Broken Road Café 1 - The Broken Road Café (4 page)

Dan sucked in a deep breath and tried to control his anger and his…grief. He’d lost his family years before. His parents died within a couple of years of each other while Dan was in college, and he had no brothers or sisters. He wasn’t close to his one uncle, so he’d made family where he could. And Gary was his family—they’d been that for each other—sometimes his brother, sometimes his father, but always the one Dan turned to. Now, though, that trust was broken. He wasn’t sure he could get it back.

The siren jerked him out of his thoughts.
Goddamn it to fucking hell
. Now what? Dan moved his Mustang over a lane, hoping the cop car would keep going and he could keep stewing in his own juices and get to his appointment in time to meet the realtor. But no such luck; the black and white pulled in behind him, lights flashing. He had no choice, and signaling, Dan moved to the side of the road.
Once he was stopped, he reached into his glove box and pulled out his registration, then grabbed his wallet from his jacket pocket. Thumbing through, he pulled out his license and rolled down his window and waited. And waited. And waited some more. The lights kept flashing, and he could see the cop sitting in the front seat fiddling with something. His patience already strained, Dan grabbed his steering wheel, just wanting this whole ordeal to be over and done. His thumbs beat out an irregular rhythm, and after a few long moments, he’d had enough. Reaching down, he unbuckled his seat belt and opened his door.
“Get back in the vehicle.” The loud boom from the cop car’s speakers startled him, and he turned, catching sight of the trooper—cop?—in the driver’s seat. Sighing, he sat and pulled the door closed, banging his head against the headrest. He closed his eyes and began to run through all the
Friday the 13th
movies in his head. He’d just gotten to the one where Jason was in space when a voice startled him out of his reverie.
“License and registration, please.” Dan’s eyes flew open, and he glanced over to his left
. Holy fucking moly
. The man’s voice was deep and whiskey rough, and that was bad enough, but what filled up his window just shouldn’t be legal. Even through the dull gray slacks, Dan could see muscular thighs that rose to meet in a crotch that had to be padded. No way was that thing real. All Dan could do was stare, and when the man reached down and tapped a small metal clipboard against his window frame, Dan snapped his gaze up. “That’s better. Eyes up here. Now, license and registration.”
Blushing for the first time in…he couldn’t remember, Dan handed the officer the cards and ducked his head. He’d never been so embarrassed. But that didn’t stop him from watching the guy walk back to his car in his rearview mirror. And God
damn
if the view walking away wasn’t almost as good as it was standing there. Dan licked his lips, suddenly picturing the man stretched out on Dan’s bed, face down, that ass cupped in tight white briefs.
He’d say he needed to get laid, but that was the last thing in the world Dan needed. Until he settled things with Abe one way or the other, any other man was off limits. No matter how well he filled out that tacky uniform. So he settled in to wait, glancing at the clock on the dashboard. His appointment with the realtor was at noon, and it was a quarter ‘til twelve now. According to his GPS, he still had another ten minutes to go. And given the speed the officer seemed to operate at, it might be noon tomorrow before he got there. Sighing, he pulled out his cell phone to call. He switched over to the car’s Bluetooth and set the cell down, the call on speaker.
The realtor answered. “Hey, Patsy. It’s Dan O’Leary. Listen, I’m almost there, but I have a little bit of a problem.” Sighing, he decided to go with the truth. “I’ve been pulled over just out of town, and the officer is poking along giving me a ticket or whatever.”
Her laughter tinkled through the phone, pissing him off almost as much as the slow-assed country hick cop was. “Mind letting me in on the joke?”
“Well, honey, that officer? He a long tall drink of water in tight gray pants?”
Dan knew he wasn’t flaming, so she must be pulling his leg. “Well, aren’t they all? All I know is, he’s taking his own sweet time doing whatever he’s doing. Pain in the…butt is what he is.”
“Darlin’, he’s just having a little fun with you. That’s our chief of police, Nick Oliver. You just tell him Patsy says hey, and I’ll see him over at the café. He usually has lunch there, so you and him can meet without him being all macho and ‘license and registration, please’,” she lowered her voice in a passable imitation of his bass roll. “See you soon, honey. Look for my Mercedes parked around the back. Ciao.”
He leaned back when the Bluetooth disconnected from his onboard system, then jumped at the sudden unexpected voice. “You can tell Ms. Patsy I’ll be along when I can. Here’s your license and registration, and your ticket. Please sign. Slow it down, Mr. O’Leary. And for your information?” Dan slowly looked up, meeting chocolate brown eyes. “I’m this macho
all
the time. Order me the lunch special and sweet tea. Your treat.”
Dan was stunned. He stuttered, and when the man turned to walk away, all he could think of to yell was, “It’s not nice to listen in on other people’s phone calls.” He heard the jerk laugh, and fumed.
Well, damn.
*
It turned out Dan was only about fifteen minutes late, which meant he hit the café right in the middle of the lunch rush. The parking lot was pretty full, and he drove around to the back of the restaurant, where he saw the Mercedes Patsy had mentioned. He guessed it was safe to leave his Mustang there too. It wasn’t like there was valet parking—this was a small town blue-collar café. God knows why, but when Patsy answered his first call about the place, she made it sound…intriguing.
The current owners named it the Blue Moon Café, and they’d managed the place for the past twenty years. In their sixties, they were ready to cash out and move to their little cabin on the mountain and retire. According to Patsy, the wife had said, “If I never cook more than grilled cheese and canned tomato soup again, I’ll be a happy woman.” Parts of the kitchen had been updated within the past five years, but the booths and décor were the same as when the place opened back in the fifties.
She’d given him an overview, and he’d seen the three-sixty tour on the listing website, but there was nothing like seeing a place in person. Check out under the tables, behind the dumpster, and in the bathrooms, and hopefully chat up a few of the locals. Not that Dan knew much about running a restaurant. In fact, what little he
