Cover of Night Read Free

Breakfast, and incidentally the best cook around.”
    The first compliment was debatable, and the second one a downright lie, because Walter Earl’s wife, Milly, was one of those natural cooks who seldom measured anything but could cook like an angel. Still, it couldn’t hurt business to have Mr. Creed saying things like that.
    “I can’t argue with any of that,” Mr. Wellingham said in his too-hearty tone, holding out his hand while his gaze swiftly raked down her before returning to her face, his expression saying that he was unimpressed with either her or her cooking. Cate forced herself to shake hands. His grip was too firm, his skin too smooth. This wasn’t a man who did a lot of physical work, which would have been okay in itself if he hadn’t plainly looked down on all the other people there because they did. Only Mr. Creed was spared, but then only someone blind and stupid would treat him with disdain.
    “Are you staying long?” she asked, just to be polite.
    “Just a week. That’s all the time I can manage away from the office. Every time I leave, the place goes to hell,” he said, chuckling.
    She didn’t comment. She imagined he owned his own business, considering the wealth he flashed, but she didn’t care enough to ask. Mr. Creed nodded, placed his black hat on his head, and the two men exited to let the next customer step up to pay. Two more people joined the queue.
    By the time she had taken their money and refilled the coffee cups around the room, Conrad and Gordon Moon had finished, and she returned to the cash register, where she fended off Conrad’s heavy compliments and Gordon’s amusement. He seemed to think it funny that his father had developed a tendre for her.
    Cate didn’t think it funny at all when Conrad paused after his son had stepped out on the porch. He paused and swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Miss Cate, I’d like to ask—that is…are you receiving visitors tonight?”
    The old-fashioned approach both charmed and alarmed; she liked the way he’d done it, but was horrified that he’d asked at all. Cate did her own swallowing, then stepped up to the plate, on the theory that sidestepping the issue would only bring on more approaches. “No, I’m not. I spend the evenings with my boys. I’m so busy during the day that night is the only time I have with them, and I don’t think it would be right to take that away.”
    Still, he tried again. “You can’t mean to give up the best years of your life—”
    “I’m not giving them up,” she said firmly. “I’m living them the way I think best for me and my children.”
    “But I might be dead by the time they’re grown!”
    Now, there was a point of view that was sure to attract. She shot him an incredulous look, then nodded in agreement. “Yes, you might. I still have to give the opportunity a pass. I’m sure you understand.”
    “Not really,” he muttered, “but I guess I can take rejection as well as any other man.”
    Sherry poked her head out the kitchen door. “
Cal
’s here,” she said.
    Conrad’s gaze moved to her, and zeroed in. “Miss Sherry,” he said. “Are you by any chance receiving visitors—”
    Leaving Sherry to handle the geriatric lothario as best she could, Cate dodged past her into the kitchen.
    Mr. Harris was already on his knees with his head poked into the cabinet under the sink, and both boys were out of their chairs busily emptying his heavy toolbox.
    “Tucker! Tanner!” She put her hands on her hips and gave them her best Mother glare. “Put those tools back into the toolbox. What did I tell you about bothering Mr. Harris this time? I told you that you could watch, but to leave his tools alone. Both of you, go to your room, right now.”
    “But, Mommy—” Tucker began, always ready to mount a spirited argument to defend whatever it was he’d been caught doing. Tanner merely stepped back, still holding a wrench, and waited for Tucker to either fail or prevail.