Do or Diner: A Comfort Food Mystery Read Free Page A

hours at a time, trying to decide what I’d like for dinner.
    The chatter inside the diner signified that everyone was having a good time. A waitress walked around with two pots of coffee—regular and decaf—and I could smell more coffee brewing. A waitress I hadn’t met yet appeared with two menus and two glasses of ice water.
    “Good afternoon. I’m Nancy. Welcome to the Silver Bullet Diner, the place for good food since 1950.” She addressed the entire speech to Ty and didn’t even glance in my direction.
    “Hi, Nancy.” I held out a hand to her. “I’m Trixie Matkowski.”
    “Oh!” She moved her order book over her mouth to hide a gasp. “You’re the new owner?”
    “Yes, but don’t let me make you nervous.” I set my un-shaken hand down on the table.
    “You won’t.” Nancy shook her head, and then tilted it toward Ty. “The daily special for you, Ty?”
    “What is the special?”
    “Monte Cristo sandwich. Ours is a ham, chicken, and cheese sandwich that’s dipped in egg and fried like French toast.”
    He handed her the menu. “Sounds perfect. And a cup of coffee.”
    She broke into a big grin. “Hot and black and thick enough to float a horseshoe.”
    He nodded. “You’ve got it, Nancy, darlin’.”
    She giggled and turned to leave, but when I loudly cleared my throat, she realized her mistake.
    “I’ll have the same thing—the Monte Cristo special and coffee. Only I’ll take my coffee with cream.”
    “Got it.” Nancy scribbled on the pad, then grinned stupidly at Ty.
    What was wrong with some women?
    Although I could appreciate a studly looking man, I wasn’t in the market for a relationship. Ty was simply one of my neighbors, and I was going to be nice and treat him as such.
    I crossed my arms and leaned forward on the table. “So how did you land in Sandy Harbor, Ty?”
    “I used to come here when I was a boy. Salmon fishing. My grandfather, father, and I. We always rented Cottage Number Four for a week, and wealways had a fabulous time—just us men. I felt so important, taking a week off from school.”
    He had a brilliant smile, darn it.
    He continued. “So when things got to me in Houston, I decided to move to the place that I’ve thought about the most throughout the years. Here.”
    Looking out the window at the boat launch, I could imagine the three Houston cowboys rolling out their boat to go fishing.
    Nancy set his coffee down carefully, and she was rewarded with a wink of a blue eye. My coffee slopped onto the saucer as she sped away.
    “Can you believe that your aunt Stella remembered me after twenty years?” he asked me.
    When he smiled, his whiter-than-white teeth gleamed, and the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes deepened, but I wasn’t noticing.
    I nodded. “There weren’t many people she forgot.”
    His cell phone went off, and he slid it from a clip on the waistband of his belt. Making a face when he studied the number, he then looked up at me.
    “Sorry, Trixie, I have to take this.”
    “Go ahead.”
    He mostly grunted and made some garbled comments. Suddenly, he stood, grabbed his hat, and put it on. He reached into the pocket of his jeans, pulled out a wad of bills, and peeled off several.
    He smiled. “We’ll have to try this again sometime. I gotta go. Duty calls.”
    I was curious. “What duty is calling you?”
    “The Sandy Harbor sheriff’s department.”
    My throat tightened. “Please tell me you’re a criminal and not a cop,” I ordered.
    He raised an eyebrow. “I’m a deputy sheriff.”
    “You’ve got to be kidding!” The words tumbled out before I could bite them back. I had a flashback to Deputy Doug and could hear the crackle of his official radio.
    Ty raised a perfect brown eyebrow. “Kidding?”
    “Nothing. Really. Nothing. Um…lunch is on me.”
    I didn’t want him to think of this as a date or something like that. Also, I owned the place, so lunch was on the house. I pushed his money toward him, but he shook his