“Honest,” he said. “Anyone who walks in here on a Tuesday gets Saturday’s paper free.” Not that anyone ever did come in on Tuesday for last week’s paper, but Angel didn’t need to know that.

“Thanks,” she said. “Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?”

He handed her both. Without a word, she approached the small tables he provided for people to use when filling out ads or obits.

When she sat, her low-riding jeans gaped away from her back, just far enough to bare a tiny fraction of skin. Timm’s hands recalled the feel of holding her last night when he stopped her from burning her bike.

He tried not to pay attention to Angel, but couldn’t stop himself from counting the pages she turned too quickly before finally stopping.

Reaching under the counter, he unfolded the paper and thumbed through the same number of pages. She’d stopped at the want ads.

Angel needed a job.

If she’d bothered to finish her degree, she could do a hell of a lot better than anything available in the want ads in Ordinary. A fresh spurt of disappointment ran through him. The woman had wasted a great opportunity. Probably spent too much time partying with men the way she had as a teen.

He’d seen it all from his bedroom window as he’d watched the world go by. When boredom nearly killed him, Papa would move him for a few days to the apartment above the newspaper offices, where he could watch the happenings on Main Street.

All the while, he kept a journal, chronicling his feelings of isolation and the yearning to be normal and his observations of his fellow man’s behavior, as seen from a bird’s-eye view. That journal, about to be published, was paying off for him now.

When he’d turned twenty, he’d moved to the apartment for good.

He read the list of job openings: Bernice’s Beauty Salon, the New American diner and Chester’s Roadhouse. Even a wild girl like Angel wouldn’t work at the Roadhouse.

Angel put the notes she’d taken in her pocket. She folded the newspaper neatly and handed it to Timm along with the pen.

By way of thanks, she nodded then walked out of the office and turned left toward the beauty salon and the diner. Appeared as though she was being smart, keeping away from Chester’s at the other end of Main.

Good.

At that moment, Sheriff Kavenagh entered the office.

“Cash,” Timm said. “How’s the law-enforcement business today?”

Cash barely noticed Timm. He was watching Angel walk down the street.

“Angel’s back,” he said, a big grin flashing. The sheriff was a good-looking guy. He and Angel had made a handsome couple for a while before Angel headed off to college.

Timm wondered if they’d ever—

Probably.

His inner bully resurfaced. He didn’t want Cash sliding around on the playground of Angel’s body. Or any other man. It seemed that where Angel was concerned, Timm was one big lusting, jealous male hormone. And that bothered him.

Get a grip.

Cash finally turned to Timm and said, “You hear things around town. You know anything about a bike that’s stranded on the side of the road out past Sadie Armstrong’s place?”

“Angel rode in on it last night.”

“Why did she leave it on the road?”

For some reason he didn’t look at too closely, Timm didn’t want to tell the sheriff about Angel trying to set fire to that bike. “She ran out of gas.”

“Yeah? She should have gotten Alvin to tow it.”

“I picked her up when I saw her stranded,” Timm said. “It was already dark. She’ll probably take care of it today.”

“Someone tried to burn it.” Cash didn’t look happy. “Idiot could have started a fire. I need to find out who did it and put the fear of God into him. Give him a ticket. He could have burned up a fair portion of the countryside.”

Now was the time for Timm to admit that Angel was the culprit. He was normally an honest man. Why protect Angel? She was a big girl and plenty capable of taking care of herself. As far as Timm could tell, Angel’s attitude hadn’t changed one bit while away. So why was she worthy of his protection?

He held his tongue.

“So Angel’s back,” Cash mused, with a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “She’ll perk up the town.”

Timm stepped around the counter, edgy today, but he couldn’t pinpoint why. “The town’s already perked up enough with the bar full of bikers every night.”

Cash grew serious and nodded. “I know. Williams had to break up another fight there last night. His report said it happened about ten. He’ll be on shift again at eight tonight if you want to talk to him.”

“Thanks,” Timm answered, walking beside Cash to the open doorway. “I’ll interview him for Saturday’s paper.”

