Do or Diner: A Comfort Food Mystery Read Free

as Ty had women stacked up like cordwood.
    I wasn’t going to be one of them. No, thanks.
    But I was headed over to the diner anyway, wasn’t I?
    “Uh…I’d love to join you, but I’m a bit busy right now,” I finally answered.
    Mr. Farnsworth butted in. “Trixie, go and keep Ty company. There’s nothing that can’t wait. We take things a little slow here in Sandy Harbor.”
    Oh great. I was trapped into having lunch with the cowboy.
    I pulled out my notebook and a pen from therecesses of my coat. I’d take the opportunity to jot down some ideas I had for making the diner my own.
    “What do you say, Trixie?” the cowboy drawled again, and my knees turned to mashed potatoes. My two-syllable name took on a life of its own.
    Reluctantly I nodded. At another point in my life, maybe fifty years from now, I wouldn’t mind spending time with the cowboy. He might be interesting to get to know, but right now, all I could think of was that he was a man, and I was in a world of hurt, courtesy of Deputy Doug.
    “I eat all my meals at the Silver Bullet.” Ty patted his flat stomach. “I think I’ve gained sixty pounds since I moved here.”
    Yeah, right, cowboy.
    I pulled out a crumpled tissue from the pocket of my coat and wrapped it around what was left of my sucker. I probably had purple teeth and tongue, but I didn’t care.
    We went outside, walked around the boat launch between the diner and the bait shop, and cut through the launch’s empty parking lot to the back door of my diner.
    “Let’s cut through the kitchen this time, Ty. I want to check on the cook.”
    “Juanita?”
    The man even knew the name of the morning cook. “You do come here often, don’t you?”
    I smiled and waved to Juanita, whom I’d met briefly when she came to the Victorian to say good-bye to Aunt Stella.
    “Everything okay?” I asked.
    Juanita gave me a quick nod, and we hurried to the front of the diner to get out of her way.
    I just loved the kitchen. Everything was aluminum or chrome and just shone. The smell of bacon frying permeated the air as did bread taking a ride on the toaster. Aunt Stella always called the revolving toaster a Ferris wheel for bread. I could just picture Uncle Porky at the cast-iron stove, working several orders at a time.
    A good crowd was already gathered at the diner, but there were at least two booths available.
    “Over there?” I pointed to the booth toward the back.
    “Lead the way, darlin’.”
    “I’m not your darlin’,” I mumbled. Doug used to call me darling. It rang hollow even then.
    “Pardon me?”
    “I said, ‘I love this diner.’”
    A hush fell over the patrons, forks stopped moving, and it seemed like every pair of eyes looked in my direction. Several customers—mostly women—smiled and waved.
    Happy to be recognized after all these years, I did the same back.
    Then I realized they weren’t greeting me. It was all for Ty Brisco.
    Glancing back at him, I saw that he was waving and tweaking his hat. The women were swooning.
    Good grief.
    I shed my bulky coat and hung it from a post on the side of the red vinyl booth. Good riddance toit, for a while anyway. I unraveled the scarf from my head and neck and patted down my hair. It was loaded with static electricity. Adjusting my brightly striped sweater, I slid into the booth.
    Ty slid in across from me, took his hat off, and deposited it on a hook by my coat.
    He had hat hair, but I had to admit that it looked good—like he’d just walked out of the shower and hadn’t had a chance to tame it yet. Brown with some reddish highlights that the fluorescent lights of the diner were picking up, it was longer on top than on the sides.
    As I settled in, I looked around the diner. The white and black checkered floor needed some repair, but it could wait. I loved the mirror behind the counter. It made the place look bigger. What I loved the best was the revolving pastry fridge. As a kid, I could watch the cakes and pies going by for