Once More, At Midnight. Wendy Warren

two weeks much less two months. Between her eyebrows, her head began to throb.

      Say something, a voice inside urged. With her tongue feeling too thick to fit her mouth, she forced herself to ask, “What will you be celebrating?”

      A satisfied smile crawled leisurely across Gus’s handsome face. He looked every inch the contented man and every inch a success—proof that America was still the land of self-made men and second chances—when he answered.

      “My marriage.”

      Whomp. Satisfaction hit Gus like a sock to the solar plexus. Confirmation, validation…retaliation. You name it, he felt it. And it felt fine.

      He’d waited twelve years to see Lilah Owens swallow a bite, just a bite, of the shock and pain she’d fed him. The fact that their relationship was over a decade old and that her choices then could be blamed on youth and immaturity didn’t appease his anger. He was surprised the resentment still burned so brightly all these years later.

      He’d had a counselor once—in prison—who had helped him work on the concepts of forgiveness and letting go. After his initial resistance to everything the man had to say, Gus had learned a few things. Unfortunately none of the lessons he’d taken with him managed to completely obliterate his resentment. Nonetheless, even he was surprised by the degree of gratification he felt when Lilah registered the news that he was going to be married.

      First, shock sparked in the gray-green eyes. Then the arched golden eyebrows pinched as if the news disturbed her. Gus watched her and had to work hard to keep his own expression under control when jealousy streaked across her face, briefly but unmistakably. He hadn’t known he could still affect her. God help him, but the knowledge was rewarding.

      Still beautiful, Lilah was close to thirty. One of the single secretaries at his office in Chicago had celebrated her thirtieth birthday on a Friday and by Monday had begun reacting to every marriage announcement with near suicidal grief. Perhaps Lilah was the same.

      He’d already noted her bare ring finger. Some women chose not to wear a wedding ring, but he doubted Lilah Owens would be one of them. He imagined she would wear a rock the size of Gibraltar. She had never been quiet, never blended in. That had been his goal in school: to be so unremarkable that no one would pay attention to the son of the least respectable family in town.

      He’d once thought Lilah wanted to keep their relationship a secret because, like him, she’d thought it was a special thing, too important to expose to the judgments of a bigoted town. He’d trusted her, one hundred percent.

      Unbidden came the memory of the nights he’d lain awake in the barn where he’d often slept as a kid, gazing through the dark at the bare rafters and planning how to buy Lilah an engagement ring. He’d spent hours wondering if a ruby might be less expensive than a diamond, wondering how to get the money and where to buy a gem. In retrospect, nothing more than a fantasy for a kid who didn’t have a mattress to sleep on.

      He could buy Lilah a hundred rings now, he thought as he stared at her, a blood-red, passionate ruby or a diamond whose white brilliance set it forever apart from the pale. But now it didn’t matter, not for her.

      Schooling his features to reflect dispassion, he said, “What can I do for you, Lilah?”

      “C-congratulations.”

      They spoke over each other then hesitated and did it again.

      “Thank you,” he said.

      “What?” she asked.

      “Nikki said you asked to speak to me,” Gus said. “What about?”

      Lilah looked genuinely confused. “Nikki?” She glanced to the dining room. “The waitress?” Shaking her head, she corrected, “I asked to speak with Ernie.”

      Gus scratched his temple and tried to appreciate the irony. So Lilah hadn’t sought him out? And here he’d been enjoying the indecency of power.

      “Nikki said you wanted to speak to the owner,” he told her, putting two and two together for both of them. “She obviously thought you meant me. I bought the diner from Ernie a month ago.” This time he tried to keep the pride and challenge out of his voice. It finally began to sink in that standing here, hoping to inspire envy with news of his new home and wife-to-be was not only immature, it was hardly fair to his fiancée.

      “If you need to speak with Ernie,” he said with a customer-service politeness he had seldom exercised, “I’m sure we can help with that.”

      Lilah felt her heart lurch, indecisive and arrhythmic. She wasn’t sure her exhausted body could take any more surprises than she’d already had today. “This is your business? The diner? I thought the gas station—”

      “Also mine.”

      She tried to smile, to look as if she were pleased, but her face felt stiff, as if she’d overdosed on BOTOX. She knew she should be happy for Gus; he had apparently succeeded in the areas of life she had somehow managed to bungle—career and romance. But every new nugget of information he revealed complicated her situation more and more. Rather than being happy, she felt more scared, more lost, more alone by the second.

      “Do you have Ernie’s home number?” Gus broke into her thoughts. “I’m sure he’d enjoy hearing from you,” Gus said with all the personalization of a cruise director pairing people up for a square-dance class. “Or if you prefer, he comes in for breakfast most mornings. You could catch him then.”

      And risk seeing Gus again before she had a chance to think…or take a large valium? “That’s not necessary. Thanks, anyway. I only stopped in to…to give him this.” She thrust the wrapped publicity photo out to Gus. “It’s more for the diner. It’s another photo. You’re welcome to it.” She made a face. “Or if you’re going to change the decor, perhaps you could pass it to Ernie next time you see him.”

      She began to back up toward the booth where she’d left Bree. So much for a job at the only restaurant in town. Lilah decided swiftly and definitively that she’d made a mistake—another one—by coming home. Bree didn’t like it here, anyway…not that Bree was going to like any place without Grace.

      “I’ve got to get back to my—” She hitched a thumb over her shoulder. “To…Bree.”

      Instantly, Gus’s eyes shifted to the booth where Bree sat with her head still bent over her book. Lilah cursed herself for calling attention to the girl. Pointing her out would only invite questions and more conversation.

      “Well, good to see you again, Gus,” she said, trying hard to convey the dispassion he seemed able to portray quite easily. “Best of luck with everything.”

      To underscore her nonchalance, she managed a classic hair flip when she turned away. The one she’d perfected in high school. The flip that said I’m confident, I’m free, nothin’s botherin’me. To reinforce the image, she made herself swing around one last time, flashing a smile she didn’t feel. “Is the chicken-fried steak still the best in North Dakota?”

      Gus nodded. “Everything’s the same.”

      Not hardly, Lilah thought, but she nodded, turned and walked back to the booth, where she intended to encourage Sabrina to eat without chewing so they could get the hell out of here.

      Chapter Four

      “Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three, forty-four…”

      Lilah pushed coins across the scarred butcher-block table in Sara’s kitchen. She counted all the way to forty-eight dollars, looked at the money sitting in front of her and slumped until her cheek rested on the old pine.

      The heavy thump of her heart and steady march of black hands across a cow-shaped kitchen clock provided the only background music to the impending disaster that had become her life.

      It was ten minutes to 12:00 a.m. Between sips of hot cocoa laced with Irish Crème Liqueur, Lilah had counted and recounted