Whiskey and Gumdrops: A Blueberry Springs Chick Lit Contemporary Romance (3 page)

She shoved her way out of the washroom and took another deep breath, steeling herself as she returned to the dining room. She needed to pull up her pants and find a way to return the color to her own cheeks—not leave it up to someone else. It was all on her to prove she wasn't a dried up old nothing. She still had a chance to make something of herself. All she had to do was figure out what it was and go for it.

She forced a smile, hoping her brain would get the message and order up a trainload of dopamine to help lighten her mood. She snatched sugar shakers off the empty tables, trundling them to the small table near the front doors and register.

First step: carry on like nothing was wrong.

Second step: keep her eyes and ears open for a way to become something more.

Anything more. Greedily more.

And to do that, she'd need to completely dissolve the awkward business going on between her and Frankie since their kiss in the garage.

Oh, God. That kiss. Her eyelids fluttered shut and she lightly touched her neck.

The window banged and she jumped as if she'd been goosed.

Jesus Christ.

Her mother waved as she walked by, laughing at Mandy's expression.

Mandy checked her watch, trying to ignore how hot her cheeks felt. She must have looked like a lovesick dork. She needed to get a grip. Her fantasies were getting out of hand. Okay, okay, not fantasies. More like...totally inappropriate daydreams in which she was enjoying her best friend's body in a more-than-friends kind of way.

Thank goodness exes didn't get married every day or she'd be completely out of control.

That was it! She'd challenge Frankie to a race around the meadow after work. He had that old beater with the 440 Magnum engine he'd been itching to race against her beefed up 4x4 truck on the dirt track. By now, it would be a fabulous, challenging bog with bits of firm, frozen sections interspersed with muck. That would remind them both that more-than-friends didn't do that kind of stuff. They didn't go for the adrenalin of racing in the dark. Just friends.

His car had better have damn good tires.

She entered the kitchen to get sugar and salt to refill the shakers, and the grills sizzled hello as Leif prepped it.

"Hey!" she called.

"Mandy! You're back." Leif, a former police officer who decided he'd rather have the stress of running a kitchen than deal with bad guys, came over and gave her a quick, one-armed hug, his cologne just about choking her while his barrel chest knocked her away. At least he wouldn't be able to catch her scent over his own.
Small miracles,
she thought as she gave a little cough. "Gloria was gloating about you missing a big tip night."

"Yeah, she already got in her digs."

He glanced at her, raising his eyebrows at her exposed cleavage. "Well, you should make up for it fine. If Benny doesn't try and stop you."

Mandy gave him a playful smack on the shoulder, feeling slightly embarrassed that her motives were so transparent.

He laughed, moving back to the protection of his grill. "You're so cute when you get embarrassed."

Mandy put her hands on her hips. "It's a woman's right to flirt...and stuff."

"I never said anything!" He raised his hands in defense.

Mandy flashed him a smile she knew he'd clock as fake and turned on her heel. After grabbing the jug of sugar off a nearby shelf, she headed out of the kitchen. She dumped herself into the chair in front of the sugar shakers and sighed. How had she become that obvious? But if she was...why did it work if everyone knew what she was doing?

She brushed away her worries, knowing that Leif, as a former officer, could read people like they were the ABCs. That was all. And it wasn't a big deal to flirt to get what you wanted. Businessmen had their boys' clubs and women had their bodies.

So what was she going to do when her body went? When she was no longer young?

She wiped under her lashes for errant mascara and sighed. When Oz dumped her—the first time—she'd got this job and learned the ropes of running the place. Now she did the weekly deposits, the cash register receipts, and lately, even some of the food ordering. But what was left? Where was there for her to go from here? What was here for her in Blueberry Springs other than this?

She was one step away from morphing into one of those small town waitresses waiting for someone to come along and sweep her off her feet with a winning lottery ticket.

Unable to clear her mind, she set to work uncapping a row of sugar containers, then filling them before recapping them all and starting on the next line.

Gloria plopped herself into the chair across from her and let out a gusty breath. "Woo. I'm all out of breath. Make sure you get the right white stuff in the right shaker there, Mandy."

