Page 181 of Taken Away

City Limits Café & Books

Sylva

The lunch rush at City Limits Café & Books had settled into its usual noisy rhythm.

Forks scraped against mismatched plates. The hiss of the flat-top drifted from the open kitchen. The big chalkboard over the counter was packed with today’s specials in bright loops of colored chalk:

FRIED GREEN TOMATO BLT

BLACKWOOD BURGER

BLUEBERRY PANCAKES (ALL DAY)

“Burger, medium, no onions,” Willow Harper called, sliding a plate across the counter toward Red Stephens. The patty glistened beneath melted cheddar, juice already soaking into the toasted bun.

Red caught the plate one-handed and grunted his thanks.

“You know Mabel bullied me into putting that Blackwood Burger on the board,” Willow said, topping off his coffee without looking. “Said if I was gonna buy all my beef off her pastures, the least I could do was put her name on it.”

Red snorted. “She wasn’t wrong.”

He picked up the burger with both hands and took a bite like it had personally offended him.

Beside him, Sam Talley from the feed store nursed a sweating glass of sweet tea, cap tipped back on his head.

“Half the restaurants in this town’d starve if those Black Angus ever stopped coming down off that hill,” Sam said. “Blackwood beef or bust.”

Farther down the counter, Ned Bishop worked his way through a plate of meatloaf, listening more than he talked. Two stools away, Deputy Scout Wilson inhaled a stack of blueberry pancakes between calls, radio clipped to his belt, uniform shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows.

Deputy Luke Hale sat with a plate of fries and a file folder open at his elbow, pen wedged behind his ear. Mary Lou and June Wheeler sat with their usual chicken salad sandwiches and bottomless coffees.

The bell over the front door chimed.

Conversations didn’t stop, exactly, but they dipped low—as they always did when someone unfamiliar walked in.

Luke glanced up from his file.

The woman in the doorway looked, at first glance, like she’d taken a wrong turn on her way to a resort.

Cool, salon-blonde hair fell in glossy waves around her shoulders, not a gray in sight. Oversized sunglasses covered half her face. She wore a pale, fitted sundress that did nothing to hide the fact that her breasts were too perky for Social Security without outside help. Her manicured nails gleamed hibiscus pink. Her skin was the kind of even tan you didn’t get from gardening.

But it wasn’t the work that made his fork pause halfway to his mouth.

It was the bones.

Under the Florida tan, under the careful fillers and good lipstick, her face was pure Mabel Blackwood, only a younger version. Same high cheekbones. Same mouth. Same tilt to the chin.

Willow froze with the coffee pot halfway off its burner.

“Oh, hell,” she breathed.

Mary Lou’s eyes went wide. Her hand flew to her chest, sandwich forgotten.

“Anne,” she whispered.

“Lord, have mercy,” June said. “She looks just like Mabel did at forty.”

Ned turned on his stool, eyebrows shooting up. Sam gave a low whistle.