Sweat beaded on Timm’s forehead and he fingered the button at his throat, tempted to open it. He might have come to terms with his scars, but he doubted that anyone in town wanted to see them.

“I’m organizing a town meeting for Thursday night at the Legion Hall,” he said. “We need to get Chester’s closed down.”

“Good luck with that. He’s not breaking any laws.”

“I know.” Timm had looked at the problem from every angle. “All I can do is gather the citizens and mount a protest.”

Cash pointed a finger at Timm. “You be careful. Those bikers aren’t going to be happy about this. Watch your back.”

Timm nodded. He wasn’t worried for himself, but what if they bothered Ma, or his sister, Sara, now that she was home from school?

“You’ll get a lot of support,” Cash said, stepping onto the sidewalk. “The townspeople respect you, Timm. As future mayor, you know they’ll listen.”

Timm smiled. “I’m not mayor yet.”

“Don’t worry. You will be.”

“We’ll see.” The election was in two more weeks and Max Golden, his only competition, was a popular guy. “I don’t like to make assumptions.”

Cash was right, though. As publisher of the most well-read small-town newspaper in the state, he held a good position. People respected a man when he was good at his job. Timm had been born to use his brain and, with the paper, he got to use it all—creativity and research and reporting the facts. Yeah, he did his job well.

He’d see if that parlayed into votes.

“Will you come to the meeting?” Timm asked. “It would look good if you showed up. Seven o’clock.”

“I’ll still be on duty, but if nothing’s going on in town, I’ll be there.” Cash walked away.

Timm focused on the building at the end of the street. Six months ago, Chester had rented the last two storefronts on Main and had turned them into one large space.

Any new business in Ordinary should have been a relief to the town. In the summer, they usually appreciated tourist dollars, but that source of income had dried up this year a few months after Chester’s grand opening, when the bikers had appropriated the bar as their own.

Main Street pretty well became theirs after eight every night.

Timm’s concern had nothing to do with money or tourists, though.

For him, this fight was personal.

CHAPTER THREE

ANGEL ENTERED BERNICE’S Beauty Salon.

Bernice was a good person—she’d never looked down on Angel.

“Hey, honey,” Bernice said with a smile, stopping the sweeping she’d been doing and resting one hand on her ample hip. “Haven’t seen you in a while, Angel. How’s school?”

It had been good, but had ended badly. Angel’s smile felt sickly, but she hoped it looked normal. “Good. I’m home for the summer and then heading to the city for a job.”

Angel looked around. The shop hadn’t changed one bit in the time she’d been gone. Red geraniums dotted the windowsill and a monster jade plant stood in one corner.

“You getting your hair cut?” Bernice asked.

Angel shook her head.

“Good. Don’t think Missy or the men in town would like that much.” She laughed.

“Bernice, I’m here about the job you have open.”

Bernice’s smile fell. “Honey, I hired a girl yesterday.”

From the back of the room, a teenager Angel recognized, but whose name she couldn’t remember, stepped out with another woman and walked her to a salon chair.

When the woman unwrapped the towel from her wet hair, she looked at Angel. Her mouth fell open, then quickly closed.

“Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in. Angel Donovan. What are you doing in town?”

Elsa. Scotty’s daughter. Scotty owned the hardware store. The town liked him, but disliked his daughter.

Elsa had hated Angel in high school, even though Angel had been a few years behind her. Didn’t matter. Boys and men of any age were attracted to Angel.

Angel tipped her head and smiled. If it felt a little mean, so be it. This was Elsa, after all, herself the meanest woman in town.

“My mama lives here, in case you’ve forgotten.” Angel turned toward the front door.

Before she could open it, Elsa said, “William married me, you know.”

Angel turned back. “That’s nice.”

“We have three beautiful children and a perfect life.”

“Fine, Elsa. Let’s get it all out now, ’cause I’ll be in town for the summer and I’m not taking crap from you for the next three months.” She stood, arms akimbo. “To confirm what you’ve always suspected, Bill and I made out one night after a football game.”