"Ha-ha." One mistake seven years ago... Wasn't the woman ever going to let her live it down?

Mandy pushed half the sugar shakers across the table. "Make yourself useful."

Gloria laughed. "Is that you asking for
help
?"

"Gloria," Mandy said, barely refraining from rolling her eyes, "it's our
job
."

"You're asking for help, Little Miss Mandy-Do-It-All-Herself." Gloria's voice and eyes danced and Mandy resisted the urge to shower the woman in sugar.

Gloria crossed her arms on the table and leaned forward. "Soooo?"

Mandy wished a customer would come in right now and demand she describe every item on the menu, because she knew exactly where this conversation was heading and that unless there was a lengthy distraction, she was not getting out of it. She capped shakers, keeping her focus off Gloria. "What's Amber up to, Gloria?"

Gloria paused for one wonderful, blessed, quiet second. "Amber's found a nice man, it seems."

"You must be happy, then," Mandy said, luring Gloria into talking more about the subject she loved most—her daughter and her love life.

"Yes. Quite happy. He's a lovely man. A newscaster in the city, you know."

Mandy raised her eyebrows and nodded, encouraging Gloria to continue. "Very cool. What's he like?"

Gloria shrugged. "Haven't met him." She reached over and stilled Mandy's hands, which were rapidly twisting lids back onto sugar shakers. "But how about
you
? How are you holding up?"

"I'm great." Mandy stood. If great meant having your high school sweetheart dump you after a zillion years, and right when everyone else was stepping up to the altar, leaving you unfashionably single in a town that valued hooking up above all else. Oh, and then faking a pregnancy scare because you were scared to let him go. And everyone seeing through it. And then, after all that time, when you finally felt as if you were getting the hang of your life, having him break up with his fiancée and hinting that maybe the two of them had had it right all those years ago. And then maybe sharing a kiss or two in the square, which indicated...

She sighed, trying to blot out the way her hopes had skyrocketed and how she'd slipped right back into believing it was real. Only to be sloughed off like the mistake she truly was so her ex could turn around and marry someone else. Public humiliation served up cold.

Her skin crawled at the thought of what the town must have been whispering behind her back.

She'd probably had it coming. For being that naive and trusting.

And still, despite it all, she'd waited. Waited in case he changed his mind again.

And now everyone thought she was crushed because she'd been sick for days since his marriage. There was no justice. Or rather, there was a very pointed and real divine justice with one hell of a backswing.

But here she was. Right back where she'd started. Same spot. Same uniform. Looking at the same faded décor, and living her single, pathetic life.

Just like her mother. Only in a restaurant instead of a convenience store. And without an addiction to soap operas.

No future. No dreams.

Nothing more than some feeble hope that a man would somehow create a life for her to live and that hope was so pathetic it made her want to gag herself with a spoon. A man was not the answer. Not until she tried something. Something daring. Something bold. Something passionate and thrilling. She needed to become a big fish in this small pond and get herself a real life that matched her wardrobe.

"Well, you don't look great," Gloria stated bluntly. "A mother knows." She tapped her forehead as though she was turning on her ESP or something.

Mandy laughed, despite herself. "You're not my mother."

"Your mother's a big chicken finger. She wouldn't know you had a problem unless you came right out and told her and I'm guessing your pride is too big for those britches. That woman shut down the day your daddy moved across town to live with Rubber Tits and nobody's been able to jumpstart her since."

Mandy let out a guffaw.

"What? Just because she's my cousin, you think I don't know fake tits when I see 'em and would feel the need to keep 'em a secret?" Gloria shot her a disgusted look. "Look. You need to shake it off." She shook her head, her voice growing tight. "Men don't have half the courage we give 'em credit for. Remember that. You have to have enough for both of you if you want to have a hope in hell. We need 'em but we've got to live our lives, too."

"Yeah, maybe."

"But you know...if you and Frankie are going to have something—"

"Oh my God!" Mandy exploded, shoving away from the table. "Why can't people be happy with us being just friends!"

