Most Eligible Baby Daddy (3 page)

“Right,” Kelly said. “That place is like a thousand bucks a night.”

“What is it?”

“Well, you might think you’re at the ends of the earth up here, but people actually come from all over the world for the pristine ski slopes. They usually come in and out by helicopter, fly up to the top of the slopes by helicopter, and rarely venture out of the grounds of the hotel. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever served a single guest of the hotel here at the diner.”

“They’re too exclusive for the likes of simple townsfolk?”

“Exactly. Too exclusive, too rich. They’re from New York and LA. They’re here for the ski slopes, not the local cuisine. Some of my friends work there. They say we’re not missing much. Rich foreigners and businessmen who don’t know how to have much fun, other than a glass of port by the fire in the evening.”

“It does look pretty cozy,” Elle said.

Kelly shrugged. “You want cozy? I’ve got cozy.”

“Really?”

“If you’re willing to work for it.”

“What?”

“You ever waitress before?”

“Girl, I was born with a tray in my hands. I started as a dishwasher when I was still a kid. I’ve worked in more diners than you can imagine.”

“Well, as you can see, we’re kind of shorthanded around here.”

“You’re kidding me?”

“I’m not kidding, Elle. If you want a job and a place to stay, we could use you here.”

“You are
kidding
me,” Elle said, rising to her feet.

She could already feel the tears coming to her eyes but didn’t care. She was so relieved she wanted to kiss Kelly. Instead, she threw her arms around her and squeezed her tighter than was probably appropriate for a job offer of waitress at a small town diner.

“It’s not the Hilton,” Kelly went on, “but the local mechanic, Denny, rents some rooms nearby. Nothing fancy, like I said, but we could get you a room there.”

Elle just nodded. She was doing her best not to burst into tears. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, Kelly, yes. I’ll take it.”

Chapter 4

Elle

E
LLE SLEPT BETTER THAT NIGHT
than she had in a very long time. She felt safe not having to worry about Gris sharing her bed. Gris had always had a temper, but it had gotten a lot worse during the final year of the relationship, and the deterioration of her life had crept up on Elle a little at a time. If she’d realized all at once what kind of a guy Gris was, she’d never have allowed herself to get mixed up with him. But because it had happened little by little, over time, she’d allowed herself to build up excuses, one at a time, to explain his abusive ways.

She felt ashamed now for even allowing it to happen, and she realized the enormous emotional stress it had placed on her.

Just being in the little attic loft above some dingy bar owned by the local mechanic felt like a palace to her. Kelly had helped her light a fire in the ashy hearth in the corner. Then she’d showed Elle how to work the shower in the bathroom. There was no kitchen, just the bedroom with it’s own rustic bathroom, but there was a charred kettle that could be swung over the fire.

The bed was enormously comfortable. There might have been a blizzard outside, but there were eight warm blankets piled on the bed, and with the heat of the fire, the attic was warm in no time. Elle slept like a baby, and when she woke in the morning, she went straight to the window to survey the town in sunlight.

It was breathtaking. The view over the mountain pass she’d driven up was astounding. She hadn’t been able to appreciate the beauty of it all the night before, but now she could see for miles and miles over the tops of the pines. The grey rock of the mountains towered up over the valley like fortress walls. The air was bright and clear, so cold that sparkles of ice floated in it and reflected the sun.

“Thank you, God,” she whispered.

She wasn’t a particularly religious person, but she knew there was someone up there, and at times like this, she felt He was looking out for her.

She threw a few logs of wood on the embers from the night before and blew on them. In a few minutes, the flames were licking the kettle, heating up the ice cold water from the bathroom tap. There was a brown paper bag of freshly ground coffee and she took a long, deep breath of its smell before heaping it into the coffee pot. There was something about the rustic simplicity of the attic that she found immensely pleasing. There was no phone, no internet, no television. She thought for a minute and then realized she didn’t even know if there was electricity. There must be, she thought. There had been light the night before. She looked around the room and saw a light switch on the wall. It was old fashioned, but there was electricity.

