"It's not weird. It's amazing." I reached over and squeezed her shoulder with my free hand while keeping Kip balanced against me with the other. "Danny hasn't dated anyone in forever. You're exactly what he needs."
"You think so?"
"I know so. He's lucky and he'd better treat you right, or I'll kill him myself."
She laughed and knocked her block tower over, and Kip opened one eye to see what the noise was about before closing it again and going back to sleep.
We talked for a while after that, keeping our voices low so Kip could rest. Tiffany told me about the conversation on the porch and how nervous Danny had been, fumbling over his words "adorably" apparently. I listened and smiled and asked the right questions, and the whole time I wanted to tell her everything. About Garret showing up at the diner, about what happened on the back step, about the fact that the little boy sleeping on my chest was his son and nobody in my family knew it.
But I couldn't. My family believed Kip came from a one-night stand with a man whose name I never got, and changing that story now would unravel everything. For Kip's sake and for Garret's, it was better to leave it alone.
I held my boy a little tighter and drank my coffee and let Tiffany be happy, because at least one of us deserved to be.
By three o'clock, Kip's fever had dropped enough that he was sitting up and playing blocks with Tiffany on his own, and I had to get ready for work. I changed into my jeans and a clean shirt and pulled my hair back and knelt down next to him on the floor.
"Mama has to go to work, baby. Tiffany's going to stay with you tonight, okay?"
"Okay." He held up a blue block. "Square," he announced proudly, and I was proud of him. Learning shapes was something new for him that I was missing because I had to work so much. now, but Tiffany was such a good influence.
"Yes, baby, a blue square." I kissed his cheek and stood up, grabbing my jacket off the back of the chair. "Call me if his fever spikes again," I told Tiffany.
"I will. Go. We're fine."
The diner was already humming when I walked in through the back door, grateful the electric company had understood Mom's situation and restored power so quickly for us. The evening cook had the grill going and two pots on the burners, and the waitresses were moving between tables like busy bees. I tied on an apron and jumped straight in, running food and busing tables and covering the register when the line backed up.
The dinner rush didn't slow down until close to eight, and by then my feet ached and my back was sore. I'd refilled the coffee machine three times, and I was carrying a tub of dirty dishes to the kitchen when the front door opened and a group of Gravehounds filed in. Five of them wearing their cuts took up the long booth in the back corner, which was pretty normal for a week night. I recognized Butch and Rusty and two others I'd seen around town.
And Tony.
He sat at the end of the booth closest to the aisle, stretching his legs out and leaning back against the seat with his arms spread across the top of the booth. And he stared at me from across the room while polishing one of his tobacco-stained teeth with his tongue. It made my skin crawl. I knew his warning, but I had ignored it completely when I rushed back home to be with my dying father. I couldn’t let him run me out of town scared, but he sure made me shake in my boots now.
I tried my hardest to keep floating around the dining room and let the other waitresses deal with it, but I couldn't focus. I slipped into the office and sat down in Mom's chair and rubbed my face a few times to try to make the cortisol burn stop. I needed sixty seconds to breathe and stop shaking before I went back out there.
But I barely got thirty.
The office door opened and Tony stepped in and closed it behind himself. The room was small and with him standing between me and the only exit, the walls shrank to nothing. His cologne stench and the familiar musky scent of his pipe tobacco made me gag, it was so overpowering.
"Comfortable?" he asked.
"What do you want, Tony?"
"Just checking in." He leaned against the door and crossed his arms. "You've been back in town for a while now. Huh?"
His beady eyes and hard glare had my stomach twisting like I was pregnant again. "Yeah… Dad's in the hospital." Not that he cared. I doubted he even knew what was happening. Tony was a total narcissist.
"Thought I'd remind you that our arrangement hasn't changed."
"I haven't forgotten." Lord, how I had tried to forget, though. The image of Mandy's wide eyes and red face clung to me for months, and still I had bad dreams about it at times. When Mom told me she'd turned up dead, I knew it was Tony. I knew I had to keep my mouth shut so I did.
"Good. Because I'd hate for you to get comfortable here and start thinking that time makes things safe. It doesn't." He cocked hishead and raised his eyebrows at me. "What you saw that night stays buried. You don't tell your brothers, you don't tell your mama, you don't tell Crank…" When he said that, I looked up at him and wondered why he'd specifically point out Garret. Was Tony watching us? "If I find out you've said a word to anyone, I'll make good on every promise I made you in your daddy's shop. And I'll start with the people you care about most."
My hands were trembling under the desk where he couldn't see them. "I haven't told a soul, Tony. And I have no intention of dredging up the past. I'm here to help my parents because Dad is sick." My head stayed down, though I noticed he shifted the way he was standing, feet pointing right at me.
"Keep it that way."
I didn't say another word, and he seemed to get the point.
Tony stared at me for another few seconds, then uncrossed his arms and opened the door. "Enjoy your evening, Sara," he said before walking back out to the booth where he sat down and picked up his burger and took a bite. But I sat in that chair with my pulse hammering.
