flying out from under her tires, her wedding dress crumpled in a heap in the trunk of her Pontiac?
If her pulse had been jogging before, it was definitely racing now as she kept waiting for Jared to say something.
Anything.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Annette heard the fifties-flavored Valentine’s-inspired music playing low over the ceiling speakers, heard her only other customers telling her that they’d left cash for their bill and her tip on the table, then the dinging bell as they exited the diner.
Absently, she lifted a hand in goodbye to them, then turned her attention back to Jared.
But all he did was reach for the nearby heart-decorated tin bucket that held all the napkin-wrapped silverware.
If there was anyone else in St. Valentine who understood how precious privacy could be, it was Jared Colton. He’d proved it time and again while keeping to himself after wandering into town shortly before she had, just as much of a cipher as she tried to be, then turning his back on anyone who tried to poke into his reasons for being here.
Even though everyone did have a good idea just why Jared had stuck around.
Her gaze wandered to the hand-drawn pictures hanging above the service window: renderings playfully showing the town’s past in the late 1920s and the stoic faces of the townspeople, including one who was a dead ringer for the cowboy sitting in front of her.
Was Jared related to Tony Amati, St. Valentine’s upstanding town founder? If so, then why hadn’t he admitted it to anyone?
She brushed off the questions, then went behind the Formica-topped counter. It would provide cover for her tummy, even if it was getting too far along to hide.
He was unwrapping his silverware, and when he merely said, “It’ll be the usual for me today,” she almost sank against the counter in pure relief. So he hadn’t seen her swelling belly—or, at least, he wasn’t about to comment on it.
But how long would that last?
After she signaled to the ponytailed, hippy-goateed cook behind the service window for “the usual,” she fetched a glass, filled it with ice and cola, then gave it to Jared. She propped her foot on a step stool that she’d recently put under the counter to take some of the weight off her feet.
“I’ve got your usual,” she said. “And I suppose you expect service to be extra special because you were such a big shot in the rodeo.”
A shadow seemed to pass over him, yet it disappeared quickly enough.
He glanced around the diner, which was painted in turquoise and looked as if it’d been decorated by the Jetsons when they were in a hearts-and-flowers mood, then changed the subject whip-quick. “Apparently, I came during a lull today.”
All right. So she’d already found out that he was a champion subject-changer months ago. But she had also done her fair share of avoiding a lot of topics ever since she’d left behind what’s-his-name.
Okay, his name was Brett. She might as well take some power back from him and just say his damned name.
Brett the Turd. Turdy Brett. Brett Turdwell. She had a thousand names for him.
“This lull is a nice rest,” she said. “We’ve been on fire around here lately.”
“Tell me about it.”
“It’s amazing how many tourists can be attracted by a good mystery like Tony Amati’s unsolved death.” Violet and Davis Jackson, the owners of the town’s small paper, had uncovered Tony’s odd, unresolved demise months ago, after Jared had appeared in St. Valentine and excited everybody’s interest with his doppelganger looks. The reporters had been after him for interviews, but he never gave any to them.
He took a drink, then said, “You know, every time I turn on the TV I see St. Valentine and Tony Amati. It’s all over the place.”
“And that’s exactly what Violet and Davis want. So does the chamber of commerce, especially shortly before the Valentine’s Day Festival.” Annette only hoped that the town wouldn’t get too much of a profile.
She couldn’t afford it.
Subtly, she skimmed a hand over her stomach. I’m going to make sure no one knows where we went.
“One would think,” she said, “that you don’t like watching those profiles about Tony and St. Valentine.”
He didn’t say anything, just took another drink of soda, as secretive as ever.
“Okay, Mr. Strong but Silent,” she said, grinning a little, “I guess you wouldn’t be interested in something I dug up about Tony Amati this morning, then, would you?”
Now he put the cola down.
Gotcha.
With a tiny shrug, she went to the back room and dipped her hand in the patchwork purse she’d bought at some dime store back when she’d stocked up on cheap clothing and necessities with the only cash she’d had on hand before lucking into this job. She came out with a rectangular metal box wrapped in bulky oilcloth.
By the time she returned to Jared, he’d tipped his hat back so that she could see all of his face, which might not be considered handsome as much as strong and manly, with a square chin set off with a slight cleft and an eternal five o’clock shadow covering his lantern jaw and his cheeks. He had the type of nose that you’d see on Roman statues and the same type of body, too—hard and muscular, with a strength that made adrenaline fly through her veins.
But that’s how she’d felt when she’d first met Brett, too—the all-American college quarterback and youngest son of the oil-rich Tulsa Cresswell family.
The man who’d raised a hand to her on their wedding day before she’d left him to eat her dust.
She put the package on the counter, but Jared merely stared at it.
“Go ahead,” she said. “It won’t bite.”
Still, he glanced at her as if it might do just that. “What is it?”
“A brand-new car. I was in a giving mood when I bought it.”
That got a chuckle out of him.
Out of patience, Annette unwound the material from around the box, then opened it. She unwrapped more oilcloth from the contents and presented him with the final product.
He looked at the journal, with its hard-crusted covers sandwiching the yellowed, swollen pages.
Annette put it on the counter again. “I like to do some gardening. It’s a calming thing, but...well, that’s not what you want to hear, is it? What matters is that I was digging deep to loosen the soil in a part of the yard I hadn’t been using when I hit something in the dirt.”
“This,” he said.
“A journal. And I peeked inside, just to see what it was, but when I got a load of Tony Amati’s name written on the front page...”
“It’s...Tony’s?”
