Page 28 of Colorado Christmas Carol
“She can,” Duke agreed. “If it helps, I can’t catch her, either,” he added, and gave Essa an odd look that she didn’t see.
He turned back toward the car. “Let’s go, females.”
“Females!” Essa huffed.
“Well, if I call you a girl, I’ll insult you. If I call you a woman . . .”
“Let’s just leave it right there so nobody gets offended,” Essa said with a wicked grin. “And I won’t call you a toxic male. Deal?”
He chuckled. “Deal. I’ll be in touch,” he called to the old man, who threw up a hand.
He pulled out onto the road. “Who wants lunch?”
Two hands shot up.
He checked his watch. “Make that supper.” He glanced at Essa. “When do you have to be back?”
“I’m off all day and tonight,” she said, grinning. “The manager thought I needed a day off. He’s such a nice guy. His wife and two kids are every bit as nice as he is, too,” she added without guile.
“Do you like everybody?” he asked her.
“Well of course I do,” she said, faltering. “I mean, we have rude customers sometimes who want to yell at me for seasoning a steak or something, but most people are nice.”
“Seasoning?” he asked.
“It’s like this,” she explained. “There are people who have all sorts of health issues, and they can’t have seasoning, or salt, or anything cooked with or around peanuts. So I always have the wait staff ask first. This one waiter had an attitude problem and didn’t ask. So the man had heart problems, and I’d salted his steak pretty nicely. He didn’t actually yell, but he did protest rather unpleasantly. We cooked him another steak, minus salt, and the manager gave him his steak free.”
“That was nice of him. What about the waiter?”
She wiggled her eyebrows. “Fired that same night. We all went into the kitchen, broke out the cake, and had a celebration. He was nasty to all of us, and one girl threatened to have him arrested for harassment. Nobody cried when he was gone.”
“He didn’t bother you?” He couldn’t imagine how that slipped out.
“Me?” She sounded surprised. “He liked pretty girls,” she said.
He glanced at her in the rearview mirror. He didn’t speak. His eyes did.
“You are so, so pretty,” Mellie said firmly. “And you’re pretty inside, where it really counts!”
Essa had to bite down hard on tears. It was the kindest thing she’d been told since losing her parents. “Thanks,” she managed in a husky tone.
Mellie just grinned at her.
* * *
They stopped at a small tea shop in the middle of nowhere between the ranch and Benton. Amazingly, for such a small, out-of-the-way place, it was crowded with people.
“The food must be wonderful here,” Essa remarked. “Look at that parking lot . . . no! No! You can’t get a parking spot right in front, nobody ever can . . . !”
Duke turned to her and grinned.
“Dad always gets one,” Mellie replied. “Even in the pouring rain. He says it’s magic.”
Essa shook her head. “It must be!”
They got a table to themselves in back after a ten-minute wait.
“So sorry,” the woman, obviously the owner, apologized breathlessly. “We’re just inundated with customers today!”
