What the Heart Knows: A Milford-Haven Novel - Book One (5 page)

Sally O’Mally unlocked the back door of her restaurant and flipped on the kitchen lights, illuminating the gleaming steel sinks, pristine countertops, and the rows of shiny pans that hung from a large overhead rack. She caught the room’s faint odor of fresh lemons that lingered after last night’s cleaning. Though she’d been tired when she woke up this morning, she felt a spark of energy at seeing her workspace spotless and ready for a new day.

Mama trained me well. Still, I never do get up as early as she does
. She pictured her mother in Arkansas, still living on the farm, still knitting, and still baking up a storm—biscuits, breads, and her signature pies.

Gotta get the first pot o’ coffee started
. After putting her shoulder bag in the tiny private office she’d created out of a closet, she pulled the plastic lid off an industrial-sized tin of ground coffee, loaded several scoops into a filter paper, then snapped the basket-holder into place.
Okay, now for the biscuits. Maybe I can get the first batch in before June gets here
.

Her hands moved almost by their own volition as they found the chilled batter—prepared the night before—in the fridge, greased the baking sheets, dusted the cutting board, rolled out the dough and began pressing into it a round cutter. When the sheets were ready for the oven, she slid them in. Just then the back door swung open again.

“Mornin’, Sal,” June called cheerily in her distinctive Brooklyn accent. “Geez, it’s gettin’ light a lot later already!”

“Well, that’s September for ya,” Sally confirmed. “How you doin’ this mornin’?”

“Fine.”

Sally smiled at the long sound of June’s vowels.
I s’ppose I sound just as funny to her as she does to me. Milford-Haven brings in all kinds
.

Sawyer Construction Company was still closed and locked when early-morning sunlight slid past decade-old layers of dust on the Venetian blinds. There was no sign of life until the light on the office answering machine illuminated, and the
cassette tape began to squeal softly while it turned.

Jack’s outgoing message crackled over the speaker. The voice did nothing to belay the gruff impatience that set the tone at his office.
“You’ve reached Sawyer Construction. We’re out of the office at the moment, but leave your name, number and a brief message, and we’ll get back to you shortly. Wait for the beep.”

“Jack, it’s Samantha. I read in the paper this morning that you’ve announced the start of construction on that shopping center.”
Not even the filtering of the tiny speaker on his machine could make her voice small.
“You know perfectly well the plans have not yet been approved by the Planning Commission. I’d advise you to call me the minute you get to your office.”

The tourist shops of Milford-Haven were still closed at this hour—especially now that summer had passed and the Central Coast was officially off-season. Main Street had almost no traffic except for local early risers looking for a good breakfast—and all of them had parked in front of Sally’s Restaurant.

In the row of windows facing the street, miniature pumpkins marched along window sills, and cotton curtains with a tiny floral print were pinched into ruffles along brass rods hung midway down the panes. From the outside a passerby could see the tops of heads, but not patrons’ faces. It was the only concession to privacy observed at this establishment, where the owner herself felt that any word spoken in her restaurant might as well have been spoken to her.

Inside, Sally’s was now a bustle of activity, as it usually was by 7 a.m. In the kitchen, two cooks performed miracles of
multi-tasking: the fourth batch of biscuits was coming out of the professional-sized stainless steel oven, sending forth a yeasty, irresistible aroma; eggs flew on and off the griddle at record speed; and perfect rounds of pancake batter hissed as they turned golden brown. Meanwhile, June used her right arm to start another pot of coffee while balancing plates all the way up her left.

Out front at the well-worn counter, old Mr. Hargraves folded his newspaper and gave himself a startle as he elbowed his neighbor on the next stool—a straw man wearing overalls and mouthing a corncob pipe. As Sally served her customer a heaping plate of steaming grits and eggs over-easy, he complained, “Can’t get used to Mr. Hay, over here.”

Squeezing herself between two chairs to take another order, Sally replied, “Jus’ somethin’ we do in Arkansas, Mr. H. Don’t pay him no never mind.”

“Not sure he oughtta be smoking,” Mr. Hargraves said to her back, then dug into his eggs.

The screen door squealed and slammed as it always did. Dishes and stainless steel flatware clattered pleasantly, and Sally’s famous biscuits filled the room with an irresistible aroma as Jack plopped himself into a chair, with Kevin in tow.

“Well, good morning, folks. What’ll it be, the usual?” asked Sally.

Jack Sawyer had known Sally these four years, and still he hadn’t decided whether that Arkansas drawl was an annoyance or part of the attraction. “Yes, Sally, and bring some coffee right away, will you?”

“That sounds good.” Kevin always agreed with whatever Jack ordered, apparently more eager to please him than to
please his own palate.

“And whole wheat toast?” It grated on Jack, how she drew out the words and mangled the natural vowel sounds.

“Right.”
Obviously, she committed this menu to memory long ago, yet her pencil remains poised above her pad
.

She wet the lead with her tongue before she wrote down his answer. “And two eggs over hard?”

She always manages to make it sound like an aberration. Eggs over hard. I like them that way. What business is it of anyone else’s?

“That doesn’t sound so good.” Kevin’s quiet interjection was out of character, and it drew a smile from Sally.

“And bacon crispy?” She was still scribbling.

Jack was tired of the redundancy. “Sally, I did say that I’d have the usual, didn’t I? Have you ever known the usual to be something other than it usually is? And did I not ask you to bring some coffee
right away?”

