town quarantined, the last thing he needed to entertain was any idea of a romance with the hot owner of the local diner.
* * *
Nina Owens was acutely aware of Chief of Police Flint Colton at the opposite end of the counter. As she’d served him his meal, she’d tried not to notice the richness of his dark brown hair or the almost electric green of his eyes. She tried to ignore his handsome, chiseled features and the commanding aura that radiated from him.
His shoulders were broad, his legs long and his waist slender. She’d been physically drawn to him since the very first time he’d walked into her diner around a year ago, but at the same time she’d been faintly repelled by the uniform he wore and the job that he did.
She knew her distaste for any officer of the law was irrational and that she should have grown out of her belief that all police were bad, but it was a vague uneasiness that she’d never been able to overcome when encountering any law-enforcement person.
She knew Flint was a highly respected man, known for his sharp intelligence, his sense of fairness and the seriousness with which he took his job.
She remained overly conscious of his presence at the counter until he’d eaten his lunch and left. Only then did she fully relax. She’d been in Dead River for the past three years, and it was a cruel fate that had made the first man she felt any attraction toward a law-enforcement official.
She’d seen enough dirty cops while growing up to never want to see one again for the rest of her life, not that she’d heard anything to indicate that Flint was anything close to a dirty cop.
It was just after the dinner rush that she went into the kitchen and found one of her waitresses, Flint’s cousin Molly, crying.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Nina asked as she draped an arm around the young woman’s slender shoulder. Even though Nina asked the question, she knew what probably had the pretty redhead weeping.
“I’m sorry,” Molly said as she gazed at Nina and quickly swiped the tears from her cheeks. “I know it’s stupid, but I just started thinking about what a fool I was with Jimmy. I can’t believe I let him talk me into putting his name on all my bank accounts and credit cards. I can’t believe I gave him my grandma’s ring to give to me at our wedding and most of all I can’t believe that I fell in love with him and didn’t realize he was such a slimy creep.” She drew a tremulous sigh as tears once again filled her bright blue eyes.
“Listen, honey, you aren’t the first woman in the world who fell in love with a creep,” Nina replied as she gave Molly a hug. “Just be grateful that you found out what his real character was like before the wedding actually took place.” Nina pulled a napkin from a nearby container and handed it to Molly.
“Flint says he can’t go after him for the money Jimmy stole because his name was on all the accounts, and that means he had the legal right to take it. I don’t care so much about the money, but I’m so sick that he took my grandmother’s ring.” She dabbed at her eyes with the napkin.
“And didn’t Flint tell you that once they find him, he will be arrested for the theft of the ring?”
“Yes, but I’m afraid he pawned it or something, and I’ll never get it back,” Molly replied.
Nina patted Molly’s shoulder. “If he pawned the ring here in town, then Flint will find it, and since he can’t get out of town, the odds are good that he still has the ring with him. Are you okay to work or do you need to go home?”
Molly sniffled and wiped her cheeks once again. “No, I’m fine. I just had a momentary mini-breakdown. Besides, I’m helping Helen close up tonight.”
“And I’m leaving a bit early to take dinner to Grace,” Nina said.
Molly’s blue eyes deepened in hue. “Aren’t you afraid that she has the virus?”
Nina smiled gently. “All I know for sure is that Grace went home sick yesterday. I don’t know if she has a bad cold, the common flu or the Dead River virus. I’m sure she won’t feel like cooking tonight so I’m fixing up a care package, and I’m taking it to her and Billy.”
She gave Molly a shove toward the dining area. “Now get back to work and stop beating yourself up over that jerk Jimmy, and stop worrying about me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Molly gave her a saucy salute and left the kitchen.
Nina was grateful to see Molly back to her cheerful sweetness. At twenty-one years old, Molly was probably going to kiss a lot of frogs before she finally found the man meant for her.
Nina had certainly kissed a lot of frogs in her life, but she wasn’t looking for any special man to share her life. She was perfectly content alone, always had been, always would be.
With the dinner rush finished, Nina got busy filling a large Styrofoam take-out container with slices of meat loaf and mashed potatoes, green beans and two dinner rolls. There was not only enough food to feed Grace, but also her eight-year-old son.
Grace had left work early the day before with a bad cough and complaining about a bad headache. Nina had called her this afternoon, and Grace had confessed she still didn’t feel well at all.
Nina had told her to stay in bed, drink lots of fluids and had promised she’d stop by this evening with dinner for both her and her son, Billy.
Just before she finished packing up the food, she threw into the bag a couple of her special double chocolate chip cookies, knowing that they were one of Billy’s favorites.
Billy was almost a daily visitor to the diner. Grace worked an eight-to-five schedule, and Billy would come in after school during the weekdays and take a two-top table in the corner to wait for his mom’s shift to be over.
He was a cute kid with shiny brown hair and blue eyes like his mother. He was also a good kid, who sat quietly and did his homework, never bothering anyone while he was there. Nina had taken to him immediately, as she did most of the younger diners who came in with their parents.
Darkness had already fallen when Nina finally stepped out of the back door of the diner where her car was parked. Clad in a long-sleeved white blouse and a pair of black slacks that all the waitresses wore, she wished she’d thought of bringing her coat with her that morning as the night had brought with it a nip of a wintry chill.
She got into her car and placed the bag of food on the passenger seat and then turned her key to start the engine. She frowned at the sound of the familiar whir-whir of her battery refusing to catch. She turned the ignition off, waited a minute and then tried again, grateful to hear the engine finally roar to a start.
Gus at Dead River Auto Body had put in a new battery for her last week, but had warned her that the problem might be her alternator.
She waited for the heater to begin to blow warmth, trying to decide when she could take the time off to get the car back in for Gus to fix. Most days and evenings she was at the diner.
She supposed she could drop it off on the way to work one morning and pick it up on the way home. She could get either one of the cooks or a waitress to drive her from the auto shop in the morning and take her back there in the evening.
As she waited, she thought of all the recent events that had changed the town she had come to love and call home.