Elsa’s face contorted into a mask of rage. “Proving you’re no better than your mother.”

“Who were you? Snow White? You’d been dating Bill for two years—you were still dating him—when you got busy with Matt Long and wound up pregnant. Behind Bill’s back. After that, he wanted revenge. You’re a hypocrite, Elsa, no better than any other woman in town, including me and Missy.”

Angel stomped out of the shop. She was so tired of the fight. It would never end as long as she lived in Ordinary. She stood on the sidewalk to get her rowdy anger under control, then crossed the street toward the diner.

When she stepped inside, the old familiar scents assailed her—bacon and eggs, grilled-cheese sandwiches, burgers.

Within seconds, all conversation seemed to stop.

Someone yelled, “Hey, Angel, when did you get back?”

Sam Miller sat in a booth across from the counter.

Angel walked over and leaned her hip against his table.

“Hey, Sam, how’ve you been?” Angel smiled at the three men with him even though she didn’t know them. By the glances skimming her body, they liked her. Men always did.

Except for Timm Franck.

So what? You don’t want him attracted to you anyway.

She’d been celibate since Neil and planned to keep it that way here in Ordinary. No men. No hanky-panky.

She wrapped up the pleasantries, then made her way to the cash register. George, cook and owner of the diner, asked her what she wanted to order.

There was a time when George had been one of Missy’s boyfriends, but that had changed once Angel had become a teenager and George had wanted to switch daughter for mother.

Both Missy and Angel had booted him out of the trailer and had told him to never come back.

He still gave her the creeps.

The words I’m here about the job stuck in her throat. Could she work here every day with George watching her the way he was looking at her now—with greed?

She almost decided to take the job so she could put him down the first time he tried to touch her, by “accident,” in passing, the way he used to before Angel learned how to fight back.

Man, she would enjoy giving him a piece of her mind.

She wasn’t in town to fight old fights, though, despite what had happened with Elsa. She was here for Mama, and she needed money to leave the second she got Phil out of her mother’s life.

“I changed my mind. I don’t want anything,” she muttered, then left the diner.

Fuming, she strode down the sidewalk to Chester’s Roadhouse, betting that he’d still have enough affection for her and her mom to give her a job.

She’d come home broke. She’d wasted her money on that bike, thinking that she would have her degree in a couple of months and would get a full-time job.

Then Neil…then Neil had—

Chester needed a bartender. Angel hadn’t gotten her degree, couldn’t do much else, but bartending was something she did really well. She made people happy.

A niggling feeling caught her unawares. Someone was watching her. She stopped before entering the bar and glanced around.

Timm crossed the street toward the diner, looking at her. When they made eye contact, he changed direction and approached her.

What could he possibly have to say to her that they couldn’t have said fifteen minutes ago in his office?

Sunlight did good things for Timm. It warmed his light brown hair to honey and highlighted that face that had matured into strong planes and angles.

He was taller than she’d remembered, and lean. For a nerd, he walked with a surprising athletic grace.

When he got close enough for her to see his eyes behind the wire-rimmed glasses, she realized they were chocolate-brown. He wasn’t fast enough in masking his look of admiration of her.

It warmed her. It shouldn’t have.

Timm fit into this town too well.

She didn’t.

“Hi,” she said. Brilliant. Wow, it wasn’t like her to be tongue-tied. But she didn’t want to say anything that would make her look stupid in front of this guy. He was too smart.

“Sheriff Kavenagh saw your bike out on the highway,” he said.

Angel swallowed. Shit. All she needed was to be fined or arrested for starting a fire during a drought.

“So you told him I tried to burn it?” She couldn’t help the aggression in her tone.

“No,” he said. He shifted his gaze away from her, studied the shops across the street, wouldn’t look her in the eye.

“You didn’t? Why not?”

He shrugged. “I was there to stop the fire, so no problem.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled. There was a whole lot more she should say, but the words wouldn’t come out. “Well. I gotta go.” She stepped toward the Roadhouse door.

“The bar’s not open for another hour.” Something in his voice—disapproval, maybe—set her hackles on edge.

