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I follow his gaze and see the roll sitting on the edge of the counter. Hurriedly, I bring it over to him, checking his mug while I’m at it. “Need a coffee refill?” I ask the old man.
“No, just the check. I’ll be out of your hair soon,” he says.
Marty used to be a postal service worker, but since he retired last year, he has repeatedly stated that he hates this part of his life. He can’t sit still. He didn’t know what to do with himself until Rhonda, my boss and the diner’s owner, suggested giving him a part of her scented candle side business to keep him busy.
Marty jumped at the opportunity, even though he didn’t know a thing about melting and blending wax with fragrances. He learned fast, though, and now he’s pouring, packing, and shipping about five hundred candles every day for Rhonda’s website.
I set the check on the table and smile warmly at him. He’s one of my favorites. He starts rummaging through his wallet, briefly checking the tab. I’m about to walk away when he calls out, “Hold on, Halle. You only put three coffees here, but I had four.”
“Fourth one’s on the house,” I smile again and make my way toward the stock room.
“You’re a good woman, Halle. Some fella’s gonna be really lucky when they land you.”
“Let’s hope so,” I mutter as I disappear into the stock room. It’s getting late. There may be a few stragglers that come in later for coffee before they start their night shift work, so I use the time to do some administrative duties.
Luna and Sammy should be fine on their own for a while. I will check in on them in about half an hour, just to be sure. Until then, however, I grab the inventory clipboard and start counting, my mind wandering back to the one decision that brought me here.
I was supposed to become a fashion designer. I went to college on a full ride. But the future I had planned ever since I was eleven went up in smoke the minute I met Colby Nash.
I want to say that he is the biggest mistake of my life, but Luna and Sammy came out of it, and they are truly the best thing that has ever happened to me. I only wish they had a better father because Colby has been a nightmare. As soon as we got married and moved in together, he released the monster he’d kept hidden.
I shake the thoughts away. There’s nothing I can do to change any of it now. It’s done and over with. There are no do-overs. I can only move forward and start fresh. That’s what all of this is about, in the end.
Right now, I’m penniless and struggling, crammed in a tiny apartment above the diner with my two kids and hiding from my dangerous ex-husband, but at least I’m working an honest job in a place with decent folks. It is infinitely better than the despair and misery that I left behind, and my kids are better for it.
The bell over the door chimes. Marty must’ve left.
I’m on my own, at least for now. My boss is out of town with her husband and nieces and they won’t be back until Monday. They have a beautiful ranch just outside of Dallas. I’ve seen photos of the place, built around a man-made lake, hundreds of horses and cattle roaming freely.
There was a time when I would’ve given anything to live in Paris or London, smack in the heart of the fashion world, but life has had a way of knocking me down a peg or two. I haven’t given up on that dream, not completely, anyway, but I think I could make something of myself in Dallas, too. The fashion scene is different here, not nonexistent.
The smell of smoke tickles my nose.
“What the hell?” I grumble and head for the stock room door.
As soon as I set foot in the diner, I’m hit by a devastating heatwave.
I stand frozen before a scene of rapidly spreading flames, orange tongues licking at everything in sight. Sweat instantly bursts from my pores, my skin hot as I try to make sense of what caused this hell. Everything is burning.
“Oh, no…”
The seating, the tables. The old, burgundy red curtains. The walls are mostly plywood and wallpaper, all instantly devoured by a merciless blaze. My instincts kick in at the same time as the fire alarm. The incessant beeping scratches my brain, and I rush to the fire safety panel, desperate to get the ceiling sprinklers on.
“Fucking hell!” I cry out when I realize that the sprinklers aren’t working.
The flames are getting bigger and hotter and dangerously close to the staircase leading to my apartment. I leave everything behind and run up the stairs, breathless, the fire following me like a flaming demon.
Everything happens so fast, I can barely register it.
I only know that I need to get Luna and Sammy out of here.
I hear sirens wail, thankfully we are close to the fire station, but I don’t have a second to spare.
“Open up, Luna!” I call out as I bang on the door.
“Mama, what’s wrong?” she asks, but I can’t hear the key in the lock.
“Luna, open the door, we need to get out of here!”
