Here Lies a Wicked Man – Snippet 10
She dashed into the kitchen, rescued the last pan of yeast rolls before they turned black and eyed them critically. Only a few corners had burned. A snip, a scrape, a brush of seasoned butter, and they’d taste as scrumptious as ever. Next, she lined up her orders where she could see them all at a glance: roast beef, broiled trout, roast beef, turkey salad—
She’d never managed an inn before opening this one a few weeks ago. Lord, what had she been thinking? Tonight could go down as her best and worst, the night she blew her shot at entrepreneurship.
Scooping tomatoes onto a plate, she splattered her hand then resisted the urge to lick it off.
Didn’t need the health inspector on her case. Meat, potato, vegetables, bread…
Booker Krane popped through the door, Emaline close behind.
“John Lindy’s on his way,” Roxanna said, shoving two filled plates into Booker’s hand. “first table left of the door—that is, if you don’t mind doing more of what you’ve been doing.”
When he grinned and headed out, she gave the next three plates on a tray to Emaline. “Couple beside the front window, with a baby.”
She set four plates on the counter then paused to rub her gold locket for luck. A pinch of determination is worth a pound of try, Aunt Jane had engraved on the back of the gold heart. Maybe tonight would work out, after all. True enough, Roxanna had never managed an inn before, but she’d helped out in her great aunt’s tea room all those years ago.
She scooped potatoes onto all four plates.
Good years they’d been, too, except for the first few months after the accident. She was five years old, riding happily between her parents on the big bench seat of their vintage Oldsmobile. Somewhere ahead two cars crashed. A truck driver carrying half a ton of steel pipe stomped his brakes directly in front of the Olds. Her dad was talking, couldn’t stop fast enough on the slick street, and the pipe sticking off the back of the flatbed truck was suddenly coming through the Oldsmobile’s windshield. Roxanna could still hear the screech of metal, the crunch of breaking glass. Could smell the hot, sticky liquid that gushed over her. She remembered screaming and screaming and finally being pulled from the car, drenched in her parents’ blood.
“You wouldn’t talk or smile,” Aunt Jane told her later. “Lord knows, you had little enough to smile about. Then one day I was sorting through some photographs. I came across a snapshot of you and your folks the day we all went to Disneyland.
“Just a slip of a thing you were, thin as a pencil, sitting on my lap. You took the picture from my hand and, with a timid finger, gently touched the faces. ‘Mommy. Daddy,’ you whispered. ‘Gone.’
“The first tears you’d cried since the accident slid down your cheeks. Then came the flood. I rocked you all night while you got the crying done.”
Roxanna slid two filled dinner plates onto another tray. The locket and all its memories she dropped inside the neckline of her dress to keep it out of the pots as she bent over the wide commercial stove. Aunt Jane’s help would sure be welcome right now.
Twenty minutes later, with Booker and Emaline passing plates as fast as Roxanna could dish them up, the crisis was over. Food levels had run dangerously low. A few items disappeared entirely.
“Everyone seems happy,” Booker Krane told her, carrying out the last plate. “Oh, and two new tables are seated.”
Roxanna dampened a rough kitchen towel with a splash of ice water and pressed it to her neck. What would she have done without Booker and Emaline? If this happened again, she’d need to consider hiring someone to help out on Fridays—which meant paying someone.
Smoothing her hair, she stepped into the dining room to take the two new orders. Her smile slipped when she saw Gary Spiner, who owned the sporting goods store. Gary had been showing up more and more often since his wife left, usually timing his visits near closing to be the last person in the dining room when Roxanna locked up, and hinting thathe could solve her money problems.
“What money problems?” she’d said once. But bad news travels fast in a small town. Gary was active with the local merchants’ association. He probably knew she had a stack of overdue bills in her office. Judging by the fancy new house he’d built overlooking the town, she supposed he had money to back up his offer.
“Freedom has a price tag,” Aunt Jane was fond of saying. It had cost Roxanna every penny she’d tucked away for the past ten years to become an independent business owner.
Allowing anyone to buy a piece of the inn would put a finish to her freedom. If the price tag for independence was longer hours and harder work, so be it. She’d never been afraid of hard work. And if tonight’s crowd was an indication of business to come, the inn just might make it, providing she could stave off the bill collectors a few more weeks. And providing she stayed focused. No distractions. No diversions. No extravagances. No men.
Feeling hot, tired, yet suddenly happy, she surveyed the dining area. Contented chatter floated around the room. Masonville had finally noticed the new inn in town.
When John Lindy arrived, Roxanna introduced him to Booker Krane then sent him on his flight to Dallas with take-out finger foods and a promise of pie and coffee later.
“Here,” she whispered to Booker, handing him a pair of plates heaped with roast beef and vegetables. “Yours and Emaline’s are on the house. Without your help, a lot of people would’ve walked out hungry.”
Making her rounds to take dessert orders and chat with customers, Roxanna began to relax. This was the easy part. Making friends was one of her strengths, one of the reasons she’d chosen this business when she quit the old life and moved away from the city. She only hoped the folks of Masonville would continue patronizing the inn after they inevitably discovered how she’d earned her living in the past.
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