Runaway Mistress Read Online Free PDF Page A

small.
    The bell jingled as she entered. “’Morning,” a man called from behind the counter.
    She took a stool right in the middle of the completely vacant counter. The man in the booth at the back of the diner had a newspaper spread out in front of him.
    “’Morning,” she returned. “Coffee?”
    He had a cup in front of her in seconds. “Cold and wet out there, ain’t it.”
    “Freezing,” she said, pulling her jacket tighter.
    “It should be a lot warmer by now. There’re buds on the trees and the grass is greening up. Spring’s ’bout here. I’ll let you warm up a little, then we’ll talk about some breakfast,” he said. She looked up at him. He squinted at what he could see of her face under the bill of her hat. For a moment she was confused, and then she remembered she had no eyebrows. With a self-conscious laugh, she plucked the cap off her head and exposed her bald head and naked brow. He almost jumped back in surprise. “Whoa. That’s a new look now, ain’t it?”
    “Shocking,” she supplied, putting her cap back on.
    “Cold, I take it.”
    “That’s for sure.”
    He was a big man around sixty. Overweight, with a thick, ornery crop of yellow-gray, strawlike hair and square face and rosy cheeks—like a sixty-year-old little boy with big ears. She saw a face she could only describe as accessible. Open. He had friendly blue eyes set in the crinkles of age, a double chin and an engaging smile—one tooth missing to the back of the right side. “I got biscuits and gravy,” he said proudly.
    “I’m not really hungry,” she said. “Just cold.”
    “You been outside long?”
    Oh-oh. He suspected she was homeless. The army surplus fashion, the backpack, the ball cap. “No. Well, maybe a little. I’ve a room at that roadside place about six blocks from here and I woke up freezing. No heat. And the motel office wasn’t open yet.”
    “Behind that scrap heap and junkyard?”
    “That’s the one.”
    “Charlie is not generous with his guests,” the man in the booth said with a heavy Spanish accent. “You should say he give you the night free.”
    “He should,” the man behind the counter said. “But he won’t. They don’t come much tighter than Charlie.”
    The man in the booth folded his paper, stood up and stretched. Then he took an apron off a hook and put it on. Ah, the cook, she realized. “Um—are you done with that paper?” she asked him.
    “Help yourself, mija. ” He proceeded around the counter to the grill and began heating and scraping it. The sounds of breakfast being started filled the diner and soon the smells followed. Jennifer settled herself into the same booth so she could spread the paper out in front of her.
    A little while passed, then the owner brought the coffeepot to her. “Have any interest in breakfast yet?” he asked.
    “Really, I’m not very hungry.”
    “You don’t mind me saying so—you look a little on the lean side.”
    “I’m just lucky that way.”
    “If it’s a matter of money—”
    She was startled. “I can pay,” she said, maybe a little too proudly. Truly, if he had any idea how much money was stuffed inside the Kate Spade bag that was stuffed inside the backpack, he’d be stunned. Not to mention the jewelry. The dawning came slowly. Don’t protest too much, she told herself. It was perfectly all right if people thought she was a little down on her luck. And it wasn’t as though she didn’t know the role—she was intimately acquainted with it. “I might have something in a while. I just want to warm up. And have a look at the paper.”
    “Sure thing. Just say the word when you’re ready. Adolfo has started breakfast.”
    She drank two more cups of coffee while she combed the paper and found nothing about the Nobles or herself. How long would Nick get away with pretending his wife was out of the country? Surely someone would begin to miss Barbara! Her masseuse, for example.
    But who would miss you, Jennifer? she asked