Page 74 of The Luminosity of Loriana Harper

“He wanted to meet Mitch.” She gestured to her passenger. “Mitch, this is Norma. Norma, this is Mitch.”Now that we’re done with the pleasantries, can we please leave?

Norma’s gaze narrowed. “What are you doing at Loriana’s at this hour of the day?”

Ah. So the woman wasn’t one hundred percent certain Mitch’d stayed the night. Apparently watching television had been more important last night than spying on her neighbors.

“Mitch was feeding Plato and now I’m feeding him. We’re off to Fifties. Would you like me to grab you something?”

Norma’s face scrunched. “Greasy food? Disgusting. You need to watch what you eat. You can’t stay young forever, and time will catch up with you.”

Loriana was quite sure it would. Until that moment, she’d enjoy indulging once in a while. Okay, twice in two days might be a little much. But Mitch needed to be seen in public. He needed to be accepted into the community and treated as one of their own. That wouldn’t happen if he was holed up in his condo and afraid of his own shadow.

“Have a good day, Norma.” She rolled up the window and quickly checked to ensure she wouldn’t run over the old woman’s foot as she drove off.

“Small town.” Mitch’s bewildered comment.

“Small town,” she confirmed.

Chapter sixteen

Fiftieswasmuchashe remembered from the night before except everything felt different. Everything felt ominous.

Marjorie’s missing. They think I did something to her.

Which truly was patently ridiculous. Even if he somehow snuck across the border, found her, and did something to her…what? What could he possibly gain? His old job back? Wouldn’t want it. Clearing his name? This would be the least productive way to try to do that. No, he’d left his old life behind. As he sat across from the delightful woman with the huge smile, he couldn’t come up with a single regret.

Getting your good name back would be nice.

Okay, yeah, that was a thing. He worried the accusations from California would follow him up here. That people like Kennedy Dixon might hesitate to hire him if she heard the rumors. And they were just rumors. He hadn’t done anything wrong, and although Marjorie had attempted to frame him, that’d ultimately failed. But the damage’d been done, and coming back to Canada had seemed his only solution.

“Those are pretty deep thoughts.” Loriana glanced at him over their menus. “It’s not even eleven o’clock. And they serve breakfast all day.”

He placed his menu on the Formica tabletop. “Eggs Benedict.” He glanced back down quickly then back up. “With fried tomato slices and chunky hash browns.”

“Sounds great. Juice or coffee?”

Both he and Loriana turned in surprise to find Sarabeth standing there. Apparently she’d snuck up on both of them.

“Uh…small OJ, large coffee.” He needed all the caffeine he could get.

Loriana offered Sarabeth a wide smile. “French Toast with strawberries and extra-crispy bacon.”

Sarabeth snagged the menus. “Coffee? Tea?”

“Earl Grey tea, thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

Just before she stepped away, Loriana snagged her arm. “Everything okay?”

Something flashed in Sarabeth’s blue eyes. “I was offered an extra shift. The boys are in school, so I figured why not.”

“It must be hard—standing all the time.”

Sarabeth offered a small smile. “I’m used to it. I soak my feet in Epsom salts when I get home. I got a good night’s sleep, and that’s all that matters.” She carefully extracted herself and headed back toward the front of the restaurant.

Loriana sighed. “It’s hard when someone lies to you.”

“What else can you do?”

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