You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology (23 page)

“Technically, it’s still fall,” he corrected. “For another week or so.”

The sanctimony he could hear in his own voice opened her mouth completely, either in confusion or disbelief, he couldn’t tell. But the only sound that came out was a huff. He’d knocked the words right out of her.

Smooth, as always. Correcting strangers was his most charming move. Worked . . . never. It had never worked.

“Sorry,” he said, trying for as much sincerity as he’d had smug correctness. “I can be a pompous ass. I’d say ignore me, but
I
wouldn’t be able to ignore me, especially when I’m at my worst.” He paused and then changed the subject. “But yeah . . . It’s cold, but I couldn’t help the timing, and I’ve never been to Idaho. There’s got to be something around here I can check out. The biggest ball of yarn. A Jolly Green Giant statue. Something.”

Finally, she shook her head. “Well, if you are hitting on me, you’re doing a terrible job of it.” She sounded amazed, so there was that. He’d leave an impression, and sometimes that was all he could hope for.

He laughed at himself and his own failures. “What’s even more sad is that this would be one of my better efforts. If I were hitting on you right now, that is. Which I’m not.”

She laughed with him, their connection from earlier reestablished. Then she turned her long neck to yell over her shoulder. “Hey, Babe, is the submarine museum open?”

“Now? No,” came an incredulous voice from the kitchen. Babe, he gathered, was the diner’s namesake and the woman responsible for the amazing smells.

“Submarine museum? That sounds cool.” He hadn’t expected anything so interesting when he’d made his plans.

When she shook her head, he caught sight of little red bows at the top of her bell earrings. “It’s a museum in an old Navy jail. They did training up here back in World War II. And they test submarines there, if you can believe it. But the museum is closed in the winter.”

“What about the Wolf People?” Babe called out from the kitchen.

“Wolf People?” He liked technology, but he’d been staring at computers for too many years. Animals would be a nice break. “Now
that
sounds interesting.”

“I guess. We went there every year on field trips, same as the submarine museum, so it seems like an old hat to me.” She nodded her head toward his plate. “You should eat your food. It’s going to get cold.”

Obediently, he cut some pancake away from the rest with the side of his fork. “Tell me about the Wolf People. I’ll eat. You talk.”

She shrugged, looking both less irritated and less tired than she had when he’d first sat down. Maybe not chipper, but her face was no longer drawn and she’d lost the wobble he’d seen in her when she’d gone back to turn in his order. “The Wolf People is an organization north of here. There are some twenty wolves in a closed park. You can take a tour, and there’s a gift shop.”

Marc nodded and swallowed his food. “These are delicious. Good pick.”

His waitress inclined her head to the kitchen. “It’s Babe. She’s such a good cook.” The rest of the sentence went unsaid, but he heard it. Babe’s talents were wasted on this tiny town in the middle of nowhere and—maybe he heard this in the waitress’s tone, too—so were the talents and interests of his waitress.

He wondered what her talents are. Was she happy in this small town? Did she want to leave? He’d desperately wanted to leave his own small town, but not everyone he’d gone to school with had felt the same way.

Whatever he was hearing in his waitress’s tone of voice, though, he let it alone. Athol, Idaho was a blip in the course of his trip. He was passing through her life as much as he was passing through this town while he decided what to do next. And spent some of his sudden wealth on skiing the best snow on earth. He was searching for something, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to enjoy himself.

“All right. You’ve sold me on the Wolf People. And I’ll drive by the museum. Even if it’s not open, maybe there’s something I can see. They don’t test submarines in the air, do they? ’Cause seeing a zeppelin would be awesome.”

“No,” she said, laughing. “Lake Pend Orielle is there. And it’s a state park. The whole place is pretty. It’s cold, but you’ll probably see people horseback riding and, since it’s clear, flying model airplanes. Maybe a model zeppelin,” she said, and he could swear her voice was flirtatious.

He cut aside more of his delicious pancake—a bigger piece this time—and scooped up more of the syrup. “That sounds worth the drive. Pretty is good.”