“I’m heading in for a job.”

“You don’t want to do that.” The helpful man of a minute ago was gone, replaced by a hard-edged judgmental prude.

“How is it any of your business?”

“I plan to close this place down.”

“Why would you close Chester’s?”

“You saw the bikers last night. They’re ruining the town. Decent people stay away.”

The implication being that she wasn’t decent. Surprise, surprise. The town’s attitude hadn’t changed about her. Why should it have?

Timm had always seemed different, though—smarter—and she was disappointed to find he was no better than the rest of Ordinary’s residents.

Obviously, attending college made no difference in how the townspeople viewed her. They still had her pegged as the trailer-trash girl with the slutty mother.

“Great talking to you,” she said, her sarcasm tainting the sunny day.

Without a word, his expression flattened, and he turned and walked away.

Angel opened the door of Chester’s Roadhouse, irritated by Timm’s assessment of her. Seemed that, in his eyes, the bar was exactly where she belonged.

Stepping into the dark interior, Angel shook off her funk. She gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the dimness. It was at least ten degrees cooler in here than outside, thank goodness. Must cost Chester a fortune to air-condition, though.

The place smelled like beer.

Chester had spent his money freely decorating the huge room. Red leather and oak booths lined two walls. The center of the room housed chairs padded with the same upholstery surrounding large round tables.

Angel approached the bar.

Chester was doing well for himself. The bar must bring in good money.

“Hey, Freddy,” she said to the bartender, recognizing him from school. “Haven’t seen you in a while. How have you been?”

“Hi, Angel.” Freddy was a good guy, not too handsome, but not ugly, either. He leaned on the bar and assessed her. “You’re looking well. College treated you okay?”

Angel ignored her spurt of guilt for not finishing and smiled. “I did all right there.”

“What can I get you? Bar isn’t open yet, but I can pour you a soft drink.”

“Thanks, but nothing. I’m here to see Chester.”

Freddy indicated a nearby archway. “Down the hall, last door on your left. Should be open.”

Angel made her way to Chester’s office, where she found him sitting in a leather office chair behind a huge desk covered with piles of papers.

She rapped on his open door. “Hey, Chester.”

He looked up, startled, and smiled. “Angel. I didn’t have a chance to talk to you. When did you blow back into town?”

Angel smiled. “Last night. I’m here for the bartending job in the paper.”

Chester leaned back in the chair and wrapped his fingers behind his head. It made his biceps look huge. Angel totally understood Mama’s crush on him.

“How’s Missy?” he asked quietly. He always asked about Mama.

“As good as can be, considering who’s living with her right now.”

“Yeah, I hear you.” He frowned. “Hey, I thought you finished college. Is the economy so bad you can’t get a job even with a degree?”

Angel sat in the chair in front of the desk. “I’m hanging around for the summer. To help Mama with the wedding and to take care of her place while she and Phil take a honeymoon.” The lies rolled off her tongue easily. If she felt any guilt about lying to a good friend like Chester, she ignored it.

Chester shuffled papers on his desk. He blushed the way he always did when Missy was around.

“So, I see you’ve got Freddy working behind the bar. What hours do you need me for?”

“Freddy’s going to night school.”

“No kidding? What’s he studying?”

“He wants to be an accountant.”

“Cool. I can mix drinks. I worked as a bartender in Bozeman when I was at school. Do you need a reference?”

“Nah. I trust you, Angel.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk. “I need a bartender for the evenings—from six until one-thirty. There’s usually a bit of cleanup after the bar closes, but you’d be out by two, latest. I’m usually here until three, going through the receipts and counting the cash, so you’ll never be alone.”

He stood to walk her out. “You’ll be a great asset here, Angel. With your looks…” Chester grinned. “You’re a hell of a lot prettier than Freddy is.”

Angel laughed. “Yeah, I’m pretty good at having fun, too.” She knew her place. Knew exactly her value. Here in Ordinary, she was a party girl, through and through.

