gulf War, the other in a friendly-fire accident. The third one passed away with cancer just before Grandpa did. How about you? Brothers, sisters?”
“One sister,” Jasmine answered. “We can stand each other at holidays for maybe two or three hours. She got furious with me for leaving a good corporate job and buying this café out in the middle of nowhere. She’s a high-powered lawyer in Sherman.”
What if this guy is a con artist? What if his name isn’t even Flint Walker? You never did have a lick of sense. Her sister Kathleen’s voice was so clear in her head that Jasmine looked up to see if she’d come through the back door.
You should listen to your sister. This time it was her mama talking. She’s always had a good head on her shoulders, and just look at how far she’s gone with her life.
Hush, Wynona, her deceased father whispered in Jasmine’s head.
“Thanks, Daddy,” she muttered.
“Did you say something?” Flint asked.
“I was just talking to myself,” Jasmine answered. “If I’m going to put you on payroll, even for a week, you need to fill out a simple form for me, and I’ll need to copy your driver’s license and Social Security card,” Jasmine said.
“Sure thing.” He pulled out his wallet and laid both cards on the table.
See there, she thought, I’m not so stupid after all. I’ve run this café for ten years. I can read people pretty damn good.
She wasn’t about to admit that she’d had misgivings about him at first, not with her mother and sister both taking up residence in her head.
When they’d finished supper, Flint offered to do the cleanup, but she protested. “You’ve cooked. I’ll help with the dishes. Both dishwashers are running, so we’ll have to do them by hand.”
“I’ll wash,” he said as he ran a sink full of water. “What do you normally do at this time of day?”
“I watch some television or read, or catch up on my laundry, or do some upstairs cleaning,” Jasmine answered. “All those things that most folks do at the end of a day.” She dried the dishes and put them away, then removed her apron and got out the papers for him to sign for tax purposes.
He picked up his driver’s license and Social Security card and slipped them back into his wallet, filled out the papers, and gave them back to her. “I haven’t put my signature on one of those forms in thirty years.”
“How’s that?” she asked.
“Grandpa put me on the part-time payroll when I was ten years old, and I’ve never worked anywhere else but on that ranch.”
“Well, Mr. Flint Walker, you do a fine job of being a waiter. I’d never have guessed that you didn’t have experience working in a café somewhere.” She filed the forms in the file cabinet over in the corner.
“That comes from helping out at the ranch sale every year. Mingle, serve, and be nice to the buyers.” He grinned. “So, it’s time to call it a day?”
“Yep, make yourself at home,” she answered. “There’s a small refrigerator in the sitting room that’s got beer and bottles of sweet tea in it. If you get hungry, there’s always snack food here in the kitchen. And thanks again for agreeing to work for me for a week and for delaying your trip up north.”
“No problem. I could use a week to get over having to leave my home. Hopefully then I’ll be able to go on north with a fresh mind and not try to buy the first thing that I see.” Flint followed her up the stairs. “Besides, look at it like this. I wouldn’t have even stopped here if it hadn’t been for that big yellow dog in the middle of the road. Maybe Fate is talking to me. That critter looked almost just like our ranch dog back in Louisiana. His name is Gator.”
“Did the new owners keep him with the ranch?” Jasmine asked.
“No, our foreman, Sam, took him home with him,” Flint answered.
Jasmine was very aware of him behind her. Even above the smell of food that permeated his shirt and hair, she caught an occasional whiff of his shaving lotion—something woodsy with a hint of vanilla.
She sent up a silent prayer. Lord, please don’t make me have to admit to my mama and sister that I was wrong about him.
“You going to take the first shower or am I?” he asked when they reached the hallway.
“You can have it,” she said. “I need to make a couple of phone calls.”
“Thanks.” He nodded and headed toward the bedroom that was right across the hallway from hers.
She closed the door to her room, sat down in an old wooden rocking chair beside the window, and watched the sunset. The bare trees became silhouettes as the sun disappeared on the horizon, leaving streaks of purple, yellow, and orange in between the dark clouds that hovered overhead.
“Are those clouds an omen?” she muttered as she pulled up her contact list and punched in Pearl’s name.
“Hey, how did your cowboy work out?” Pearl answered. “Did he make it all day, or did he decide after an hour to get his sexy self on across the Red River and head north?”
“He’s still here, and…” She went on to tell Pearl more about him.
“If you get tired of him, kick him over here. Wil can use him on the ranch, and I’ll let him cook and clean all he wants.” Pearl chuckled.
“You do know what Mama and Kathleen would say, don’t you?” Jasmine asked.
“Is this the woman who defied her family and bought Chicken Fried Café ten years ago? Where is that sassy broad?” Pearl asked.
