chicken, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, along with a piece of apple pie—drifted into the air. It was enough to remind Ellie that she had skipped lunch, and breakfast, as well. She hadn’t been able to stomach the idea of food.
Not with the sour stenches of fear, bourbon and nicotine that had gripped her for the past fifteen hours or so.
“I’ll tell Joe you send your regards,” she said as she squeezed past Sherry and started down the hall.
“Oh, honey,” Sherry murmured behind her. “I want to give him a whole lot more than that.”
Ellie’s faint smile faded before she reached the door. They’d had a busy lunch, and one of the staff had called in sick, so she’d had to pitch in and wait tables. Busy was good; it kept her from thinking about anything more than the task at hand.
But busy couldn’t last forever, and once the lunch rush was over, she’d retreated to her office and brooded. She’d faced a lot of problems in her life, but there had always been solutions. This one had solutions, too—just none that she could face at the moment.
The rain came in steady, small plops against her lemon-yellow slicker until she reached the protection of the awnings that fronted the other businesses on the block. There she pushed the hood back and drew in a deep breath of fresh, clean air. Speaking to the few people she passed on the sidewalk, Ellie realized with some measure of surprise that she would miss Copper Lake if she had to leave. She’d tried not to get overly attached to the town or the people in it. Home was a concept, not a place, and people let you down. From the day she’d come there, she’d wanted to be able to leave without regret.
Tried. Wanted. Truth was, she was attached. She could own another dozen restaurants, and none of them would mean the same as the deli. She could make a hundred new friends, but they would never replace Anamaria and Jamie, the Calloways, Carmen and everyone else. She could have a thousand more affairs, but not one of them—
Grimly she stopped herself midthought as the fragrance of fresh-roasted coffee drifted into her senses. A Cuppa Joe occupied the corner lot, a full block from her own place. Ironically, Joe Saldana hadn’t named the gourmet shop. It was just coincidence that Joe now owned A Cuppa Joe.
I don’t believe in coincidence.
Scowling at the words she’d heard more than once from Tommy, she pushed open the plate-glass door and went inside. Louis Armstrong played softly on the stereo—Joe didn’t listen to anything recorded after 1960—and coffee scents perfumed the air.
She was halfway across the shop, already anticipating the first sip of chai tea, when she realized that something was amiss. Slowing her steps, Ellie glanced over her shoulder, then came to an abrupt stop and turned.
Martha was sitting at the front table farthest from the door.
With Tommy.
A chill shivered through her as she stared at them and they stared back. There was malice in Martha’s expression, speculation and something more in Tommy’s. A little longing. Maybe regret. Definitely curiosity.
How had they wound up in the coffee shop together? Had it been Tommy’s doing, his way of finding out answers she hadn’t given him the night before? Or had Martha sought him out? Did she somehow know they’d been involved?
Ellie couldn’t speak, couldn’t move or look away, until Joe’s voice broke the shock that held her.
“Hey, Ellie. How much do I owe you?”
Bit by bit, she forced her attention from Tommy and Martha to Joe, who was sliding his wallet from his hip pocket as he came out from behind the counter. She tried to remember how much the lunch special was, but couldn’t. Gratefully, though, she recognized the ticket nestled atop the foam container in the plastic bag and pulled it out, handing it over.
“Nina’s getting your tea,” Joe said, offering her a ten-dollar bill in exchange for the bag. “Why don’t you come on back with me?”
Ellie still felt Tommy’s and Martha’s gazes, though, prickling down her spine and into her somersaulting stomach as Joe took her arm, guiding her behind the counter. She numbly went along. As soon as they reached the rear space that served as both storeroom and office, he closed the door and the prickling went away.
He released her, went to the battered desk and unpacked his lunch. “So you and Maricci still aren’t friendly.”
She shook her head.
“I doubt you have to worry much about the woman with him. She’s not his type.”
He was wrong. Martha was the biggest worry in her life.
“Okay, bad joke. What’s wrong? This is hardly the first time you’ve seen him since…” With typical male tact, he shrugged instead of finishing. Since he walked away from you. Since he gave up on you.
“It’s not that,” she said, and it was only half a lie. She could handle seeing Tommy. She could even handle seeing him with Sophy. But with Martha, who hadn’t been satisfied with ruining her life fifteen years ago? Who’d come to Copper Lake for the sole purpose of ruining what was left?
“Then what is it?” Joe asked as he cut a generous bite of chicken.
“Complicated,” she said with a helpless shrug.
“Sex always is.”
Leave it to a man to boil down her and Tommy’s relationship to its most basic component. If it were only sex, they would have no problem, because the sex was always good.
“And how’s your sex life?” she asked to change the subject.
“I’m thinking about it.”
She snorted. In the year since he’d come to town, he’d caught the eye of every available woman—and a few who weren’t. Six foot four, tanned, muscular, with unruly blond hair and blue eyes, he could have women lined up around the block. Had had women lined up the day he’d reopened A Cuppa Joe after remodeling. But to the best of her knowledge, he’d never gone out with any of them. He was friendly, considerate and disinterested.
“How long can a man go without?” she asked.
His forehead wrinkled for a moment, then smoothed. “Eighteen months, two weeks and three days. And counting.”
She gazed at him a long time, while he sampled the mashed potatoes, dipped a forkful of dressing into the gravy, then cut another piece of chicken. Finally she shook her head and started toward the rear wall. “Can I use your back door?”
“You gonna slink back down the alley to the diner? Coward.” But he gestured toward the door with careless approval.
She let herself out the door with a wave, then stood underneath the roof overhang while pulling the slicker hood into place. Hands shoved into her pockets, she turned left toward the deli, but after a dozen feet, turned around and headed along the sidewalk in the other direction instead. Shivering more than the weather called for, she turned at the next block and headed aimlessly out of the business district and into a neighborhood of lovely old homes.
Five years ago Ellie had chosen Copper Lake as her new home based on only one thing: the two-hundred-year-old general store