What she wasn’t so sure of, was whether or not there was hot water. Try as she might, she couldn’t get the water in the shower to run hot. She ended up washing as best she could in the frigid mountain water and then drying herself next to the fire while sipping the hot coffee in an attempt to warm herself up.

She wrapped herself in her blanket as she drank the coffee. Through the window, the sun shone, giving some extra warmth. The clouds over the mountain tops in the distance looked so beautiful she could hardly believe she was really looking at them.

She opened her diary. It was a little leather bound volume that she brought everywhere with her. It had been in her car when she ran out of Gris’s place. She opened it up to the last thing she’d written. It was a quote by a French author named Gide. She read it.

*

It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not.

*

She thought about the words for a moment, wondering about all the things they could mean. Wondering if she even agreed with them. Then she shut the diary closed.

She’d arranged to meet Kelly at the diner and she decided there wasn’t much point in dawdling any longer than necessary. If she was going to start a new job, she might as well get into it.

The door to the attic was latched from the inside and she couldn’t lock it behind her, but there was nothing much to steal anyway, she thought. Just the kettle and blankets. She didn’t even have any clothes. She climbed down the rickety stairway only to get the fright of her life when she reached the bottom.

She screamed.

An enormous man in dirty overalls stood in front of her, unshaved stubble and bushy eyebrows covering most of his face. He looked like he’d just been sleeping off a hangover in the bar beneath the attic.

“Hold your horses, hold your horses,” he said, raising his hands up as if he was actually calming a horse.

“Oh,” Elle said, “sorry, you just startled me.”

“Sorry about that.”

“And I suppose I should be the one who’s apologizing,” Elle said. “You must be Mister eh?”

“Dennis, that’s right. Pleased to meet you, Elle, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Kelly told me I’d find you here.”

“I hope that’s all right.”

“Of course it’s all right. In fact, I prefer it when there’s someone here keeping an eye on the place. It feels safer.”

“I’m not sure I’d be much use to you in case of trouble.”

“Oh, I just like to know there’s someone nearby, sweet heart. That attic has had some pretty terrible tenants over the years. Having you in there will class up the joint.”

“Well, I truly appreciate you giving me a place to stay for a while.”

“Stay as long as you like, sweet heart. The pleasure’s all mine.”

Elle smiled.

Dennis remembered something and laughed. “I suppose you’ll want the furnace turned on,” he said. “There’s not much heat in this place without it. Certainly no hot water.”

“That would be really great, sir.”

“Please, call me Dennis.”

Chapter 5

Elle

W
HEN ELLE ARRIVED AT THE
diner, Kelly was already waiting for her with a hot cup of coffee. There was only one customer there, an old man in overalls, and he was eating his breakfast at the counter.

“How did you sleep?” Kelly asked.

“I love that place, Kelly. It’s so cozy. It’s perfect. I even met Dennis this morning. He’s going to turn on the furnace so there’s hot water.”

“Oh my God, I totally forgot about that.”

“That’s okay. I managed.”

“Well, I suppose the first order of business is to introduce you to the cook. She also happens to be the boss.”

Elle followed Kelly behind the counter to the kitchen, where a rotund woman with rosy red cheeks and a kind face was frying bacon over the grill.

“Gracie, this is Elle, the newest addition to the family. Elle, this is Grace, the mother of the family.”

Elle found herself giving a little bow. “Thank you so much for the opportunity,” she said.

“I’m the one who’s thanking you, Elle,” Grace said. “If this works out, you’ll be really saving our necks. I don’t know how much longer Kelly and I could handle this place on our own.”

“I won’t let you down,” Elle said.

“I’m sure you won’t, child.”

And true to her word, Elle didn’t let Gracie or Kelly down for an instant. She took to the job with the ease and confidence of a seasoned pro. She poured coffee, took orders, ran food, bussed tables, and chatted up the customers like no one Gracie and Kelly had ever seen. Even when Stumpy, the town drunk came in, Elle managed to put him at ease, got him to eat, which he rarely did anymore, and he even left her a tip.

“I can’t believe he took to you so soon,” Grace said from the grill. “He usually hates new people.”

“What’s to hate?” Elle said with a smile.

