being judgmental. Sitting beside her father on the pew, Eva knew this was a trait she struggled with. At the front desk of the ranch, she often decided on personalities of people before they’d finished check-in.
She judged which parents were too easy on their offspring. She judged which family would prove to be good tippers and which would leave their rooms an absolute mess. She was often right—but she’d been wrong a time or two.
Maybe she’d misjudged the man across the restaurant.
Eva glanced out the window and watched as the woman passed the bench by the front door, quickly lit up a cigarette, and then headed alongside the building.
The phone call must be really private for her to go out back where the Dumpsters were located. Except...she’d already put away her phone.
Stop it, Eva told herself. This is ridiculous. Go back to your book. She reread the last paragraph, but she’d forgotten the storyline.
Outside, the woman walked up to a man on a motorcycle.
Feeling slightly ridiculous, Eva glared at the doors to the kitchen. The bill...Eva really needed her bill. She was worried, actually worried about the two males left behind. And she didn’t even know them! If the restaurant hadn’t been so empty and the family—at least the woman—so noisy, Eva wouldn’t be so curious.
At least curiosity wasn’t a sin.
Not in moderation.
The rev of the motorcycle engine sounded right outside. Eva sighed and gave up pretending that she wasn’t watching. Peering through the window, Eva watched as the woman took one last puff from a cigarette before throwing it to the ground. She seemed agitated.
She also seemed to know the man on the motorcycle. Well enough that she climbed on the seat and wrapped her arms around his leather jacket. And then, off they went.
Eva hoped she hadn’t just witnessed someone getting dumped, especially not a someone who’d just heard the words “Meet your son.”
None of my business, Eva reminded herself.
But she knew the woman hadn’t said goodbye. And she knew what it was like to wait for someone who had no intention of returning.
She glanced back at the two guys left in the restaurant. The little boy, Timmy, picked at his food, eating with his fingers, and making a mess of his face. The man pushed an extra napkin in his direction, but Timmy ignored it, coloring more vigorously in between bites of food. Then his crayon rolled toward the edge of the table, and when he moved to grab it, he knocked over his water glass. Water covered the page he’d been coloring. Timmy froze.
Eva knew that response. The kid expected some kind of punishment.
“It’s okay,” the man said, gently. “We’ve got plenty of napkins.”
Just then, Jane showed up with more. Timmy was an unyielding mannequin. He looked like he was barely breathing. The man literally had to scoot the boy’s chair out of the way so Jane could clean the table.
Eva looked out the window again. The motorcycle and its two riders were long gone.
Jane brought Timmy a new coloring sheet. “You want dessert?” she asked.
“No, my mother stepped outside to take a call,” the man said. “As soon as she returns, we’ll pay the bill and take off.”
So the woman was his mother. But if he waited for her to come back, they’d be waiting a long time. Eva waved Jane over.
“You need to tell him,” Eva whispered, “that his mother just took off on a motorcycle with some guy.”
Jane took a step back. “You’re kidding. I don’t want to tell him.”
“We can’t leave them waiting.”
“You tell him,” Jane said, and before Eva could stop her, she’d motioned for him to join them.
Eva watched as he glanced at his mother’s keys, at Timmy and then at the front door before joining them.
Eva should have left a twenty on the table and hightailed it from the restaurant. Then she wouldn’t have been in this uncomfortable position. She looked out the window again, hoping the woman would magically appear. “You’re waiting for your friend to come back?”
“My mother,” the man admitted, then leaned forward, one strong hand braced on Eva’s table and the other pushing the curtain farther aside. “Did she fall or something?”
“Um,” Eva said, “I think she took off with some man on a motorcycle. I couldn’t see his face because he wore a helmet. They took off down the road, probably toward the interstate.”
“Oh, man, you’ve got to be kidding.” He’d had a stoic, too-serious expression from the time they’d entered the restaurant, but now she could clearly read shock all over his face.
Eva shook her head, not kidding.
He marched over to his table and ordered Timmy, “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
The boy didn’t move. Hadn’t since he’d spilled his water. But once his father turned away from him, he started edging to the floor and under the table.
As Eva and Jane watched, the man stepped outside, looked to the right and left. Not much happening on this blistering August day. It was after the noon rush, and the parking lot was empty save for four cars, including the one Eva had watched him arrive in.
Then he came back inside. Timmy was completely under the table, thumb in mouth, beginning a curious humming sound. The man walked past him, straight for Eva. “Tell me what you saw,” he ordered.
“I saw her leaving.”
“Story of my life,” he muttered.
He must have quite a story, but Eva didn’t want to know what happened in the next chapter. She liked her days to run smoothly. She’d spent her whole life, it seemed, trying to make sure the people around her were happy and that everything was in its place.
Sometimes she succeeded.
The past hour left her feeling worried and disgruntled. She exited the restaurant and climbed into the royal-blue Ford F-250 pickup decorated with the logo and phone number for the Lost Dutchman Ranch.
Driving out of Apache Creek township and into the rural area where the ranch waited, Eva remembered every detail from the restaurant. The man had obviously just had a son dropped in his lap by a mother who wasn’t much of a mother—or grandmother, apparently. Eva couldn’t even fathom the type of woman who’d sneak out of a restaurant leaving family behind not knowing.
She wondered how the man would get Timmy out from under the table. She had never been around reticent children. Her sisters had never been afraid to show their feelings.
She didn’t remember fear being part of her childhood—not fear of people, anyway. Fear