She blushed, like maybe he was referring to her, even though he hadn’t intended to. Or maybe she was just tired and here he was, reading more into her face and posture than was really there. He was a stranger and she was a waitress, used to dealing with people, even if being on this out-of-the-way mountain meant those people weren’t usually strangers.

But she
was
pretty, and he wanted to talk to her for as long as she was willing to stand here and talk to him. “Okay. Naval museum, state park, and wolves. Anything else?”

She cocked her head. “You’re going to be driving all over Hell’s Half Acre just to see those three things. Are you sure you want more suggestions?”

“I’ve got all day and no place I need to be until Saturday.” He picked up a piece of bacon and looked at it. It was thick and studded with pepper. Between the waitress and the diner, he would consider passing through Athol again.

“How about this?” he said, thinking both of the delicious breakfast and of his pretty waitress. “How about I see those things, then come back for dinner and tell you what I thought of them. Then you’ll know if you should suggest them to the next passing stranger.”

“We don’t get many passing strangers,” she said, her eyes twinkling with humor, the tiredness he’d seen earlier mostly gone.

“Of course not. All the more reason to be prepared for the next one that comes in. You can practice on me. I volunteer. In fact, I insist,” he said, pounding a fist on the table as if it were a gavel.

She waved him off, obviously trying not to give in to a smile. “I’m only supposed to work the morning shift.”

“As I said, the food’s good, so I’ll come back for dinner anyway and hope that you’re still here to listen to my adventures.”

“If I’m not here, Jesse eats dinner here almost every night. He always needs some company.”

So do I.
The thought entered Marc’s head so quickly he almost didn’t notice its entry and attempt to set up camp. He shook his head to dislodge the drivel.

“Don’t want to tell your tales to Jesse?” she asked.

“Jesse sounds all right,” he said, turning one palm up on the table, which was cool under the back of his hand. “I’d rather tell my tales to you, but I told you that I wasn’t trying to pick you up and I’m trying to stick to my word.”

His honesty was rewarded with a blinding, full-wattage smile from his waitress, the first one he’d seen all morning. No tiredness lingered in her eyes, and her shoulders weren’t slumped anymore.

“Thank you,” she said. “I like a man who sticks to his word.”

Now Marc was regretting saying anything. Of course, when he’d been trying to flirt with her and get her to smile, she’d gotten irritated and defensive. Now that he was just trying to be himself and talk with her, he was being rewarded. He wasn’t so blind as to not notice the lesson here.

Not that he’d get a chance to make use of said lesson. He was enjoying his waitress’s smiles particularly because he didn’t get the feeling that she had much of an opportunity to show them. He liked the way he felt as though he could let his guard down around her, not to mention that her mix of suspicion and friendliness made him want to know more about her.

He wouldn’t get to, of course. She’d told him that he didn’t even have a chance at another conversation, much less insight into her history and personality.

Just as well. His father had always said that the best way to figure out what to do with your life was to disappear into the wilderness and let nature tell you. His father hadn’t said anything about taking someone else along for the ride.

“Anyway,” she said, patting the Formica table and nearly brushing his own hand, which was still resting there, palm up. “I’ll leave you alone so that you can eat. Pay at the front and holler if you need more coffee.”

A couple walked into the diner as soon as his waitress walked away, but the place had never felt emptier.

“H
ey.” A strong,
reassuring hand pressed into Selina’s shoulder. “Want a cup of coffee?”

Selina looked up into the warm eyes of her boss, Babe. “I do, but I shouldn’t have one. I need to try to sleep tonight.”

The woman rubbed Selina’s shoulder and down her arm. “Do you need a
place
to sleep tonight?”

Babe could look intimidating in the kitchen, especially when standing there with a knife, her white apron covering a generous bosom and an almost as generous stomach. But the people close to her knew that her heart took up as much space as her body. Her husband was known to say that her body wasn’t big enough for all the things he loved about his wife.

“Yes, but I don’t want to be anywhere my mom will think to look. She’ll ask me to come home, and I can’t.” She couldn’t face her mom and the hurt she’d surely caused when she’d run off. But she couldn’t face Gary or that house again, either.

