The Palomino Grill was located off Interstate 25, at the end of the freeway ramp that led to the little town of Mountainview. It was open around the clock and looked considerably better at night than during the day.
Its floor plan was simple. Booths lined three of the four walls, tables dotted the center space, and an open-ended counter with padded swivel stools stretched the length of the kitchen. An old manual cash register topped a glassfronted counter that was filled with the usual assortment of gum, candy and antacid tablets. Garish red-and-black carpeting, sun-faded red curtains and a jukebox crowned with a decade-old display of dusty plastic geraniums completed the decor.
Annie was an hour and a half past the end of her regular shift when she dropped the tray of dirty dishes. There was a ringing crash, interspersed with the tinkle of breaking glass and the clatter of bouncing cutlery.
It might not have seemed so bad if it hadn’t been the second tray she’d dropped that night.
Or if she didn’t suddenly have an overwhelming urge to cry.
But it was and she did. To her horror the room began to blur, while a lump the size of one of Sam’s Nerf balls bloomed in her throat.
Mortified, she stooped down, righted the tray and blindly began to pick the silverware out of the debris, stubbornly blinking back tears. She hadn’t suryived the past three years just to fall apart over a bunch of broken dishes, she told herself.
The reminder helped. But not nearly as much as the irreverent female voice that sounded above her head a few minutes later. “Wow. Two trays in one shift. It’s gotta be BFS.”
Annie glanced up at her friend, Nina. “What?”
“You know. BFS.” The other waitress wiggled her fingers. “Butterfinger syndrome. Occupational hazard of waitresses, data processors and brain surgeons. Of course—” she bent down, scooped up the remaining pieces of silverware and whisked away the tray “—as far as that last group goes, the consequences tend to be an eensy-weensy bit more serious.” She gave Annie a meaningful look. “Know what I mean?”
Annie stared at her thirty-something friend, looking past the rose tattoo on Nina’s wrist, the improbable burgundy hair and the triple-pierced ears, to the sympathetic hazel eyes. A grateful if shaky smile spread across Annie’s face. “I guess that does put it in perspective.”
“You betcha.” Nina set the tray aside and offered her a hand.
Annie took it. To her surprise when she looked around, she saw that the diner was empty, except for Big Bob, the night cook, and Leo, the dishwasher, whom she could see through the pass-through to the kitchen. “Where’d everybody go?”
Nina shrugged. “You should’ve dropped the dishes sooner. I think you scared the last group off. They lit out a few minutes ago.”
“Clia’s going to kill me.”
Nina looked at her curiously. “Clia, my pretty, slithered onto her broom and went home hours ago. Furthermore, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
“She’ll know,” Annie said firmly, “because I’ll tell her.”
Nina groaned. “I swear, Annie, you make Dudley DoRight look like a piker.” She disappeared through the swinging doors into the back, only to reappear seconds later, broom and dustpan in hand. She thrust the latter at Annie and began to sweep. “You really need to work on your attitude,” she said without missing a beat. “Try thinking about it this way. Clia owes you for agreeing to stay until Char and May show up.”
“She owes you,” Annie said. “I was late, remember?”
Nina rolled her eyes. “Get a grip. At least you called. And it was probably only the third time you’ve been late in two years. Those two haven’t been on time once in the past two months. And I, for one, am getting damn tired of covering for them.”
As if on cue, the bell above the door jangled. A trio of burly truck drivers came in, closely followed by the pair of giggling blond twins who worked the graveyard shift.
“Finally,” Nina said. She took the dustpan out of Annie’s hands, gave her a quick once-over and pointed toward the far booth. “Go. Sit. We need to talk.”
“But—”
“I’ll be right there.” Not waiting to hear any further protest, she marched away, dumped the broken dishware into the trash and went to have a little talk with their blond co-workers.
She joined Annie a few minutes later. “Honest to God, those two make Jenny’s gerbil look like an intellectual.” Jenny was the second of Nina’s three children; she had one from each of her marriages. “Here.” She handed Annie a steaming cup of coffee, set her own on the table and slid onto the seat. “You look like you could use it.”
“Thanks.” Annie dredged up a tired smile. “Does that mean I look as bad as I feel?”
“Ha. You couldn’t look really bad if you worked at it. But you’ve jumped like a scalded cat every time anyone’s so much as hiccuped tonight. It doesn’t take one of those brain surgeons to figure out something’s wrong.”
“Oh.”
Nina grimaced at the carefully neutral answer, twisted sideways and stretched out her legs on the seat with a sigh of pleasure. “So. Are you going to tell me what’s going on? Or am I going to have to pry it out of you?”
Annie rolled the cup between her hands and considered her answer.
When she’d left Denver three years ago and started driving north, she’d been numb, so overcome by the events of the preceding months she hadn’t been able to think past escaping the city where her entire world had collapsed. During the previous year she’d graduated from an exclusive Boston college, returned to Colorado after a fourteen-year exile and been swept off her feet by the man of her dreams. She’d gone from being her wealthy father’s golden princess, to Gavin’s prized possession, to being a twenty-three-year-old orphaned ex-debutante with five thousand dollars to her name, no marketable skills, a husband who didn’t want her and a baby on the way.
In the back of her mind she’d had a vague plan of starting over somewhere like Montana or Idaho. Instead the muffler had fallen off her car after a mere forty-three miles, stranding her in Mountainveiw, and she’d simply been too overcome to move on.
Yet she hadn’t given up entirely. The child stirring inside had refused to let her. For the first time ever, somebody had been depending on her. Annie had been determined not to let that small, precious somebody down.
Somehow she’d found the energy and strength to rent her little house, to husband her limited financial resources through the remainder of her pregnancy, to make it alone through the long, scary hours of childbirth. Three months later she’d found her way to the Palomino, determined to do whatever she had to, to support her new little family.
Beyond the bare particulars, she hadn’t talked about her past to anyone. At first because it was too painful. And then because she’d put it behind her.
Or so she’d thought.
She looked over at Nina’s expectant gaze and realized she was finally going to have to say…something. She sighed, trying to decide where to start. “I ran into Gavin in the grocery store last week,” she said finally.
“Gavin?” Nina’s blank look spoke volumes.
“My husband. Sam’s father.”
“You mean, you really are…married?”
It was Annie’s turn to look startled. “For heaven’s sake, Nina.” She glanced from her friend to the heavy gold and silver wedding band on her own hand, and back again. “Yes. What did you think? That I’d made it up?”
“Well…yeah. What was I supposed to think? You’ve been alone ever since you first walked in here desperate for a job, when Sam was just a little