She left the bar after agreeing to start work that evening and walked down the street to the candy store, Sweet Talk. While she was home, she would reconnect with the only other family she had.

Two years ago, she’d found out that she had a half brother—Matthew Long. Matt’s dad and Missy had had a relationship for years when Matt was young and Angel had been the result of that affair. Mama had never told her who her father was.

Not kosher of Mama to sleep with another woman’s man, but so like Missy.

Fortunately, them both being only children meant that Angel and Matt had latched onto each other. From the very beginning, he’d insisted that he was her full brother—there was nothing half about their relationship, he was her brother in every way that counted. She couldn’t imagine being closer to him than she was now. And she adored his wife and children.

In fact, she needed to pick up candy for her nephew and niece, thus the visit to Sweet Talk. For six-year-old Jesse, she chose a chocolate rabbit that wore a housecoat and carried a candle and a book, all decorated with icing sugar dyed in pastels. For two-year-old Rose, she bought a small chocolate rabbit with pink lips and a pink icing dress. Adding to her purchase, she selected a bag of humbugs for Jenny and salted Dutch licorice for Matt.

She tipped her head through the doorway to the candy-making room and waved to the owner, Janey Wilson. Looked as though Janey was about to pop out another kid. How many were Janey and C.J. up to now? Four? Five?

Angel returned home to ask Mama if she could borrow her car to drive out to Matt’s ranch.

Angel stepped into the quiet house. She’d noticed that the garage door was open and the car gone. Nuts. When she walked into the kitchen, she found that she wasn’t alone.

Phil sat at the table, drinking coffee.

He glanced up when she entered, his eyes skimming her body before settling on her face.

His demeanor always surprised her—so mild-looking, yet there was something behind his pale eyes that sat wrong with Angel. Something like…a banked hunger, as if he could never get enough to satisfy his cravings.

Not a tall man, why did he seem so much bigger than he actually was? Wiry strength threaded his forearms, though, and crafty knowledge gleamed in his eye. Angel would be a fool to underestimate him.

“Where’s Mama?”

“Grocery shopping.”

Phil had a mass of grocery-store coupons spread neatly across the table. Angel felt vaguely nauseous. Mama was still hoarding those stupid things?

“Don’t tell me you collect coupons, too?” Angel asked, her tone derisive.

“Why not? If you work at it hard enough, you can save a lot of money.”

Angel turned and poured herself a cup of coffee. Mama had pinched every penny until it squeaked and her obsession with discounts and coupons had sparked a loathing for them in Angel.

“What’s so wrong with using coupons?” Phil asked.

She wasn’t about to tell him that they reeked of poverty, and reminded her too much of growing up in that crummy old trailer.

Phil stacked the detergent coupons on top of each other and fastened them with a paper clip. Then he picked up assorted coupons and fastened those together.

Control freak.

“Why did you clip those?” Angel asked, despite not wanting to care. “They’re different products.”

“They’re only good until the end of the month, so your mother and I will watch for specials and use them before the expiry date.”

Cheapskate.

Almost as if he’d read her mind, he peered at her sharply. “No one handed me an education. I get by in this life however I can.”

They both heard the car rumble down the driveway along the side of the house.

A minute later, Mama walked in the door. Still a beautiful woman, voluptuous and sensuous in the way she moved, she looked tired this morning.

Angel knew she’d put those dark circles under Mama’s eyes with her attitude toward Phil. Despite knowing it was the right thing to do, Angel felt a worm of disgust at her own behavior crawling under her flesh.

She looked out the window. The barely driven Grand Am Mama had inherited from Hal sat inside the garage.

“Phil, can you close the garage door?” Missy’s arms were full of groceries. “It’s sticking again.”

Phil stood and took the two full grocery bags from her and placed them on the counter.

“Any more bags in the car?”

“One more.”

“I’ll get it.” He left the kitchen.

Okay, so he was more a gentleman than Angel had given him credit for.

Missy hugged Angel. “Can I get you some lunch?”

“I can make my own.”

“I know, but you’re home and I want to do it.”

Angel stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Mama, can we talk?”

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