Gloria laughed and banged the table with a hand. " 'Cause the two of you are always wishing you were porking each other!"

Mandy gasped, heat tearing through her veins. "
Gloria
!" She whirled around, unable to make her mouth form words as she slammed her way into the kitchen, cringing when she realized she'd just confirmed exactly what she was trying to hide.

* * *

Mandy eased her way into the dining room with a stack of menus she'd de-goobered, pausing when she saw Gloria finishing up the salt shakers.

"You finished your little snit?" Gloria asked without looking up.

Mandy popped the menus back in the stack next to the pizza-by-the-slice display and stuck out her tongue.

"Good. Then come on over here and tell me how you're coping with Oz getting married because I'll bet you this restaurant you weren't home sick all these days. At least, nothing a heartsick girl can't give herself."

Mandy glared at Gloria and worked on tilting the window shades so the streaming sun wouldn't blind the early morning customers. "Ten minutes 'til open. Can you finish up the salt? I need to restock the serviettes since nobody seemed to notice how low they were while I was gone."

Gloria slowly screwed the lid on a shaker, and Mandy could feel the woman's eyes prying at the cracks in her façade as she moved from window to window.

"Better find a man to look after you, Mandy."

"But you just said—"

"You don't want to end up a waitress all your life."

Mandy's steps faltered as the truth struck her like a two-by-four to the back of the head.

Oh, God. Even Gloria could see it.

"An independent woman doesn't need a man to be something or somebody," she muttered, knowing her words would be in vain.

"Well, you certainly are independent enough," Gloria said, "but that doesn't mean you're automatically a somebody."

Panic sucked at Mandy's gut. There was nothing for her here, but there was nothing for her out there, either. She had nothing because she
was
nothing. The need to be bigger than Blueberry Springs ate at her, and she fought the surging need to run out the door and blast down the windy mountain roads in her big ol' Ford. To run from everything and somehow stumble into a life where she could be
something
. Something
more
. Life was ticking by, the clock picking up its pace.

She busied her hands with restocking empty jam baskets while she worked to pull herself together. There was nothing more for her to grow into here. Nothing to distract her the way there was the last time she felt like this. Unless she took over the business, she had nothing. And this restaurant, mismatched décor and all, was Benny's pride and joy as well as his connection to the community. He wasn't going to give it up.

Mandy glanced at Gloria over her shoulder and caught the smug, knowing look of a woman who could see someone's future laid out before her. Mandy straightened her spine and tipped up her chin. Gloria's smile expanded and Mandy could hear the woman's thoughts from across the room. Stinging her as they went
slap, slap, slap
.

"No. I won't," she said firmly, her jaw tight.

"Won't what?" Gloria said, challenge in her voice. She leaned forward like a cougar assessing its prey, all ears and unblinking attention, waiting to go in for the kill.

"Become—" She caught herself before she said
you
. "I won't be a waitress for the rest of my life. I'm more than that."

Gloria laughed. "Not a new idea, kiddo." Challenge still lingered in her tone. "So? Whatcha gonna be, then?"

Mandy breathed hard as if she was in the middle of a passionate fight with a lover. She leaned down, staring at Gloria. "I'm going to open my own place."

Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit. Where the hell did that come from?

Gloria screeched out peels of laughter, her hands resting on her stomach for support. "Are you, now? Well, then. Tell me what Benny thinks of that!"

"He'll support me," Mandy said with conviction she must have borrowed from one of her mother's soaps because it certainly didn't feel real. "Maybe I'll go into catering. Make lunches for Jen's outdoor excursions." Now there was an idea. Her good friend, Jen, had been running hikes, camping trips, and the like through her boss's sporting goods store. She could probably use snacks and lunches for her clients. Although her friend's budding business would need to grow a heck of a lot in order to support Mandy providing lunches for a living. "Or open a bakery."

Gloria's laughter got even louder.

Benny had trained her to run his restaurant so he could take vacations; he hadn't taught her so she could leave and compete with him. What was he going to think if she used his shared business tips against him?