futility of that escape. This four-year-old bundle of energy wouldn’t stand for that much motherly protection. With a sigh, she loosened her arms and let her son slip from them.
“Stay back here,” she told him. “Go find your crayons and paper.”
He tipped his sweet face up to her, his brown eyes earnest. “I made a picture for you at day care. Got it in my backpack.” He twisted to free his arms from the pint-sized red and purple backpack.
“Take it back to your cubby. I’ll come look at it when I bring your snack.”
He gave her a winning smile. “Can I have chocka chip cookies?”
“And milk. I’ll bring them in a minute.”
He dashed off to the back of the kitchen where her parents had carved out a place for him when he was an infant. In an alcove that had once been a well-stocked pantry, they’d set up a portable crib, windup mobile and baby monitor. Those essentials had given way to a play-pen and toy shelf during the toddler years. Now Nate’s place boasted a child-sized table, shelves full of toys and a bookcase overflowing with books. A TV-DVD combo provided emergency entertainment on nights when the café was unexpectedly busy.
Once Nate finished his snack and his interest in coloring waned, he would appear in the kitchen, ready to be her helper. On most Thursday nights, business was slow enough that Nina could keep an eye on Nate as he busied himself with the small tasks she gave him. Tonight, she’d just have to make sure she kept her son occupied in the back until Jameson was safely gone.
The door bells jangled and Nina looked up, hoping the night cook had arrived for his shift. She welcomed any distraction to defuse the tension that crackled through her. But it wasn’t Dale, just an out-of-towner couple with two young children. No doubt they were on their way to Tahoe or Reno, making an early weekend of it.
As she stepped from the kitchen to bring them menus, another family entered, this one with grandma and four children in tow. Nina grabbed seven more menus as the two groups joined forces and started rearranging tables in the middle of the café. She waited at Jameson’s table as parents helped their children with their jackets before seating themselves.
Jameson wiped up the last of his gravy with his roll. “Early dinner crowd. Especially for a Thursday.”
She didn’t want to respond, didn’t even want to acknowledge that he was there. Why wouldn’t he leave? “It’s a church group from Sacramento. They’ve been in before.”
A third family jangled through the door, this one led by the church pastor. Their arrival brought the count up to nearly twenty. Nina added several children’s menus to her stack and left them on the row of tables the group had put together.
In the kitchen, Nina ran through the possibilities in her mind. She could call Lacey back. She could phone her mother, but Pauline Russo needed to be home with her husband, not cooking at the café. Nina’s father was still recovering from a mild heart attack.
Or, she could ask…no, she wouldn’t even consider it. She wanted him gone, the sooner the better. She shut her eyes, trying to think.
“Where’s the night cook?”
She jumped at the sound of his voice and took a quick step back. She hadn’t even heard his quiet footsteps into the kitchen. “He’s a little late.”
Jameson nodded, his intense blue gaze never leaving her face. “You can’t wait tables and put up orders by yourself.”
She wrapped her arms around her middle. “He’ll be here soon.”
Jameson nodded. “You’ll give my number to your folks?”
“Yes, I will.” Now go. Please.
He nodded again, then turned away. He’d nearly stepped from the kitchen when the café phone rang. Back in his alcove, Nate called out, “I’ll get it, Mommy!”
Jameson stopped, looking back over his shoulder as Nate raced for the old-fashioned dial phone on the kitchen wall. As Nate snatched up the receiver, Jameson turned to watch the tiny whirlwind.
“Nina’s Café,” Nate said importantly. “May I help you?” He listened a few moments, then held out the phone to Nina. “It’s Dale. He’s sick.”
Nina sent up a silent prayer that Dale was faking and could be bullied into coming into work. But she only had to hear the few raspy words the young man could muster to realize he was genuinely ill, victim to the latest strain of flu.
“Take care of yourself, Dale.” Nina hung up the phone, then looked out at the tables of hungry customers.
“Nina,” Jameson said.
She didn’t even think before she answered. “No.”
“Let me help you.”
She shook her head. She couldn’t think when he was here. If he would only leave she could come up with a solution to her dilemma.
Nate tugged her hand. “I can help, Mommy. I can fill all the sugar shakers and all the salt and peppers.”
“Lacey filled them already, sweetheart.” Nina put her arm around her son and led him back to his alcove. “I’ll bring you your cookies right now.”
She hurried to the dry store shelves and pulled out the plastic container of homemade cookies. She grabbed a handful and put them on a paper plate, then stopped in the walk-in refrigerator for a carton of milk. She brought cookies and milk to Nate, then found his cartoon cup.
“I’m going to call Grandma,” she told him. “She’ll take you to her house tonight.”
She couldn’t impose on her mother to come in to work, but Pauline would never pass up a chance for a visit from her grandson. Leaving Nate munching cookies and drawing on an art pad, Nina returned to the kitchen.
A glance out at the floor told her the crowd had grown, three new parties staking out their own territory in the café. As she watched the latest arrivals settle in, she remembered the item in the Sacramento Bee about a church convention in Reno this weekend. It seemed every congregation in the Central Valley had made the detour to her café on their way up Interstate 80.
When she didn’t see Jameson, she felt grateful and anxious all at once. So he’d left. That was just what she wanted, right? It was crazy to feel so abandoned.
Grabbing the phone, she dialed her parents’ house. She focused on her father when he answered, heard the tiredness in his usually hearty voice.
“It’s bingo night, honey,” Vincent Russo reminded her. “Mom won’t be home until ten.”
Nina rubbed at the tightness between her eyes. Thursday had been bingo night for her mother for at least a decade. Jameson’s presence had so scrambled her brain, she’d clean forgotten.
“She’s got her cell, hon,” her father said. “You can call her there.”
“That’s okay, Daddy. I’ll call her later.” The last thing she wanted was to deprive her mother of that small weekly pleasure.
Hanging up, she returned
