Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 116708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 467(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 467(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
Her blue eyes twinkled as she snatched my offerings. Leaning on an empty table, she jotted down her information.
As I waited, I glanced back to see if Dylan and Angela had managed to calm the kids. They were all three sitting quietly in the booth, crossed arms and pouty faces. It seemed Nate wasn’t going to be the only one in trouble when they got home.
I told myself not to do it.
My brain screamed for me to let it go and ignore him the way he had always done me.
But as if my eyes had a mind of their own, they flicked to Truett.
I could only see his profile, but the round of his strong shoulders as he hunched over the table revealed his anguish with a stark clarity. God, it was surreal to see him again. The city of Belton wasn’t big by any stretch, and when our paths hadn’t crossed over the years, I’d figured he’d long since moved away.
But there he sat.
No ring on his finger.
No family surrounding him with smiles and laughter.
Not even a friend sharing a meal.
Alone.
An odd pang of guilt hit me as I watched him peeling off the top piece of bread on each half of his sandwich, trying to salvage his sopping-wet meal.
I let out an audible groan, hating him that much more for making me feel anything other than disdain.
“Here ya go,” Coot—um, Lucille—said, reclaiming my attention.
I took the receipt from her hand and tucked it into my purse. “Hey, can you do me a favor?”
“Anything, Boss?” She flashed me a wicked grin.
“Can you put that man’s dinner on my tab too? And…maybe bring him a fresh sandwich?”
Curling her lip, she leaned around me and pointed at Truett. “That man?”
“Yeah. I feel awful that my son ruined his dinner.”
She barked a laugh. “Oh, honey. That’s not his dinner. And trust me when I tell you that’s no man over there, either. That right there is the hot gargoyle who takes up residence in that booth every Wednesday from six to seven p.m. He doesn’t even eat the dang sandwich.”
“What?” I breathed, swinging my gaze back to Truett. He’d placed the salvaged half of the sandwich on a dry napkin alongside two strips of bacon. “So, why does he order it, then?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s not a talker. He walks up here, waits for that specific booth, then I bring him out a club sandwich, no mayo, bacon on the side, and a water. He stays for a while, leaves cash on the table, and then disappears.”
“He walks?”
“Yep. He only lives a few blocks up. Mr. Branning followed him home one night. Thought he was a creep or something, but he’s harmless.”
I’d been wrong about him leaving Belton, but the fact that he still lived in his mom’s old house was beyond surprising. I’d figured he would have burned that place to the ground sooner than he’d make it his forever home.
Since he was so close, it made sense that he often came by for dinner. Except… “Are you sure he doesn’t eat any of it?”
“Not a single bite. Mr. Branning once told me to quit wasting food and just put his sandwich in the cooler so he could resell it to him the following week. I wasn’t about to do that to the guy. He’s an odd duck but a good tipper.” She nudged me with her elbow. “And besides, scamming your most loyal customers would fall under one of those bad kind of mistakes I could help you avoid after you hire me.”
On instinct, I smiled, but with a pit forming in my stomach, I couldn’t tear my eyes—or thoughts—off Truett.
I had so many questions, but if I’d learned anything, it was that I’d never get the answers from him.
After drawing in a deep breath, I held it for a long second, allowing the pain of the past and present to filter through my body.
And then I let it go. All of it.
My breath.
My curiosity.
My guilt.
Hell, I even managed to temporarily pack down my bitterness.
“Enough,” I whispered to myself before flashing the waitress a grin. “Thanks for everything. I’ll be in touch soon.”
“I can’t wait,” she chirped.
Focusing on what truly mattered in my life, I walked back to my table and took my son’s hand. Mad as I was, a warmth filled my chest as Nate’s hand folded around mine.
Truett didn’t fit into that equation, and I had every intention of keeping it that way.
It wasn’t like I had time for yet another obstacle anyway. I still needed to gut a restaurant, remodel it from the ground up, tame my wild beast of a child, try not to have a texting brawl with my ex-husband, and then follow through on the promise I’d made to myself as a teenager to always live life to the fullest.