Jasmine inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. “That headstrong woman is tired tonight and second-guessing herself. Flint seems like a good person, and we had a full house from noon until closing. I think a lot of people were coming just to take a peek at my new cowboy waiter.”
“Hard worker. Good for business,” Pearl said. “It don’t get no better than that. Too bad he’s only committed to work for a week. You and Diana could use a good worker to help while the cafe changes hands.
“Amen.” Jasmine sighed.
“Think you’ll continue to have a full house while he’s there?” Pearl asked.
“If the rumors keep spreading, I just might,” Jasmine answered. “Hetty and Lola came in for lunch with two of their cousins from Bowie.”
“What about Amos and Elvis?” Pearl asked.
“They were the first ones here after Flint arrived. Then Clark came in and sat with them,” Jasmine told her.
“That’s a real fine start to feed the gossip vine. I’m surprised y’all didn’t have another fire over there.” Pearl giggled again.
“You think he’s that hot?” Jasmine asked.
“Any woman with good eyes would think he’s hot!” Pearl answered. “But I wasn’t talking about Flint. I was talking about all that gossip setting the cell phone towers on fire. I’m just glad the wind isn’t blowing toward Henrietta or we might get the aftershocks of it all the way over here.”
“Oh, hush!” Jasmine laughed out loud. She could always, always depend on Pearl to make her laugh, and to encourage her to see the positive side in anything. But then Pearl had left a good-paying job to run a fifties-style motel about eleven years ago. Even though the motel burned down, that’s where she had met Wil, who had become the love of her life. So as far as Pearl was concerned, everything worked out just fine.
“You go enjoy your evening with Tall, Dark, and Handsome. I’ve got supper ready to serve to Wil and the kids,” Pearl said. “We’ll talk more tomorrow, and I’ll drop in as soon as I can make time and meet this knight in shining apron.”
“He doesn’t wear an apron. He carries his order pad in his hip pocket,” Jasmine protested.
“I bet that sets the old ladies to fanning with the menu.” Pearl giggled. “You might want to put those little white pills that cures hot flashes on the menu.”
Jasmine laughed even harder. “Give my godchildren kisses for me.”
“Will do,” Pearl said and ended the call.
Flint stood under the hot water a little longer than usual, letting it beat on his back. The work he’d done that day wasn’t anywhere near as hard as what he’d done on the ranch, but every muscle in his body was so tight that hours of massage wouldn’t work out the knots.
“I shouldn’t have let leaving the ranch irritate me so much,” he muttered. “But dammit! The cousins could have worked with me.” Just thinking about it tensed up his face as well as his back. Finally, he turned off the water, stepped out and dried himself off, and then dressed in a pair of pajama pants and a tank top. He hung his towel on a hook on the back of the door and headed to the bedroom. He used the trash can for a dirty clothes hamper and then went to the sitting room, picked up the remote, and turned on the television.
He sat down on the end of the love seat, leaned his head back, and had barely closed his eyes when his phone rang. He fished it out of his pants pocket, grinned when he saw who was calling, and answered. “Hello, Sam, how did you enjoy your first day of retirement?”
“I didn’t,” the old ranch foreman answered. “I was bored out of my mind. I’ve got to get me a few chickens, maybe some rabbits or a goat or two, so at least I’ll have some livestock. I’m glad I’ve got ten acres. If I’m not dead of boredom by the time another spring rolls around, I might put in a garden. How far did you get today?”
“Well, that’s a long story.” Flint chuckled. “It all started with a big yellow dog, not a lot different from old Gator. I’m so glad you took him home with you, Sam. His old bones wouldn’t have taken the cold up north.”
“Me and him has been buddies for more’n ten years, and he’s the only livestock I got right now. No way would I leave him for the new ranch owners,” Sam declared. “Now tell me about the yellow dog.”
When Flint finished his story, he could imagine Sam shaking his head and could hear him chuckling.
“Boy, I told you that getting away from here so you wouldn’t have to look at the ranch you couldn’t keep would be the best thing for you. I want you to look at that run-down place there in Texas. Building something back up might be just what you need to get over losing your home,” Sam told him. “That yellow dog might’ve been an angel sent straight from heaven to guide you to the right ranch. Now tell me more about your new boss lady.”
“I knew you’d ask about that, so I took a couple of pictures of her, and I’m sending them right now, but Sam, this town only has a café and a church, and I don’t even know if they have services in the church. It doesn’t even have a school. From what I gathered from customers today, the kids go to Stoneburg, which is south of here. Give me one good reason I should even think about putting my money into a ranch here,” Flint said.
“Number one: A big yellow dog made you stop. Two: They make good chicken-fried steaks. Three: If you go to Montana or Wyoming or even Colorado, I’ll bet you dollars to cow patties that any kids you might have will ride a bus farther than that school is from Ringgold,” Sam said. “And four: Damn, that’s a pretty woman you got for your new boss lady.”
