Angel Mine

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?”

“Same as yesterday and the day before that. You’re in a rut, old man. Just leave the money on the counter and don’t bother with a tip. I don’t want your handouts.”

She marched past him with Heather’s order. The man watched her starchy movements with a resigned expression, put a couple of bills beside his plate and left.

“Are you that way with all your customers, or is he special?” Heather inquired curiously.

“Foolish old man,” Henrietta muttered, her gaze following him nonetheless. “He’s a judge. Harry Corrigan. Thinks he’s God. I’m here to tell him otherwise.”

Heather hid a smile. “Interesting.”

Henrietta turned her attention from the departing judge to Heather. “I haven’t got time to waste talking about the likes of him. Tell me about you.”

Heather gave her the short version, leaving out any specific mention of Todd. An hour later she had the job, a place to stay—in the rooms upstairs—and a new friend.

“This is just temporary,” Heather reminded her.

“Girl, you’ve told me that half a dozen times. You’ll go when the time is right and I’ll be no worse off than I am today. Who knows, maybe you’ll decide to stay. You could do worse than Whispering Wind. It’s a nice little town for raising kids. And I imagine Buck over at the service station can find you a deal on a used car.”

Heather knew with absolute certainty that staying wasn’t an option, but she’d been as honest about that as she could be. “Thank you. You’ve been very kind.”

“Kindness has nothing to do with it. You’re bailing me out of a jam. I’m tired of working dawn to dusk, seven days a week. Having you around to share the load will be like going on vacation.”

“Maybe so, but I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. I never expected to be lucky enough to find work on my first day in town.”

“You want to run across the street and see Jake now, you go right on and do it,” Henrietta told her. To her credit she hadn’t asked Heather why she needed a lawyer when she’d barely set foot in town. “Business won’t pick up for a while yet. I can keep an eye on Angel for you.”

Heather hesitated. She hated taking advantage of a woman who’d already been so generous. “Angel can be a handful,” she warned.

“Believe me, you don’t know the meaning of the word until you meet the two hellions I’ve got living with me.”

“You have kids?” Heather asked, surprised. She would have thought Henrietta was old enough for grandchildren, not little ones of her own.

“Oh, they’re not mine, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s a long story and best saved for another day. They’ll be along any minute once they’ve finished with their tutor. Both of them are smart as whips, but they missed a lot of classes a while back. They’re getting caught up after regular school lets out. They can keep Angel company till you get back.”

“If you’re sure…”

“Go. You might as well get whatever’s on your mind taken care of. Much as he tries to demonstrate otherwise, Jake’s a good lawyer and a decent man. He’ll do right by you.”

“I won’t be long,” Heather promised. There was no need to reassure Angel about her absence. She’d already crawled into Henrietta’s lap, where she was being rocked to sleep.

Maybe for once in her life, Heather concluded, she had done exactly the right thing. Not only was Angel going to gain a daddy, but it looked as if she was going to pick up an extended family, as well, something there had been little time for Heather to cultivate in New York.

And if the byplay she’d observed between Henrietta and the judge was anything to go by, the next two or three months would be downright entertaining.

The secretary in Jake’s office regarded Heather with fascination.

“Honey, do I know you? You look real familiar to me.”

“I doubt it,” Heather said. “This is the first time I’ve ever been here.”

The woman continued to stare, then snapped her fingers. “Wait. I know who you are. Hold it a sec. It’s right here.” She opened a file drawer in the desk and began tossing things out of it until she finally came up with an old issue of Soap Opera Digest, the one with Heather’s picture on the cover. “I knew it. That’s you, isn’t it?”

Heather couldn’t decide whether to be flattered or dismayed. She had played dozens of parts in her career, but it appeared that that particular one was going to follow her forever. Unfortunately there was no denying that she was the woman on the cover. “Afraid so,” she said finally.

“Well, I’ll be. What on earth are you doing in a one-horse town like Whispering Wind? I’m Flo Olsen, by the way. If you’re here to see Jake, he’s out. Of course, he’s usually out. That man works less than any human being I’ve ever known, and now that Megan’s pregnant, he’s impossible. He hovers over her like he thinks she’s going to break. She keeps calling here and begging me to come up with some big emergency that’ll get him into town and out of her hair, but I ask you, what sort of an emergency is a lawyer likely to have around here?”

Her expression brightened. “Of course, telling him that a famous actress is here to see him ought to do the trick. Just a sec. Have a seat. I’ll track him down.”

Heather sat. Since the only apparent reading material was the soap magazine, she had little to do but stare around at the office, which was surprisingly well-furnished for a man who supposedly did very little work. Suddenly what Flo had said clicked.

“Did you say his wife’s name is Megan?” she asked Flo when the secretary had hung up, her expression triumphant.

“Yes. Megan O’Rourke. I’m sure you’ve heard of her. She’s our very own local celebrity. Have to say she and I didn’t hit it off too well at first. She’s my little girl Tess’s legal guardian. Tess’s father was Megan’s granddaddy. He was taking care of Tess for me when he died, and he specified in his will that Megan was to take over.”

A grin flitted across her face as she told the story. “Sounds like something that would happen on a soap, doesn’t it? Leaving Tess with Tex O’Rourke wasn’t one of my best moments, but everything’s working out now. I get to spend a lot of time with Tess, but Megan and Jake are real good to her. I think things happen for a reason, don’t you?”