Still, he missed the Bureau sometimes. But the memories had been lethal. He couldn’t face them, not even now, years after the tragedy that had sent him running from New Jersey to Texas on a job tip from a coworker. He’d given up dreams of a home and all the things that went with it. Now, it was just the job, doing the job. He didn’t look forward. Ever. One Day at a Time was his credo.
“Why are you hiding in here?” Mandy asked suddenly, breaking into his thoughts.
“It’s that obvious, huh?” he asked, the New Jersey accent still prevalent even after the years he’d spent in Texas.
“Yes, it is.”
He sipped the black coffee she’d placed in front of him at the table. “Livestock foreman’s got a daughter. She came with him today.”
“Oh, dear,” Mandy replied.
He shrugged. “I took her to lunch at Barbara’s Cafe a few weeks ago. Just a casual thing. I met her at the courthouse. She works there. She decided that I was looking for a meaningful relationship. So now she’s over here every Saturday like clockwork, hanging out with her dad.”
“That will end when Mr. Darwin comes back,” she said with feeling. “He doesn’t like strangers on the place, even strangers related to people who work here.”
He smiled sadly. “Or it will end when I lose my temper and start cursing in Italian.”
“You look Italian,” she said, studying him.
He chuckled. “You should see my cousin Mikey. He could have auditioned for The Godfather. I’ve got Greek in me, too. My grandmother was from a little town near Athens. She could barely speak English at all. But could she cook! Kind of like you,” he added with twinkling eyes. “She’d have liked you, Mandy.”
Her hard face softened. “You never speak of your parents.”
“I try not to think about them too much. Funny, how we carry our childhoods around on our backs.”
She nodded. She was making rolls for lunch and they had to have time to rise. Her hands were floury as she kneaded the soft dough. She nodded toward the rest of the house. “Neither of those poor girls has had a childhood. He keeps them locked up all the time. No parties, no dancing and especially no boys.”
He scowled. “I noticed that. I asked the boss once why he didn’t let the girls go out occasionally.” He took a sip of his coffee.
“What did he tell you?”
“That the last employee who asked him that question is now waiting tables in a little town in the Yukon Territory.”
She shook her head. “That’s probably true. A cowboy who tried to take Merrie out on a date once got a job in Arizona. They say he’s still looking behind him for hired assassins.” Her hands stilled in the dough. “Don’t you ever mention that outside the house,” she advised. “Or to Mr. Darwin. I kind of like having you around,” she added with a smile and went back to her chore.
“I like this job. No big-city noise, no pressure, no pressing deadlines on cases.”
She glanced up at him, then back down to the bowl again. “We’ve never talked about it, but you were in law enforcement once, weren’t you?”
He scowled. “How did you know that?”
“Small towns. Cash Grier let something slip to a friend, who told Barbara at the café, who told her cook, who told me.”
“Our police chief knew I was in law enforcement? How?” he wondered aloud, feeling insecure. He didn’t want his past widely known here.
She laughed softly. “Nobody knows how he finds out things. But he worked for the government once.” She glanced at him. “He was a high-level assassin.”
His eyes widened. “The police chief?” he exclaimed.
She nodded. “Then he was a Texas Ranger—that ended when he slugged the temporary captain and got fired. Afterward he worked for the DA in San Antonio and then he came here.”
He whistled. “Slugged the captain.” He chuckled. “He’s still a pretty tough customer, despite the gorgeous wife and two little kids.”
“That’s what everyone says. We’re pretty protective of him. Our late mayor—who was heavily into drug smuggling on the side—tried to fire Chief Grier, and the whole city police force and fire department, and all our city employees, said they’d quit on the spot if he did.”
“Obviously he wasn’t fired.”
She smiled. “Not hardly. It turns out that the state attorney general, Simon Hart, is Cash Grier’s cousin. He showed up, along with some reporters, at the hearing they had to discuss the firing of the chief’s patrol officers. They arrested a drunk politician and he told the mayor to fire them. The chief said over his dead body.”
“I’ve been here for years, and I heard gossip about it, but that’s the first time I’ve heard the whole story.”
“An amazing man, our chief.”
“Oh, yes.” He finished his coffee. “Nobody makes coffee like you do, Mandy. Never weak and pitiful, always strong and robust!”
“Yes, and the coffee usually comes out that way, too!” she said with a wicked grin.
He laughed as he got up from the table, and went back to work.
*