Jasmine came into the room and sat down on the other end of the sofa. She reached around and pushed a button, and a footrest came slowly up. “This is a double recliner. If you want to really relax, use the buttons on the end.”
“And she’s got a sweet Texas twang to boot. Get off here and talk to her, Flint. You can talk to a disgruntled, retired old ranch foreman any old time. Goodbye now,” Sam said and ended the call.
Flint found the buttons and was reclining with his feet up in no time. “This is pretty fancy,” he said.
“I figure I deserve a little extra after working hard all day. What are we watching? I should tell you that I don’t have cable. We get two stations that play reruns for the most part. I do have a DVD player and lots of movies behind those center doors,” she said.
He handed her the remote. “You choose. I’ll probably sleep through whatever we’re watching.”
“If you snore, I’ll throw things at you,” she warned.
“I don’t snore,” he said, “but in case I snort a little, you can throw anything but snakes at me. I’d have a heart attack if I woke up to a snake crawling around on me.”
“Big old cowboy like you is afraid of snakes?” she teased.
“In this cowboy’s way of thinking, there’s only two kinds of snakes in the world—cobras and rattlesnakes. And there ain’t no wrong way to kill either one. A .22 rifle or pistol works fine. A garden hoe will do, and if you ain’t got either one of those, then a big rock will take care of the job,” he said.
“I keep a .38 pistol in my nightstand and a sawed-off shotgun under the cabinet in the kitchen, so I’ll protect you from snakes if you will protect me from mice or rats. I hate those wicked, evil critters,” she said.
“You do know that sawed-off shotguns are not legal, don’t you?” Flint asked.
“Only if the barrel is sawed off to be shorter than eighteen inches. Mine is one half an inch over that length, so it’s legal. Now, about those rats?” She raised an eyebrow.
He stretched out his hand. “Deal, but if I see a really big rat can I use the shotgun?”
She put her small hand in his. “Honey, you can use anything you can find.”
The sparks that jumped around when their hands touched lit up the room like the Fourth of July.
He dropped her hand, but the heat was still there. Reruns of Law & Order were on television; the episode playing was about a man who’d had his wife murdered for cheating.
“I can kind of relate to that guy,” Flint muttered, “but I’d never go that far.”
Jasmine nodded. “Me too.”
“I sort of lied to you about relationships,” he admitted. “I was in a very serious one for a couple of years, and then the woman cheated on me with one of my cousins.”
Jasmine hit the mute button and jerked her head around to face Flint. “The same cousin that was one of those that sold the ranch out from under you?”
“Yep,” Flint said. “It all happened about four years ago. They’re married now and have a little boy.”
“No wonder you want to get as far away from that area as possible,” she said. “That’s what put me in Ringgold. My boyfriend was cheating on me, and I wanted to get away from Sherman.”
“Have you gotten over it?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She nodded. “But that guy didn’t steal my inheritance.”
“How’d you get closure, as they call it?” he asked.
“Closure is just something that therapists promise. It’s not a real thing.” She smiled. “You just put it away in the past. Kind of like putting a box in a storage unit and never going back there to open it again. Pretty soon you forget what’s in the box, and you don’t even care if the mice or rats have destroyed it.”
Flint didn’t even realize he was holding his breath until it came out in a whoosh. “She laughed in my face when the whole group of cousins and their spouses heard my proposal. I wouldn’t mind sinking that box in a river full of gators.”
“Then do it, and then move on,” Jasmine told him. “Until you do, that woman and all those cousins have power over you.”
“How’d you get to be so smart?” he asked.
“By deciding that no one—not my mama or sister or my ex-boyfriend or anyone else—was going to have power over me. Every now and then, something has to remind me to take my control back, but for the most part, I’m a fairly peaceful woman,” she told him.
Flint had talked to his grandfather about his ex and to Sam about his frustrations with the ranch, but both older men had told him that life wasn’t perfect, so just move on. Basically, that’s what Jasmine had said, but the way she had put it made more sense to him.
“Pearl’s aunt told us that when one door closes, another one opens, and usually what’s behind door number two is a helluva lot better anyway.” She pushed a button on the remote and found that the credits were rolling. “Let’s do a movie. Got a preference—action, chick flick, humor?”
“Something funny,” he said.
“Home Alone it is, even if Christmas is over.” She got up, found the movie and put it in the player, then sat back down. “I always watch this one when I need a good laugh.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before. Grandpa liked his old Westerns, so that’s what I grew up on.” Flint couldn’t believe that he had been so open with Jasmine or even with Amos and Elvis. Maybe this café had special healing powers, and Sam was right about that yellow dog being dropped down from the Pearly Gates.