dozens of times before—when I caught high school kids trying to shoplift. I scanned the bottle two more times.
He slid his card into the reader without objection after I announced the total.
The two of them scurried out. Brown Shirt punched the other one in the shoulder, and they exchanged heated words I couldn’t hear through the glass. This Mama’s Minimart was closer to home than the original one in Fairfax, or the one in Reston where I’d started, but dealing with the shoplifting was a pain.
“How’d you know?” I asked Tattoo Guy when he returned.
He slid a KitKat bar my way on the counter. “Just heard ’em talking. Stealing’s not right.” Apparently, he was one of the honest ones, one of the good guys.
I lifted an eyebrow. I hadn’t seen Tattoo Guy anywhere near those two. “From over here?”
He nodded. “Yeah.” He tapped his ear. “Good hearing.”
I rang up his total, and he paid by sliding a card through the reader this time.
Annie looked on from her corner of the store. She canted her head toward him, silently mouthing, “Ask him.”
“Thanks, Debbie.” His gaze lingered a bit on my chest before rising from my nametag to meet my eyes. Picking up his jerky, he gave me a full-on, megawatt smile with dimples to die for. They were cute, when everything else about him yelled rugged and dangerous. He slid the KitKat toward me. “For trusting me. Something sweet for a sweet girl.”
The heat of a three-alarm blush filled my cheeks. “No, I should be thanking you…” I let it hang there, hoping he’d finish it with his name.
“Luke,” he replied as he backed away.
The door chime sounded, and Officer Nolan, one of our regular police customers, entered. He stopped and looked over at the convex security mirror first thing, just as Luke always did.
Luke turned to look at the officer, and his dimples disappeared. “See ya,” he told me.
A second later, I was watching his ass saunter out the door in those tight jeans.
Outside, he shrugged on his leather jacket, added the helmet, and started the bike.
Annie returned and poked my side. “You should have asked him. You have to go out on a limb and take a risk sometimes. The worst that could happen is he says no. Big deal.”
“You’re right,” I told her, not really meaning it. “Next time.” I glanced back outside.
Luke saw me and did the one thing I’d wanted before he backed the bike toward the street. He waved.
I waved back.
Luke. It was a rugged name, a strong name.
I pulled into the drive at home after my shift. As usual for a Monday, I was the first one here. Reaching the porch, I came face to face with the ugly notice tacked beside the door. Shit. A tear threatened. I liked it here.
It wasn’t the first eviction notice I’d seen, and probably wouldn’t be the last.
Turning around, I got back into my car and left.
The notice would put Dominic in an awful mood, and I had no desire to be around when he saw it.
Seven miles away, I parked and lugged my backpack into the Hilltop Diner. This was a safe place. Dom never came here.
Nell chatted with a customer at the counter and waved as I took my usual seat in the back booth. She came over a minute later. “The usual?”
I nodded. “Please.”
A minute later I had a steaming cup of decaf coffee in front of me and tore open two sugar packets to add to it. If I had the money, I’d hang out at the packed Starbucks on the next block, but this coffee was a quarter of the price. Saving money meant freedom someday—a day that couldn’t come soon enough. Atmosphere was a luxury that would have to wait.
I pulled my library book out of the backpack and started reading at the dog-eared page. The hero was about to save the heroine, and boy, did she need it. Without him, she was doomed—in more ways than one. At the end of the book, they would embark on their happy future. Happily ever after they called it. Too bad life didn’t imitate these books, not even close. Unfortunately for me, surviving to the next day without anything bad happening was the best I could hope for, and often things didn’t turn out that well. Today was a case in point.
Nell came by to top off the drink I’d been nursing. “Good book?”