Page 77 of Loving Lies (Granton University 3)

An arrow of pain passed through his chest. This wasn’t right. She should never look this depressed. Not his Tess.

“Hey, Abbott. We got another order or what?” Dale called from his station at the oven where he was taking out a fresh apple pie. “Why do you keep dawdling at the damn window today?”

“Sorry.” Jonah jerked away from the window, hoping she hadn’t heard his name, hoping she hadn’t seen him. After calming his breaths, he glanced at his boss and nodded. “But, yeah, we have a new order. Three cheeseburgers and a salad.”

Dale harrumphed, mostly likely put out because no one wanted any of his baked goods, and pointed to the grill. “Well, get to work then.”

Jonah nodded. “Yes, sir.” With pleasure.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?”

At Logan’s startled exclamation, Tess lifted her face from the salad that had been placed in front of her. Fork in hand, she watched him hold up the top part of his hamburger bun as he gaped in bewilderment down at the beef patty resting on the bottom bun as if it had grown two heads. Which it had. Well, one head anyway.

Tess’s mouth fell open as she took in the smiley face drawn on the melted slice of cheese, ketchup making up its mouth and dots of mustard to create two eyes with a pickle slice in the middle to denote its nose. Even the tomato had been cut and set to either side of the hamburger in order to give it some big red, floppy ears. Just as her mom had always done it.

Gasping, she reached out and jerked the plate across the table, rotating so she could see the full face right-side up.

“Oh my God,” she breathed, popping to her feet. “Oh my God.”

She’d only told one person about her mother’s smiley-face hamburgers.

Suddenly light-headed, she held out a hand to brace herself, but all she caught was air.

“Tess?” Bailey reached for her, but Tess shifted her hand, waving it to stop her.

“It’s okay. I just have to…I have to…” This could only mean one thing. He was here. In the diner. In the kitchen of this very diner. “I have to go.”

Nudging Bailey out of the booth so she could be free, she took off across the black and white tiled floor toward the two-way swinging silver door with a small round port-hole window in it. She’d never—ever—barged into the back of any kind of establishment before. But her brain was so scrambled she couldn’t even think properly about what she was doing. She pushed through the doorway and was rewarded when she found herself in the back kitchen, a grill sizzling and the warm smell of food permeating her skin.

The middle-aged, pot-bellied guy sweating in front of the grill glanced up.

Skidding to a halt, Tess stared at him in disbelief and disappointment. Immediate tears throbbed behind her eyes as she licked her dry lips. “Did…did you cook my hamburger?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “There a problem with it?”

“No.” She shook her head and sent him a tremulous smile. “Not at all. I just…I had a question about it, is all.”

But where in the world had this guy come up with the idea to make smiley faces on his hamburgers, just as her mother had? It couldn’t be a mere coincidence. Could it?

“The kid who made ’em is on his break,” he said. He tipped his head to a door in the back. “You want to ask him, he’s out in the alley there.”

Tess nodded. Yes. Yes, she most definitely wanted to ask “the kid” about Logan’s smiley-face hamburger. But her legs began to tremble. She swerved her attention to the door, almost afraid to approach it.

“Okay,” she said, frozen in her shoes. “Thank you.”

Still, it took her another five seconds to move. At first, she took a single step and then faltered. But with each step after that, she moved a little faster. By the time she made it to the exit, she was nearly sprinting. She shoved her way outside, spilling into the hot, humid alley, only to find Jonah hobbling along with a cane, his back to her while he rubbed a hand down his thigh as if kneading taut cramped muscles.

A whimper caught in her throat, but other than that, she couldn’t speak.

He turned back slowly to shuffle the other way and finally caught sight of her in the doorway. When he jerked to a stop, she forgot to breathe. They stared at each other for a solid minute.

Then she swallowed dryly. “Y-You’re walking.”

He glanced down at his legs as if he just now realized, wow, he was walking.

She let the back door of the diner fall shut behind her and took a step toward him, only to hesitate. He lifted his face again.

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