Read What the Heart Knows: A Milford-Haven Novel - Book One for Free Online

Hargraves said to her back, then dug into his eggs.
    The screen door squealed and slammed as it always did. Dishes and stainless steel flatware clattered pleasantly, and Sally’s famous biscuits filled the room with an irresistible aroma as Jack plopped himself into a chair, with Kevin in tow.
    “Well, good morning, folks. What’ll it be, the usual?” asked Sally.
    Jack Sawyer had known Sally these four years, and still he hadn’t decided whether that Arkansas drawl was an annoyance or part of the attraction. “Yes, Sally, and bring some coffee right away, will you?”
    “That sounds good.” Kevin always agreed with whatever Jack ordered, apparently more eager to please him than toplease his own palate.
    “And whole wheat toast?” It grated on Jack, how she drew out the words and mangled the natural vowel sounds.
    “Right.”
Obviously, she committed this menu to memory long ago, yet her pencil remains poised above her pad
.
    She wet the lead with her tongue before she wrote down his answer. “And two eggs over hard?”
    She always manages to make it sound like an aberration. Eggs over hard. I like them that way. What business is it of anyone else’s?
    “That doesn’t sound so good.” Kevin’s quiet interjection was out of character, and it drew a smile from Sally.
    “And bacon crispy?” She was still scribbling.
    Jack was tired of the redundancy. “Sally, I did say that I’d have the usual, didn’t I? Have you ever known the usual to be something other than it usually is? And did I not ask you to bring some coffee
right away?”
    “Well, my word, Jack,” she said, “there’s no call for you to get all upset now. Just don’t get yourself in an uproar, and I’ll get it. I’ll put your order right in. Consider it done!” Sally turned towards the kitchen, putting on an automatic smile with the well-practiced professional calm of a person running a business.
    Jack glanced across the restaurant and noticed old Mr. Hargraves give Sally a knowing wink.
He’s got a nerve
. As though to annoy Jack further, Sally sashayed away from Hargraves humming the little nondescript song she always sang to calm herself.
    Jack mumbled, “What’s wrong with that girl?” It was a rhetorical question, one that he frequently voiced. But itmasked his respect for the little slip of a woman who would let no one—not even him—push her around.
    “Gee, Boss, nothing that I know of.”
    As always, Kevin had taken
literally
what was intended
literarily
. Jack retorted less audibly than usual. “Yes, well, you wouldn’t know what was wrong with the girl if she sent it to you in writing.”
    “What d’you say?”
    Jack’s life was full of miscommunications. In the case of Kevin, he cultivated them. It was a game he enjoyed playing, an indulgence he allowed himself, taking advantage of what the young man missed, and ultimately—he knew somewhere in the recesses of his mind—a means of placing blame, should he ever need to do so. Having chosen to be the big fish in the little pond, he’d found no worthy partner in this small town against whom to sharpen his wit, except for Samantha, and she… well, she wasn’t the worthy opponent she fancied herself to be.
    Someday, he knew, he might regret his word games for some reason, might get caught or embarrassed, but even then he was sure he’d talk his way out of it before Kevin realized what had happened. He tried it now.
    “That girl, that friend of yours who works for Samantha Hugo at the Environmental Planning Commission? I need you to contact her.”
    “Oh, you mean Su—“
    Jack cut him off. “I don’t want to know her name. Just keep tabs on her. Get her to tell you details of this investigation of theirs. I don’t want any surprises.”
    Kevin Ransom looked at Jack’s eyes. “Well, okay, but I’m not sure what you mean by keeping tabs.” Kevin liked SusanWinslow. He thought of her long black hair and cute short skirts. She wasn’t the easiest person to