“I will.”
He goes to the booth. Wells touches the brim of his hat to acknowledge me from across the room. Cole gives me a one-corner mouth move. From Cole, that’s a greeting.
Three men I barely know have come off the ridge to sit in this diner for me. The realization lands hard behind my ribs.
They sit in the booth next to the one with Reeves and his team. There must be more guns in the diner than pies.
The rest of the town seems oblivious. Mrs. Callahan complains about her hip. A truck makes a delivery down the block. Eli walks across Main and back twice, as if stretching his legs before customers come to the store, but I bet he’s checking the perimeter. A county cruiser rolls past at nine-twelve and again at ten-twenty-three. I notice both passes without meaning to.
The bell over the door chimes at ten-forty.
A man I’ve never seen before steps inside. Forties. Hiker pants. A pack slung off one shoulder. He stops inside the door,takes in the room, and I’m cataloging him: height, build, the angle of his jaw, and whether his hands are visible.
Mason’s palm goes flat on the counter without him turning his head.
The Ridge crew’s shoulders drop a quarter inch. Three coffee cups are set on the table without a sound.
The hiker scans the room one more time, sees the coffee pot, and walks to the counter with the unguarded eyes of a man who has been on the trail for three days and wants a cinnamon roll.
He orders and asks for an extra pad of butter on the cinnamon roll, then asks me for directions to Hollow Lake. I pour him a coffee and draw him a map on a napkin. My hand is steady.
When he leaves, Mason takes his hand off the counter. The Ridge crew does their silent mode of communication since they don’t talk much.
I catch my reflection in the window. For once, I don’t look like a woman alone, and I like what I see.
Mason leaves around twelve thirty. Reeves’ team shifts. The recluses from the ridge, seemingly tamed by the new women in their lives, stay. While Roz keeps their coffee cups full, I keep my distance. Not that I don’t like them, I appreciate how much they support each other, including Jesse, but I don’t need more “big brother” talk today.
At one o’clock, the bell over the door chimes. Jesse strolls in with Nora. He surveys the place with an intense gaze. His hand rests at the small of his wife’s back, and it stays there until she’s sitting at the counter. He kisses her temple and walks to the booth with the other Ridge men.
He doesn’t leave the diner. That tells me everything I need to know about how he reads the situation.
Nora shifts her position on the stool. She’s close to her due date and seems more tired than when I last saw her. She orders the pie she doesn’t like.
“You sure you want that?” I ask.
“Never hurts to try something again.”
That isn’t like Nora. Jesse once woke Roz in the middle of the night because Nora couldn’t go back to sleep without a cinnamon roll from the diner. Still, I serve up the slice of pie. “Here you go, but I have a feeling you’re not here to give Banana Cream a second chance.”
She slips her fork into the pie but doesn’t take a bite. She sets the utensil on the plate. “You’re the sister I never had. You know that, right?”
Oh, this is going to be good. “Go on.”
“I might say something that makes you mad.”
I fill the mug in front of her with decaf. I wonder if she can tell I’m no longer a virgin. God, I hope not. This isn’t the place for that kind of talk. “That’s never stopped you before.”
She takes a sip. “Since you’ve returned to Lush Hollow, you’ve learned every regular’s order, overhauled Roz’s bar menu, made yourself useful to everyone you meet, and kept whatever’s been happening to yourself so your brothers and Eli wouldn’t worry.”
Nora’s not wrong. She usually isn’t. I wipe the counter. At least the topic isn’t sex. That’s a relief.
“Those aren’t bad things,” Nora continues. “But after you came back, you made yourself small so everyone else could be big. That’s not belonging, Sophie. That’s hiding in plain sight.”
The rag stops moving. Everything in me does too.
“I did the same thing,” Nora says, quieter. “When I first came up the mountain. I made myself useful. Easy. Because if you are those things, people don’t look too closely. In my case, that way they can’t decide they don’t want you.”
I take a breath. And another. My fingers rub against the damp rag.
