The bell above the diner door jingled. Crowded, noisy, the diner, with its blue-and-white decor, held the aroma of perked coffee and freshly baked cinnamon buns. One of the waitresses poured coffee into two thick mugs and plunked them down in front of customers at the counter. Country music from a jukebox played in the background. Another waitress balanced plates along her arm and weaved her way to a booth near the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Jessica had arrived at the diner before dawn broke. Dew had clung to the ground. Now the sun lightened a sky lavish with clouds.
Hurrying toward a customer who’d asked for another glass of water, she was having a terrible morning. Twice, she’d messed up orders. She wondered why she hadn’t expected problems. After all, she’d bluffed her way into the waitress job this morning, but she’d truly believed she could handle it. How foolish, Jessica.
At the end of the counter, two construction workers from a nearby site waited for a bottle of Tabasco sauce to pour on their eggs, and the fellow in the last booth who she hadn’t gotten to yet scowled at the clock on the wall.
“Scott! Your order’s up,” Herb yelled.
It took a moment to remember to respond to the name. When she’d applied for the job, Herb had questioned why her identification said Walker. She’d claimed she hadn’t changed her name back, let him assume Walker was a married name. Briefly she’d held her breath, worried, but busy and distracted, he’d handed her a shirt and had registered no recognition to the Walker name.
Pivoting around, she picked up orders. She abandoned any notion of balancing the plates on her arm. With one in each hand, she started for the table. Better to make several trips than to dump the breakfast on the floor.
“This isn’t what I ordered,” the man growled when she’d set down his plate.
Sure it was. She was certain she’d gotten the order right. “I’ll take care of that, sir.”
She placed her reorder, then grabbed the coffee pot to fill cups. At the end of the counter, one customer, a petite woman in her mid-sixties with bright red hair and a broad smile, had been watching her ever since she’d entered the diner. Since all the servers and Herb had stopped to talk to her, Jessica assumed the woman was a regular customer.
“Name’s Trudy Holtrum,” the woman said. “I heard there was a new waitress.”
Jessica paused and filled the woman’s coffee cup. “I’m Jessica Scott.”
Trudy bobbed her head as if looking for a yes answer to a question not yet asked. “Have you met the sheriff yet?”
Jessica started to frown. Why would she ask such a question? “Yes, why?”
“I work for him,” Trudy explained. “Lots of women in town are willing to give him a run for his money. Are you?”
“Pardon?” Though stunned by her candor, Jessica laughed.
Hazel eyes met hers with heart-stopping directness. “Don’t you find him attractive?”
Jessica couldn’t mask her incredulity. “What? I don’t even know—”
Nothing fazed the woman. “Better than that, huh?” She peered over her wire-rimmed glasses at Jessica. “Handsome? Sexy?”
Politeness stretched only so far, Jessica decided. “Trudy, I don’t think—”
The charms on her bracelet clattered as she set down her coffee cup. “Oh, he’s sexy, all right.” Grinning, she placed her hands on the counter and heaved herself to a stand.
“See you,” Jessica said.
“Likely.” The woman’s eyes sparkled. “Since you and the sheriff might be an item.”
Jessica laughed as Trudy ambled toward the door. The woman was eccentric, probably a gossip and delightful.
As the breakfast rush dwindled down, she refilled water glasses, checked sugar containers and set up several sets of silverware.
By eleven-thirty, the lunch crowd began to wander in. Tables filled quickly. Every stool at the counter was occupied. She noticed that no one sat in her first booth and wondered if she’d already earned a reputation for dropping dishes, and people were avoiding her.
At twelve-thirty, she learned that she had nothing to do with the booth being left empty. She was in the middle of delivering an order of meat loaf when the bell jingled, announcing a customer and she heard Herb’s greeting. “Afternoon, Sam. Your usual booth is waiting for you.”
The sheriff’s usual booth was the empty one in her station.
What happened next really was his fault, she decided. He shouldn’t have been so good-looking. Then she wouldn’t have been eyeing him instead of watching where she was going. She wouldn’t have dropped the tray of dishes.
Plates clattered to the black-and-white tile floor of Herb’s Diner. Heads swung in Jessica’s direction. And her boss, Herb scowled.
Feeling knots in her shoulders, she rolled them slightly before she began picking up the glass.
A broom in her hand, Cory Winston sidled close to Jessica and began to sweep splintered glass in a pile. “Let me give you a hand.” A bottle blond in her early thirties, Cory had worked for Herb since she’d graduated from high school. “Don’t feel bad, hon,” she said low. “Every single female in town notices him.”
Jessica raised a hand and nudged back a few strands of her auburn hair. Him, she assumed, was the sheriff.
“But don’t get your hopes up. He’s a widower, and not looking.”
“Oh, that wasn’t—”
Cory pushed to a stand before Jessica could explain that she wasn’t interested. Better for Cory to think she was as attracted to the sheriff as every other female. She couldn’t have explained that she’d been like a runaway bride. What would she say? I’m on the run. Hiding from my family. Don’t tell the sheriff. As much as Jessica liked Cory, she couldn’t trust her with that secret. “I feel as if I’m on his wanted list,” she said, aware of his unwavering stare on her.
Cory laughed, but a speculative tone colored her voice. “He is giving you a lot of attention.”
Too much, Jessica thought. She frowned at the broken plate on the floor before her. She would rouse his suspicions if she didn’t stop acting so nervous.
There was no real reason for it. Neither her mother nor her grandfather would have notified Willow Springs or any other Nevada police or sheriff departments that she was missing. Her mother’s grand sense of propriety demanded a more discreet method for finding her daughter, like a private investigator.
While Jessica gathered the last of the large pieces of broken plates and cups, the diner’s dishwasher mopped up the slivers of glass. Jessica thanked him, then hurried behind the counter. Nearby Herb glared. How much would he deduct from her pay for that accident? She needed every penny. For someone who’d never worried about money before, she’d become obsessed with the lack of it lately.
Plastering a smile to her face, she scribbled