did
know would fit on the head of a pin and not interrupt the angels dancing there, as his mother used to say.
But he desperately needed to do something different. He’d always had a passion for food. As clichéd as it might sound, Dan had grown up in his mother’s kitchen. Comfort food, soups and stews, Southern staples—all came second nature to him. And his father made sure he knew his way around a grill too. He could make a mean cobbler with the local fruits, and as a kid, his grandfather had him sit on an old fashioned ice cream churn for balance out in the back yard of their home.
For some reason, he felt close to tears. He loved his parents, and their deaths had hit him hard. They’d accepted him when he came out in his teens, never skipping a beat in their declarations of love and support for him. And then for them to be yanked away from him so quickly…he hadn’t thought of them—really thought of them—in years. All the memories rushed over him as he stood there, in the parking lot. He had the feeling he was on the right track, doing something they would have approved of. Something he missed and would love.
“You must be Dan. Hey, hon, I’m Patsy Verline. Yes, darlin’, I know, if you say it three times really fast it almost sounds like Patsy Cline, but I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, so it’s just as well. Now come on in, and we’ll grab some lunch, and you can talk with me about the property. When the lunch hour’s over, Bill and Adele can come out and answer any questions you might have and give you a tour of the back of the house. ‘kay?” A striking redhead, about sixty if he had to guess, with wonderfully poofed-up hair grabbed his hand with both of hers and shook it warmly. She flashed him a wide smile, looked him up and down and, quietly and efficiently, took control of him.
Dan found himself herded through the door and into a booth in front where he could see the whole operation before he could do much more than confirm that yes, he was Dan and yes, the asshat chief was going to join them. There were booths like the one he and Patsy occupied across the front and down both sides, with a round one on each corner capable of seating six. The counter seated another ten or twelve, and in keeping with the name, the décor was, of course, blue, with stars and moons painted across the ceiling. It somehow fit the place without feeling overly kitschy.
A clean-cut young man, maybe twenty, with the bluest eyes Dan had ever seen, came over to take their order. Before either the poor guy or Dan could say a word, Patsy jumped in and took over. Dan had a feeling, from the fond way the boy looked at her and rolled his eyes, she was a frequent flier here, and her…energy was well-known and, if nothing else, anticipated.
“Well, hey, Jake love, how are you? And how’s your mamma doing? Listen, we’ll both have sweet tea and what’s the special? Oh, wait, baby, it’s Thursday so it’s the chicken pot pie. That’s really good, so let’s have three orders, please. Chief Nick is gonna be joining us, so keep an eye out and bring him his tea and pot pie when he shows up. And save us a couple of slices of that lemon ice box pie, too, and maybe a serving of the berry cobbler and ice cream. We can all share. I’m sure we’ll all be friends here before long, right? Now along with you, darlin’. Mr. O’Leary here’s come all the way up from Atlanta, and I imagine he’s famished.” Dan would swear she never took a breath.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be right back with some bread. Real butter, Miss Patsy, as always. Anything else I can get for you folks?” He turned an inquisitive eye to Dan. Dan couldn’t help but notice that the glance took him in from head to toe, or as much as he could see while Dan sat, and evidently the lad liked what he saw. His smile grew wide and inviting. “Maybe some of the fried green tomatoes, Mister…O’Leary, was it?”
Oh, to be twenty and full of piss and vinegar again. He could so easily be just “Dan”, and then they would flirt back and forth and he’d be invited back to see the boy’s etchings, or birdhouse collection, or whatever they did up here in Blue Ridge, and then they’d spend a pleasant couple of hours in the bed. Dan knew the boy wouldn’t expect anything else but a quick roll in the hay, but he made it a habit not to sleep with anyone who might be young enough to be his son, or old enough to be his father. And given how close they were to Tennessee, that was saying something. Plus, the boy might be working for him soon.
Oh, and he didn’t cheat. So, no, he’d stay Mr. O’Leary.
“Thank you, Jake. I think I’ll just wait for the pot pie. It sounds filling. And when you’re closer to forty than thirty, it matters.” Dan gave the young man a wink to soften the words and made sure their hands touched for just a second too long when he handed the menu back. He’d been on the other side of flirting with an older man, and no matter the age, getting shot down hurt. Jake seemed to take it with a grain of salt, returned the wink, and with a smile and a subtle sway of the hips—which happened to showcase a beautiful ass—he took the order to the kitchen.
Dan watched him go, and Patsy’s rather evil laugh brought him back to reality. Good lord, here he was up in the middle of North Bumfuck Egypt, flirting with a boy half his age, just like he would in Midtown. Patsy leaned across the table, patted his hand, and giggled. “He does have the most delightful little tush, doesn’t he? If my Howard didn’t keep me satisfied and carry that handgun, I’d try to convince that boy to take a walk on the wild side.”
Thank God the tea hadn’t arrived yet, or he’d have spit it across the room.
“You are evil, and you must be destroyed.” He’d had
Steel Magnolias
on the brain since he’d arrived in town, and didn’t expect her to recognize the reference.
“I love you more than my luggage,” she batted back.
Dan raised an eyebrow, impressed. This was turning out to be nothing like he’d expected. He was beginning to believe he could do this. Maybe he could talk to Patsy about what kind of housing options there were. He didn’t need a big place, but he didn’t want to rattle around a one bedroom cabin either. Perhaps—
“Hello, Patsy. Did you get my message?”
Dan turned and, for the second time that day, was face to face with that familiar gray polyesterwrapped crotch. He glanced up slowly, and his gaze landed on mocking deep brown eyes. “Remember, eyes up here, buddy.”
God, Dan hated this man.