“Well, my word, Jack,” she said, “there’s no call for you to get all upset now. Just don’t get yourself in an uproar, and I’ll get it. I’ll put your order right in. Consider it done!” Sally turned towards the kitchen, putting on an automatic smile with the well-practiced professional calm of a person running a business.

Jack glanced across the restaurant and noticed old Mr. Hargraves give Sally a knowing wink.
He’s got a nerve
. As though to annoy Jack further, Sally sashayed away from Hargraves humming the little nondescript song she always sang to calm herself.

Jack mumbled, “What’s wrong with that girl?” It was a rhetorical question, one that he frequently voiced. But it
masked his respect for the little slip of a woman who would let no one—not even him—push her around.

“Gee, Boss, nothing that I know of.”

As always, Kevin had taken
literally
what was intended
literarily
. Jack retorted less audibly than usual. “Yes, well, you wouldn’t know what was wrong with the girl if she sent it to you in writing.”

“What d’you say?”

Jack’s life was full of miscommunications. In the case of Kevin, he cultivated them. It was a game he enjoyed playing, an indulgence he allowed himself, taking advantage of what the young man missed, and ultimately—he knew somewhere in the recesses of his mind—a means of placing blame, should he ever need to do so. Having chosen to be the big fish in the little pond, he’d found no worthy partner in this small town against whom to sharpen his wit, except for Samantha, and she… well, she wasn’t the worthy opponent she fancied herself to be.

Someday, he knew, he might regret his word games for some reason, might get caught or embarrassed, but even then he was sure he’d talk his way out of it before Kevin realized what had happened. He tried it now.

“That girl, that friend of yours who works for Samantha Hugo at the Environmental Planning Commission? I need you to contact her.”

“Oh, you mean Su—“

Jack cut him off. “I don’t want to know her name. Just keep tabs on her. Get her to tell you details of this investigation of theirs. I don’t want any surprises.”

Kevin Ransom looked at Jack’s eyes. “Well, okay, but I’m not sure what you mean by keeping tabs.” Kevin liked Susan
Winslow. He thought of her long black hair and cute short skirts. She wasn’t the easiest person to talk to. But he didn’t like the idea of invading her privacy, nor of deceiving her in any way.

Kevin watched Jack wince as he took a sip of his hot coffee, then explain, “It means you be sure to let me know the moment Samantha re-opens the investigation, because I have a little something prepared for the press.”

“What’s that?” asked Kevin dutifully.

“Oh, just a little marriage we used to have.” Jack wiped the coffee from his mustache, but Kevin thought he was also trying to conceal a smirk.

“No kidding? You used to be married to Samantha?”
I didn’t mean to say that so loud
.

Just then, Sally appeared with their food. “Well, here we are—eggs, toast, and for you some muffins. And how about a warm-up on those coffees?”

Jack Sawyer looked daggers at Kevin. To Sally, he barked, “Yes, yes, thanks, and that’s all.”

He issued it like an order, which Sally didn’t seem to have heard. “Let’s see, how about some marmalade?”

“I said that’d be
all
for now, Sally.” He could feel tension creasing the corners of his mouth.

“Right! Well, I’m right here if you need me.” Sally hummed again as she hurried off to handle the next customer.

Digging into his eggs and biscuits voraciously, Jack allowed the first few bites to take the edge off his hunger. Calmer now, he remembered to admonish his over-eager employee. “Kevin, I expect you to keep that
quiet
about Samantha.”

“Oh, okay.” Kevin was ever so slowly dribbling honey onto
one side of his biscuit. “So it’s a surprise?”

Jack couldn’t stand to watch the deliberate slowness of Kevin’s work with the honey, and at his employee’s comment he choked down a laugh with a morsel of bacon. He washed down his last bite with a swallow of coffee. Once again wiping his mustache, he said “Yes, you could say that.”

He began to smile at the prospect of damaging that reputation Samantha held so dear.
The thought of getting back at Samantha so poetically is delicious
. “In any case,” Jack continued, enjoying the way the words felt in his mouth almost as much as he enjoyed Sally’s home cooking, “it’ll be common knowledge soon enough.”

By the time Jack reached the Sawyer Construction Company he’d had his breakfast and was ready to tackle the day—a day he figured was likely to start with battling Samantha.

Most of the company’s actual work was on-site, but it did maintain offices in town—a three-room suite in the Plaza building, which had an elevated courtyard facing Main Street and employee parking slots at the rear of the building. Jack pulled his truck into his spot.
There’s Kevin’s truck. How did he manage to beat me here again?
Jack marched across the courtyard and into the outer office without so much as a glance in either direction.
Kevin must be in the kitchenette making coffee
.

Jack saw the blinking light on the office answering machine. Sure enough, this must be the message Samantha’d promised would greet him at the office. He hit the
Play
button and ground his teeth while he listened.

Nothing grated on him more than her voice—unless it was her tone. She’d
advise
him? He walked into his private office and closed the door. Using the added charge of annoyance for fuel, he dialed her number.

She answered on the first ring. “It’s Jack, Samantha.” Giving her no time to get a word in, he continued, “I figured you’d call. Had time to digest your morning grapefruit yet? Or was it prunes? I forget.”
There are certain advantages to having lived with the woman
.

“I’m not going to let you ruin a perfectly good morning,” she snapped. “And by the way, I’m not about to let you ruin another perfectly good hill either.”