Then she went back to the counter and refilled the coffee mugs of the row of mechanics, lumberjacks, laborers, and forestry workers who were devouring their food.

“She’s going to work out just fine,” Grace said to Kelly, and Elle smiled quietly to herself when she heard it.

There was something about the place, about the whole town, that was bringing out the best in her. She’d worked her share of diners, but nowhere before had the customers seemed to welcome her so openheartedly, or had the boss been so willing to see the strengths she brought to the job. At heart, Elle was a people person. She could take a look at a mother coming in with a bunch of kids, or a laborer coming in after a hard day’s work, and know instantly what they needed. Not food necessarily, she didn’t know what they’d order, but she knew what they
needed
. Everyone who came into a restaurant needed something, and Elle knew it wasn’t only about having something to eat. People needed the company, the interaction, someone to give them a smile and bring a little cheer into their day.

“You going to stop pouring sugar into that cup before it gives you diabetes?” she said to a gruff looking park official who worked on the mountain.

He looked up at her in surprise but she was already gone, grabbing a basket of toast for another guy at the counter.

More than one customer asked Grace about the
new girl,
and they all had an approving tone in their voice when they did it.

“It seems you’re going to work out,” Kelly said, when the two girls had a brief moment’s rest between customers.

“Do you think?”

“I know it.” Kelly turned toward the grill. “Right, Gracie? She’s going to work out?”

“If she keeps working like this, and doesn’t bring any drama into the place.”

Elle shook her head. “No drama, Grace, I swear it.”

“I don’t know,” Grace said, kindly. “Girls your age, how old are you?”

“Twenty three,” Elle said.

“Same as me,” Kelly said with a grin.

“Girls your age attract drama. Romantic drama. Believe me. I know.”

“Grace was a bit of a
femme fatale
in her day, weren’t you, Gracie?”

“Those days are long gone now.”

“Oh, it’s never too late, Gracie. Love might be right around the corner.”

Grace laughed, “You two look after yourselves. When I was your age I had my hands full, I can tell you that much. You both have some catching up to do.”

As if on cue, the door opened and a group of guys in their twenties came in. There were four of them, accompanied by a cold gust of mountain wind.

“Oh, boy,” Kelly said. “Here comes trouble.”

Elle watched the boys come in. They were a a few years older than she and Kelly but still under thirty. Their clothes bore the logos of various local sports teams. They wore ball caps and sneakers, despite the fact that it was below freezing outside.

“Shit, Kelly,” one of the boys said, “four coffees, and make that shit fast.”

Elle was surprised at how quickly Kelly jumped at the boy’s demand.

“He can wait like anyone else,” Elle said.

“I don’t want them to cause a fuss,” Kelly answered as she hurried over to the table with the coffee.

Elle stayed put at the counter, sipping her own coffee. She wanted to know what was up with the boys. They weren’t exactly her type, a little scrawny looking, mangy beards, stained shirts. They wouldn’t be winning any fashion contests anytime soon, but she knew more than to judge people by their appearance. It could well be that they would turn out to be good guys, despite their rude entrance.

“This shit’s cold,” one of the boys said, sliding his coffee mug across the table.

Elle didn’t think he’d meant for it to fall off the other side of the table, but when no one stopped it, it slid off the edge and smashed on the ground. For a second, all four boys, and Kelly, looked at it in surprise, as if there was something surprising about a sliding mug falling to the ground, and then the boys, simultaneously, started laughing.

“I guess you’ll have to bend over and clean that up,” one of them said.

“Good thing you’re wearing a skirt.”

“Shame it isn’t a little shorter.”

Elle turned to Grace. Gracie looked back and sighed. “I can’t turn them away. I need the business.”

“Are they always like this?”

“Ever since Kelly broke up with the tall one there, Phil, the ring leader, a little while back.”

“He’s being awful to her,” Elle said.

“They’re a bunch of spoiled little shits,” Gracie said. “That one on the end, his father’s the mayor, the one who broke the mug, Phil, is the son of the sheriff, the other two’s dads are bigwigs too. The county judge, and the district attorney.”