would barely clear her account.
Why did I have to run into him here? she asked herself, clearing off his table. Joanna’s patrons paid at the cash register, but Jaclyn could see the edge of a crisp bill—her tip—stuck under Cole’s plate. She slid the money out, expecting ten, maybe even twenty dollars, but found fifty, instead.
She stared at the 5-0 on the bill, amazed and sickened by what it meant. Fifty dollars was pure charity. Cole understood her situation—and he pitied her.
Damn. She was once the prom queen of Feld High. No one had doubted she’d marry Terry and live happily ever after. But she’d achieved no fairy-tale ending. She was divorced with three children and nearly penniless, her situation pathetic enough to make old friends feel obligated to give her money when they saw her.
Tears burned behind Jaclyn’s eyes, and she began to wonder if she’d been crazy to try to escape Terry. She could have continued as his wife—but what kind of life would that have been? She had a right to fight for something better, didn’t she? She longed to go back to school and become a nurse or a schoolteacher, something professional, to prove to herself and others that she could pull out of the tailspin of divorce and loss and regret.
If only she had the time and the money. She had four mouths to feed and bills that couldn’t wait until she graduated from anything. Heck, she had bills that couldn’t wait until payday.
Jaclyn shoved the money in her apron and finished stacking the dishes. Forget Cole, she told herself. He didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except survival. So what if she felt as if the world were closing in on her and she was trying to run through quicksand to escape. She certainly wasn’t the first woman to feel this way.
“Jaclyn?”
Turning at the sound of Rudy’s voice, she found her manager standing at her elbow. At five feet five inches, he was just tall enough to look her straight in the eye.
“Yeah?”
He gave her an insincere smile, revealing eyeteeth that stuck out like fangs. It was her first indication of trouble. His words were the second. “I just had a gentleman call me. He claims a friend of yours threatened him with bodily harm when he was here just a few minutes ago. Can I see you in my office?”
The table next to them stopped eating to watch, but Jaclyn ignored them. Too much fear prickled down her spine to worry about embarrassment now. “That’s not true,” she said.
Rudy nodded his greasy, dark head toward the kitchen. “In my office,” he said, turning away.
And Jaclyn had no choice but to follow.
CHAPTER TWO
“I’M AFRAID I’m going to have to let you go.”
Rudy sat behind his desk, gazing up at her with small eyes that were mere slits in his brown, fleshy face. His belly rested in his lap, and Jaclyn’s personnel file was spread out in front of him.
Jaclyn stood near the open door, leaning against the wall for support, nearly leveled by shock, and horror, and myriad other emotions evoked by the injustice of his actions. “B-but you can’t,” she stammered.
He smiled, proving what Jaclyn had suspected all along. He was enjoying this. This was the moment he’d been waiting for ever since the last time she’d rebuffed him when he’d tried to talk her into coming over to his place after work.
“Actually, I can,” he said, rocking back and steepling his fingers. “I’m the boss, in case you’ve forgotten. And the complaint I just received requires serious action.”
“Serious action?” Jaclyn echoed weakly. “I’ve been a model employee ever since I started almost a year ago.”
“A model employee doesn’t threaten patrons.”
“You know I didn’t threaten anyone. And neither did—”
He held up a hand for her to stop. “A model employee shows up for all her shifts.”
“I’ve never left you hanging—”
“It’s all right here.” He tapped her personnel file. “On August fourth, you didn’t appear for work—”
“I had strep throat, and I called you—”
“You weren’t here, that’s what matters, and you received a written warning. On October tenth, you were late for work. A second written warning. On December ninth, your last and final no show—”
“And my third warning,” Jaclyn finished. “But I couldn’t come in that day. My baby was sick, and I couldn’t get anyone to cover for me.”
“Because you gave them no notice.”
“The chicken pox gave me no notice! What did you expect me to do?”
“There’s always some excuse,” he said with a theatrical sigh. “But I have a restaurant to run here. I need waitresses who are dependable.”
Jaclyn knew few waitresses were as dependable as she was. She’d missed a few days when Alyssa had the chicken pox, and she’d been late once when the bus had broken down and hadn’t come to pick up Mackenzie and Alex for school. But she never called in sick unless it was a real emergency. She had a stack of customer commendations, and she was just about the only one who took the side work—filling salt and pepper shakers and ketchup bottles, scrubbing down tables and cleaning the kitchen—seriously.
Drawing an unsteady breath, she clung tenaciously to her temper. Even with Cole’s fifty bucks, she needed the money she’d planned to make this week. She couldn’t let Rudy, and his vindictiveness, cost her that.
“Come on, Rudy,” she said. “That guy today was just trying to get a free dinner. I didn’t keep him waiting more than five minutes.”
“It was enough to make him and his wife miss their movie.”
“So he says. Give me a break. It’s only five-thirty now.”
“He says he’ll never eat here again!”
Jaclyn moved closer, but the smell of old sweat pressed her back. Rudy’s office had no windows. It was more of a pantry, really. Small and close, with loaves of bread and other packaged items lining shelves that wouldn’t allow the door to shut, it reeked of him. He was the kind of man with stains under the arms of every shirt.
“Then Joanna’s is better off for it,” she replied. “I wouldn’t put it past that guy to plant a fly in his food.”
“If he was so bad, why didn’t you come get me?”
Because of this, Jaclyn wanted to say. Because I need my job too badly to give you any reason to take it away from me.
Aware of the cooks barking back and forth, the burgers sizzling on the grill, and the constant tramp of feet just outside, Jaclyn lowered her voice. “You’ve been out to punish me for a long time now, Rudy. This has nothing to do with the quality of my work, does it. What is it you’re trying to prove?”
He laughed derisively. “That’s