The worst part would be the show her mom would make of it. She would put her hand against her forehead, moan about her ungrateful daughter and all the work she and Gary had put into raising her. Selina didn’t have a clue why her mom even wanted her around. As far as she could tell, the very fact that she was living in the same town where she grew up, in the same house even, was a disappointment to everything her mother had worked for.

Drama—her mother’s specialty.

At first, Selina had been happy when her mom had started working more hours. There’d been less yelling. Of course, now she’d take the yelling if it meant that she wasn’t home alone with Gary.

“There’s that spare bedroom at my sister’s.” Babe’s sister lived an hour north, almost spitting distance from the Canadian border.

“I’m a little afraid to drive up there, as tired as I am.” It was clear now, but a storm was supposed to be rolling in tonight. Driving on the highway in blinding snow was treacherous enough when wide-awake.

“Plus, better that you don’t know where I am when my family comes knocking.” For all her mom and Gary’s fake concern, Selina brought home an income they both needed. Gary was an angry, abusive drunk, but he wasn’t an idiot. And he certainly wasn’t lazy when it came to making sure someone was around to buy groceries.

“Why haven’t you moved? Out of the house, at least?” Babe kept her hand on Selina’s back so she knew her boss wasn’t being judgmental or critical, just merely asking the same questions Selina asked herself almost every night.

For all her big talk about never going back to that house again, she knew she probably would. A couple of nights sleeping in her car, a couple of nights feeling guilty when Gary knocked on her friends’ houses at two in the morning, and a couple of calls from her mom saying the electric bill was late. That would be all it would take, though she’d buy a bar to put across her door.

“Money. Isn’t that the reason anyone ever does anything?” As far as she could tell, money was the reason Gary didn’t just move out, not when Selina and her mom paid the mortgage, the bills, and for most of the groceries.

All those bills ate into Selina’s escape money, too, plus there was tuition for her community college classes, the expense of driving to Sandpoint, the nearest town with a community college, textbooks, a laptop . . . Funds drained out of her bank account almost as quickly as she was able to put them in, especially since not everyone left as nice a tip as the man from this morning had. That money would fill up her gas tank, at least.

“Sorry I can’t pay you more.”

“Thanks, Babe, but I get it.”

Babe’s Diner, like all the other businesses in this town, made almost no money. No one in town made much money. There was a naval testing center and . . . well, nothing else for people to do for work. Everyone’s fingernails were worn to the quick in an effort to make ends meet. No one had anything extra.

“I’ll get out of here,” she said, trying to sound hopeful.

Someday.

She was taking a survey of art history class, and while she’d probably end up being a nurse—practicality trumped dreams—she liked to imagine what it would be like to work in an art gallery. She’d looked up pictures of galleries online, all white walls and brightly colored art. She’d have a signature pair of black boots and . . .

She sighed. Who was she kidding? Nursing was a good, important, practical job. She’d probably even find it satisfying. Even if dreams were more fun.

Babe rubbed her back. “I’ll get you that cup of coffee anyway. You look tired enough that you’ll sleep even if I hooked you up to a caffeine IV.”

“Thanks, Babe.”

Selina didn’t drink the coffee Babe set in front of her, though. Instead, she wrapped her hands around the mug and let the warmth relax the muscles in her arms as she watched the black liquid ripple when a tear rolled off her cheek. She was tired—that’s all the tears were.

And frustrated. And worn-out. And sad.

But those tears weren’t hopeless tears. As long as she was passing her community college courses, she still had a chance to get out eventually. Climbing a mountain happened one step at a time. Transfer credits happened one
class
at a time.

The bell above the diner door tinkled. Out of habit, Selina looked at it, even though her shift was over. The man who’d left her that twenty-dollar tip was walking through the door. He caught her gaze, and he blinked several times before giving her a tentative smile and walking over.

“You said you wouldn’t be here,” he said, standing above her table in a reversal of their roles from this morning.

“Jesse hasn’t shown up yet. I didn’t want you to think no one in town was interested in your adventures.” She managed a small smile. Having a stranger see tears streaking down her cheeks was embarrassing. She could at least hope the smile would distract him.