Page 11 of Working for the Heiress

"Chicken and wild rice today. Sit down. I'll bring it."

We took the back booth. Lili slid into one side, I slid into the other. The vinyl was cracked and warm. The tabletop was worn smooth from decades of elbows and coffee cups. Through the foggy window I could see the airfield across the road, the hangar lights on their timer.

Marlene made her way over, gestured with the coffee pot. I shook my head and Lili frowned. “I’d take some just to hold onto, but I can’t drink any more this late or I’ll never sleep.” Marlene shrugged and poured Lili a mug of the Joe, didn’t ask questions, and went back to her station at the counter.

Lili wrapped her hands around the mug and sighed, then she looked at me. "How long have you been at Forge Creek?"

"Two years."

A nod. ”Where before?"

"West Virginia."

"Doing the same work?"

"Similar."

She frowned. "You don't give much away, do you."

"No, ma'am."

"Lili."

I didn't say it back. Not here. Not in Marlene's diner where half of Forge Creek could walk in.

Marlene showed up with a steaming bowl of soup, and Lili picked up the spoon immediately. I watched her fingers curl around the handle — the calluses on her thumb, nails trimmed short, no polish. She brought the spoon to her mouth and blew on it and her lips pursed and I … was barely holding my shit together thinking about those lips.

She ate and in between bites, she asked me about what kind of contracts we dealt with, the repair schedule for the fleet — and the questions had a quality to them I couldn't quite place. Like she already knew what the answers should be and was checking them against what I'd say.

I was watching her mouth close around the spoon when the door opened and a familiar voice carried across the diner.

“Ah! Holt. This’ll save me a trip.”

Hank Mullins wore a reflective vest over the flannel jacket spanning his broad shoulders. His thick gray mustache puffed out from weathered skin. The public works foreman knew every road, pipe, and bridge in this town, and he'd been coordinating with the airfield on equipment lifts since before I was born.

Hank didn't wait for an invitation. He slid into the booth next to me, nodded at Lili, and said, "Ms. Ashford. I haven’t had a chance to introduce myself. But I know exactly who you are.”

"Word travels fast."

"Small town." He flagged Marlene, who was already bringing him a bowl of oatmeal. "Holt, I need to talk to you about the Ridgeline gig. County's pushing the road crew schedule up two weeks. They want the bridge inspection equipment on-site by the twentieth."

"The twentieth's tight," I said. "The Bell's on the Pinedale rotation through the end of the month."

"Can you make it work?"

"Depends on Pinedale."

Lili set her spoon down. "What's the maintenance window for that aircraft?"

Hank looked at her. I clenched my stomach muscles, wondering where this question came from, wondering if that was why she was walking in the rain after dark. "November," I said.

"The hours are close," she said. "If Pinedale runs long and you add a Ridgeline lift on top of it, you'll be over interval before the maintenance cycle opens."

Hank looked at me. The kind of look a man gives when somebody's just said the thing he was thinking.

"She's right about the hours," Hank said. Plainspoken. Not picking sides. Just saying what was true.

"I know the bird," I said. "We'll make it."