But every week she seemed to say something that set the pleasantness of conversation on its head. Each time she realized her blunder, Charlie’s reaction was always the same: pay and leave.
On her second visit, she asked Nathaniel, “Where’s that pretty dark-haired waitress? What was her name? Alice?”
Matthew stiffened.
Nathaniel sucked his teeth and glanced at Matthew’s back. “She moved on to the city.”
“Which one?” The second Charlie asked, she could have smacked herself. It was obviously a sore subject, and she had just opened her fool mouth for no reason.
“Chicago.” Matthew named the city as if it were flat and unimportant.
And that summed it up right there. Alice had left… and from the gist of the conversation, it seemed she’d left Matthew.
Charlie could have said a million things; she could’ve tried to crack a joke, but all she could manage was, “How much do I owe?”
The next visit was much the same. Charlie was leaning close to Nathaniel, their heads together as they laughed and muttered too low for anyone else to follow the conversation… until an eavesdropping Eli caught her saying, “…and so I cut off his…”
Before she could finish, Matthew reached across the counter to grip Charlie’s arm. She just about jumped out of her skin, eyes wide and jaw dropped. The look she found on Matthew’s face was practically murderous, warning the interloping female not to speak another word in front of the mostly unsullied boy he’d raised.
“How much do I owe?”
So again, Charlie paid and rushed off.
On her sixth visit, Matthew watched her in the mirror and saw that, once again, she’d not touched the mug of coffee set by her plate. It obviously bothered him. Hell, she obviously bothered him. Fixating on every movement of her mouth, he awkwardly interrupted, “You don’t like coffee?”
Startling at the gruff address, Charlie tucked her hair behind her ear and cocked her head. “No, Mr. Emerson. I don’t care for coffee.”
Her cup was snatched off the counter. “What do you like?”
It was the most words he had spoken to her since the morning he said she could stay. Surprised, Charlie stammered, “I like hot tea.”
“Don’t got that.” Matthew’s attention went back to the griddle.
“Beer’s fine too.”
He stiffened, looking up to see her smirking at him in the mirror.
“I also like liquor,” she said, though her tone was light. Teasing. “You got that?”
Matthew reached under the bar, pulling out a jar full of cloudy liquid. Unscrewing the lid, he set it before her in a challenge.
There was no hesitation; slim fingers flared around the glass. With a quick smirk, Charlie raised it to her mouth and took a big swallow. Smacking her lips, she offered an opinion. “That’s pretty good, Mr. Emerson. Best applejack I’ve had.”
Nathaniel thought it was too damn funny, and Eli gaped, surprised a lady had swallowed so much.
Then there was Matthew.
He just stared at the peacemaking smile Charlie offered as if he couldn’t quite grasp what he was looking at.
After that day, her time with the Emersons seemed to improve. She’d kept her foot out of her mouth, Matthew hadn’t glared quite so much, and there’d been no awkward need to rush off… until a few weeks later when everything went to shit.
Charlie had come to Devil’s Hollow past her usual hour, already in a mood from being cornered by her waspish landlady. The Fontannes had been more than accommodating, but each time they sat down to the nightly boarding house meal, the Missus would prod into her life. At first, polite vagueness had been simple, but as the months extended, it grew clear the proprietress was getting annoyed by the lack of information Charlie was willing to cough up.
Cornering her in a huff, Mrs. Fontanne demanded to know why she didn’t work, where the money that paid for her board came from. The old bag went so far as to suggest Charlie was on the run from her husband, and that she had some lover floating the bills.
The accusations had grown more and more outrageous until Charlie lost her temper and shouted that the old biddy would do well to leave her the hell alone.
The drive in the early autumn foliage had done little to calm Charlie’s nerves. By the time her car rolled to a stop outside the roadhouse, she’d seriously considered just putting it in reverse and getting the hell out of there.