Angel Mine. Sherryl Woods
wouldn’t do for her and this was it.
“Find someone else, Megan.”
“But—”
“I mean it. I love you. I respect you. I would do almost anything in the world for you or Jake. But I will not be godfather to your baby.”
Her gaze narrowed, then turned speculative. “Why do I sense that there’s more going on here than you’ve said?”
“Because you can’t take no for an answer?” he suggested. “It’s some genetic flaw, I think.”
“I’m not giving up on you,” she retorted, undaunted by his attitude. “It only took a few weeks to turn you into a cowboy against your will. The baby’s not due for eight more months.”
Todd sighed at the determined gleam in her eye. Megan on a mission was a force to be reckoned with. But just this once, he figured he was even more highly motivated than she was. If nothing else worked, he would resort to the truth. Then she wouldn’t allow him within an arm’s length of her baby.
2
Todd was living here? Heather gazed up and down the main street of Whispering Wind and wondered if she’d somehow landed on the set for Annie Get Your Gun. The downtown was no more than a few blocks long and dominated by a handful of old-fashioned storefronts, ranging from a diner and a general store to a hardware store and a feed-and-grain supplier. Feed and grain? Something told her that wasn’t a gourmet grocery, catering to vegetarians.
The place did have a certain rustic charm, she supposed, but Todd, here? Todd Winston, the ultimate yuppie even when he hadn’t had a dime, in a town that didn’t have a Starbucks or department store in sight, much less a skyscraper? Where was he buying his designer shirts? Where was he going for sushi? Where were the theaters? Megan O’Rourke must have the persuasive skills of a hostage negotiator.
“Mama?” Angel tugged on her hand and gave her an imploring look. “Want ice cream. Now.”
Now was Angel’s second favorite word after no. It usually meant trouble was just around the corner unless Heather complied with her wishes. Since it was a tantrum that had brought them here, Heather was willing to do almost anything to avoid one now.
“In a minute, sweet pea,” she said, trying to buy a few minutes to look around, to absorb not only the simplicity of the town, but the fact that the temperature seemed close to freezing even though it was already mid-May. She shivered and tugged her sweater more tightly around her, then checked the zipper on Angel’s coat which she had a way of tugging down.
“Now!” Angel repeated. “Want ice cream now!”
Heather sighed. She had barely had time to breathe since dropping their belongings off at a motel on the outskirts of town. Angel had been too excited to take her usual afternoon nap. This walk was supposed to settle her down, so Heather could have some quiet time to make plans, including coming up with a less expensive alternative to the car she’d been forced to rent at the airport.
On the flight to Laramie, she’d given more thought to exactly how she needed to handle things with Todd. She couldn’t expect to drop Angel on his doorstep and simply walk away. Father and daughter were going to need time to get to know each other, time for Todd to accept the situation. Spending the summer sounded about right.
Surely after three months she and Todd could come to some sort of an agreement. Shared custody, maybe. Child-support payments. She wasn’t sure exactly what was fair, which meant she probably ought to see a lawyer before making contact with Angel’s daddy. She’d noticed a sign for an attorney—Jake Landers—right across the street. She doubted there was more than one in a town the size of Whispering Wind.
“Mama!” Angel’s face was scrunched up, indicating that tears were on the immediate horizon.
“Okay, baby, let’s get ice cream.”
As they walked down the block to the ice-cream parlor Angel had spotted thanks to the colorful giant cone out front, Heather noticed the Help Wanted sign in the window of the diner. Now that she’d had a look around the town, something told her that waitressing was about the best she could hope to do here. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t used to it.
“Baby, let’s stop in here for a minute,” she said, turning Angel toward the diner.
Angel let out a wail that could have put a car alarm to shame.
“I’m sure they have ice cream in here, too,” Heather consoled, for once undaunted by the building sobs. She hunkered down and touched a silencing finger to Angel’s lips. “But if you don’t stop that crying right this instant, you won’t get any. Okay?”
The tears magically stopped. “Okay,” Angel said agreeably, as if that had been her plan all along.
The Starlight Diner was spotless, but there was no mistaking the wear and tear on the red vinyl seats, the initials that had been scratched on the Formica tabletops, the jukeboxes in every booth that boasted hits from the sixties. It was the kind of place where generations of teens had probably courted, where old men came daily for a cup of coffee and local news. It had tradition written all over it. Some of the places she’d worked in in New York might have been fancier, but they had opened and closed faster than a bad Broadway play.
At nearly two o’clock in the afternoon, there was only a lone customer left at the counter, a man wearing a rumpled pin-striped suit and black leather cowboy boots. His gaze followed the waitress as she briskly wiped tables, but the woman seemed to be deliberately avoiding him.
Heather slid Angel into a booth, then sat across from her. The waitress, a tall, thin woman with short-cropped gray hair and a ready smile, came up with an order pad in hand. She grinned at Angel.
“Hey, there, aren’t you a cutie. I haven’t seen you in here before. I’m Henrietta Hastings, by the way,” she said to Heather. “What can I get for you?”
“Ice cream for her. Chocolate, if you can bear the thought of half of it winding up on the table or floor.”
“Honey, you’d be amazed at how much winds up on the table or floor, put there by folks a whole lot older than this little one. Don’t worry about it. Messes are just part of the business. Now, how about you? Ice cream, too? Although, if that’s what you’re after, I’d recommend you head on down the street. They have a fancier supply than I carry in here.”
“I’ll have coffee for now and maybe some information?”
Henrietta tucked her pencil behind her ear. “Sure. What can I tell you?”
“Do you know if the job’s still available, and if it is, when I might be able to talk to the owner?”
The woman looked as if Heather had just offered her a million bucks. “The job’s open and you’re talking to the boss. Let me get that ice cream and coffee and we’ll talk. It’ll give me a chance to get off my feet. The lunch hour was a real bitch today.” She scowled in the direction of the remaining customer as if he were one of the primary offenders. “Half the people couldn’t make up their minds, and the half that could didn’t like what they’d ordered when it turned up. We’ve got a new cook who keeps trying to gussy up the old standards. I almost had a rebellion when he tried to put avocado on the burgers. I should have known better than to hire someone whose last job was in southern California.”
She went back behind the counter to pour the coffee and dish up the ice cream, still pointedly ignoring the man seated on a stool near the register.
“More coffee, Henrietta,” he said.
“You don’t need it,” she retorted. “Besides, you’ve got court in ten minutes.”
“They can’t start without me, can they?” he shot back.
“Might be better if they did,” Henrietta replied.
The man sighed heavily. “Okay, how much do I owe you?”