Home To Family

Matt took his hand off the steering wheel and reached across the front seat to rub his fingers along the back of Shayla’s neck. “Come on, Shay. How can you be so cruel to someone you’re crazy about?”

That got the reaction he expected. She gave him a sharpened look, eyes wide. “You’re way too full of yourself. I’m not that crazy about you.”

He grinned. “Let me stop and get my coffee fix, and when we get to Lightning River tonight I’ll show you all the reasons you should be.”

“Under your parents’ roof?” she said with a small gasp. “I don’t think so. For the week we’re staying with them, there’ll be none of that sort of thing, Matt D’Angelo.”

He laughed. “I know a dozen places in the lodge where we can find privacy. I was very inventive when I was a horny teenager.”

“Well, you’re an adult now. At least you’re supposed to be. Abstinence will give us something to look forward to when it’s time to go home.”

He faked a miserable look. “I’ll have a bluuuue…Christmas without youuuu…,” he warbled.

She put her hands over her ears. “Stop! You may be a great surgeon, but you’re completely tone-deaf.” She nudged his arm lightly. “Get your cup of coffee, but then let’s get going.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. That had been easier than he’d expected.

He took a turn off the highway that ran through the outskirts of Denver, following a road swept clean by the snow crews. Somewhere along here, there had to be a place they could make a quick stop.

He spotted it in the middle of the block. One of those old dining cars from the railroad days. Duffy’s, the modest sign proclaimed. He pulled into the parking lot, found a spot and killed the engine.

As soon as the heater died, Shayla tucked her fingers into the pockets of her coat, already looking displeased.

“Two minutes,” Matt promised. “Want anything?”

“No.”

He leaned over, fingering a stray lock of Shayla’s blond hair behind her ear so that he could skim a kiss across her cool cheek.

She swung a look in his direction. “Are you kissing me because you got your way?” she asked with a skeptically raised eyebrow.

“No,” he replied honestly. “I’m kissing you because you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. I’m a lucky guy, and I know I don’t say that often enough.”

She looked surprised at the unexpected compliment. He laughed as she practically pushed him out of the car.

A blast of frigid air hit him as he got out, and he hurriedly buttoned his coat against it. The snow had let up, but the wind was as bone-chilling as the worst winters they got in Chicago.

Carefully he made his way up the steps of the diner. He’d never hear the end of it if he slipped and broke something now. The red light from the neon sign in the window glowed like a spill of blood across the pretty snow mounded on the bushes near the door.

The place was small, a single counter with stools and a few booths along one end. Nobody looked up as he came in, though there were four or five people who had obviously sought shelter against the inhospitable weather.

There was a man seated on the end stool, nearest the door. A young woman with sallow skin but pretty blond hair stood behind the cash register. At the opposite end of the counter, a barrel-chested guy in a spotty apron— Duffy?—nodded curtly at Matt.

In half a dozen strides, Matt reached the counter. “Hi,” he said to the waitress. “Can I get a cup of coffee to go? Black, please.”

She didn’t say a word, just turned around and started to fill the order. Little white bag, napkin, stir stick. Matt blew on his hands to warm them while he waited. The man beside him looked up and gave him a tight smile. Matt nodded.

The service was slow. The blonde turned at last, coffee now hidden away in the bag. Matt could smell it—strong and heavenly, and he could almost feel it warming his insides already.

And then he heard something strange. Bells. Very faint and delicate-sounding. He thought it might be coming from the jukebox at the opposite side of the room—Christmas tunes would be the order of the day—but that couldn’t be. The colored arch along the top of the machine was dark, like a dead rainbow.

He realized the sound was coming from the waitress. He caught a name badge over her right breast. Jill. Her hand was clutched on the take-out bag, and it was then Matt noticed that she wore a bracelet. A concession to the Christmas season—small linked jingle bells covered her wrist.

They were shaking. Hard. So was her hand.

In fact, when Matt looked back at her name badge, he could see her heart pumping wildly, moving the plastic back and forth.

“Are you all right?” he asked with a frown.

The girl went white as new snow. Unexpectedly, the man on the stool next to him rose and quickly went around the end of the counter. He hugged Jill to his side, then smiled at Matt.

“Not a problem, man,” he said. “Jill’s my lady, and we just had a little spat. But everything’s okay now. Ain’t that right, Jill?”

Jill nodded, trance-like, but nothing in her stiff posture indicated smooth sailing ahead for this couple. Must have been one heck of a spat, Matt thought.

And then, in that moment, in one split, God-awful moment of understanding, it hit him. He knew precisely what he was witnessing here, and it wasn’t an embarrassingly public lover’s quarrel.

The nearly deserted street outside. The unnatural, still silence of the other diners. Jill’s barely controlled panic. The tense, wary way in which the man who held her smiled at him.

In that same instant, the older employee at the opposite end of the counter took several steps in their direction. “Turn her loose,” he growled, his eyes wild and burning.

The man holding Jill lifted one arm, and Matt saw the gun in his hand for the first time. “Back off, old man,” he snapped. “You don’t want my kind of trouble.”

He pointed the gun at Matt when the employee stopped dead in his tracks. “You. Just stand right there. If you’re smart, you won’t move.”

Matt did as he was told. The robber was short, but he had a bully’s jaw and the harsh, fierce eyes of a sewer rat. Matt watched as the man let go of Jill and came around the counter to stand in front of him. With the end of his gun, he motioned toward the counterman. “Finish opening the safe.” Jill had begun to cry now, and the robber barked at her, “Shut the hell up!” For good measure, he reached across the Formica, yanked her close with a twisting grip on her blouse, and slapped her.

Matt flinched inwardly, but remained still. He knew enough to keep from escalating this any further with a foolish show of bravado. The robber would take the cash and make a run for it. There wasn’t any need for anyone to get badly hurt.

Jill bit down on her bloodless lips and went silent.

“Harley!” the sewer rat shouted down the length of the room. “What’s taking you so long? Hustle up!”

For the first time Matt realized that a second robber had begun rounding up prizes from the other diners—wallets and rings and anything that looked remotely valuable and portable. He was tall, with long hair that made him look young and oddly innocent.

While Harley worked quickly at the other end of the diner, the first robber kept his gun trained on Matt. A demented grin snaked across the man’s face.

He thumped Matt lightly on the chest with the barrel of his weapon. “Nice coat. Got anything else under there I might like?”

Matt unbuttoned his coat, withdrew his wallet and handed it over.

The man glanced at Jill and made an impatient gesture with his fingers. “Get that ring off.”

Unexpectedly, the girl showed a sudden spark of life. “No,” she said. “It’s my engagement ring.”

The guy didn’t like that. “I don’t care if you inherited it from your dear departed mother. Take it off.”

He started to lean over the counter, but Matt took a step in front of him. “You don’t have to hurt her,” he said, desperate to keep the situation calm and his thoughts coherent. “Go easy. She’ll give it up. Won’t you, Jill?”