of Montana, Esther’s coffee shack was inexplicably shuttered and Owen needed food. Boo nuzzled his collar and Owen reached up and scratched the dog’s chin.
“You hungry, too?” That was a dumb question, since the little mutt was always ready to eat. When he wasn’t sleeping. Or sprawled on the couch watching television. Owen had found the skinny stray hanging around the barn weeks ago. He’d brought him inside, fed him and named him. Content with his new living arrangements, Boo now had little use for the outdoor life.
Owen hesitated at the flashing red light at the intersection of Highway 10 and Main. Two blocks to the right, at the north edge of town, was a hot breakfast with his name on it, along with bacon for the dog gazing out the window and wagging his tail. Boo was looking for McDonald’s, his favorite place in the world, and expected a treat whenever he rode along in the truck. But Owen hadn’t had an appetite two hours ago after his weekly trip to Hopewell Living Center, and had sped past the cluster of Great Fall’s fast food restaurants next to the highway. It had taken some time for his mood to lift and his hunger to set in.
And now the thought of breakfast was strong enough to make him consider stepping into the Dirty Shame Café. Oh, the sign in front of the building read Willing Café, but folks born and bred in the area knew the place as “The Shame” and probably would always call it by its original name. He’d heard Meg had changed the name on the menus, but he also knew she couldn’t fight history.
Boo whined and wagged and licked his ear, but Owen didn’t smile. He rarely smiled these days.... His own fault. He’d spent most of his adult life in an office, dealing with politicians and lawyers. He had a gift for dealing with difficult people, and he’d turned a law degree into one of the top environmental firms in the country.
And yet he rarely felt any degree of happiness.
Owen turned the steering wheel and stepped on the gas. The world wasn’t going to come to an end if he walked into Meg Ripley’s restaurant and ordered a couple of fried eggs.
With luck, she wouldn’t be there.
With luck, she’d ignore him.
With luck, he’d be able to ignore her.
Owen didn’t imagine his luck, meager as it was this morning, would hold. For one thing, he assumed Meg would be working. He also assumed she still lived in one of the original cabins adjacent to the restaurant. And ignore him? Well, that was the best he could hope for.
She was thirty-two, unfortunately young enough to remember their disastrous summer together, unlike his irate mother, who this morning had demanded he apologize for sitting on her cat even though she hadn’t owned a cat in two decades, and he’d made the mistake when he was nine. His mother’s memory had become increasingly faulty, her confusion more apparent this past year. He hadn’t told her about his temporary move to the ranch; she assumed he was still working in DC and so far it hadn’t occurred to her to question his weekly Sunday visits, though on the rare times she mentioned his work, he’d told her he’d taken some time off. She hadn’t seemed to understand, which was just as well. Explaining he’d used the settlement of the ranch property as an excuse to leave an increasingly boring career would not have been easy. His mother had no love for the Triple M.
Boo whined again as Owen drove past the restaurant to find a parking spot in the lot next door. The dog believed “stop” equaled “food,” and he was usually right.
Owen took a couple of minutes to stretch while Boo trotted over to a half-dead bush and lifted his leg. Then the dog hurried back to jump in the front seat, knowing he would be rewarded with food after guarding the truck while his owner was inside the building doing whatever humans did before they brought food to their loyal canines.
“I’ll be back,” Owen promised. He was talking to his dog a lot more often lately, which was the behavior of a man who had settled into a solitary lifestyle. No, he told himself, he wasn’t going to turn into his late uncle, a grizzled loner who preferred dogs to people and rarely bathed. He didn’t want to end up dying alone, freezing to death next to a barn, his body discovered a week later by a UPS driver. That was not a lifestyle Owen would willingly choose. Although lately he’d begun to wonder if he’d started down the “eccentric bachelor” path without being aware of it.
Damn. Hungry and lonely was a tough way to start the day.
* * *
“DO YOU THINK she’ll marry me?”
“Of course not.” Meg placed a plate piled high with bacon, eggs and hash browns in front of the hopeful suitor. She had no intention of coddling Joey Peckham, who was at this moment looking depressed, despite the fact that she’d just refilled his coffee and served him breakfast. “You must be out of your mind. She’s not going to go out with you, so leave her alone.”
“You serious?”
“Deadly serious,” she assured him.
“Aw, you’re breaking my heart.” He picked up his fork and, ignoring the paper napkin she’d slid next to his coffee cup, stabbed a chunk of fried egg. “And ruinin’ my day, too, if you want to know.”
“I’m not ruining anything. She danced with you once, at Pete’s party,” she reminded him. “It wasn’t exactly a relationship.”
“It could be. If she’d let it. If you’d talk her into giving me a chance.” He spoke with his mouth full, so Meg turned away. Joey was six years younger than she was, but acted about fifteen instead of twenty-six. He needed to find himself a real, live girlfriend, the sooner the better, and stop imagining himself in love with every woman who two-stepped with him. Especially not with Lucia Swallow, who baked the restaurant’s pies and was single-handedly raising three children since her husband had died in Afghanistan.
“You’re hallucinating. Lucia is too old for you,” she stated one more time over her shoulder, knowing as she said it that the only thing Joey wanted to hear was that she would support his romance.
Which she wouldn’t. Lucia was a friend and Joey was an idiot.
“You don’t know what it’s like to be in love,” Joey muttered.
“Maybe, maybe not. But I’m sure it’s overrated.”
“You have no heart,” he said, looking down at his eggs again. “That’s your problem.”
“One of many,” Meg agreed, trying not to laugh. “Really, Joe. Lucia’s not the woman for you. And you’re too young to be a father to those boys of hers.”
He scowled down at his plate. “How come you know so much and you don’t even have a boyfriend?”
“They’re overrated, too.” She gave in and laughed, all too familiar with comments about her private life. There were few secrets in such a small town. “And if you don’t stop griping, I’ll tell Lucia you have fourteen cats.”
“That’s my uncle. Not me.”
Meg shrugged. “She’ll think that kind of crazy runs in the family.”
“We have dogs,” Mr. Fargus interjected from his perch on the neighboring stool. “Two poodles. Do you know my wife lets them dogs in the bed the minute she hears the back door slam shut? Every morning. None of them can wait for me to leave.”
Meg