Patsy slid over and the big tall drink of attitude dropped down into the booth and joined them. “Why yes, honey, Dan here told me you’d be along. We ordered for you, and it should be up in a few minutes. Today’s chicken pot pie, and dessert’s taken care of too. Now tell me”—she flashed him a big
come-onshare-with-momma
grin—“why ever did you pull my Danny boy over? He’s sweet as an angel, so I know it wasn’t for something vile, and he might just end up joining us here in Blue Ridge, so you need to be nice to the man.”

There were so many things wrong with that little speech, and before Dan could jump in and at least tell
him
to mind his manners and
her
to mind her own business, the asshole chuckled and winked at him. “Your little angel”—the sarcasm dripped from his voice like honey—“missed the speed limit change at the end of town and was going seventy-five in a fifty. If a kid was riding a bike and he didn’t see him, or Edgar’s crazy ass horse got loose and was chasing cars along the highway, someone could’ve gotten hurt. It’s usually these drivers with Fulton County plates that I seem to have to chase down.”

Dan began a not-so-silent fume. “Listen, Barney Fife, any kid riding on a bicycle on a state highway
should
get run over. And a horse? For God’s sake, if you aren’t kidding, then I wonder what the hell rabbit hole I fell down.” He shook his head. “And don’t let
Miss
Patsy fool you. I haven’t even looked at the diner yet, much less decided if I want to live in Hooterville for the next twenty years. And as for the Fulton County plates? I’m a lawyer, and I’d hate to have to take this to court as profiling.”