"Heigh-ho, Silver, away," he muttered with a wry grin. The bad guy, or bad gal in this case, had been defeated and destroyed. Good had once again triumphed over evil.
It was time to move on.
Chapter 2
Pear Blossom Creek was just a small Midwestern town, hardly more than a wide spot in the road. No one famous had ever been born there, or even spent the night. They had one fire truck and four policemen, two for the day shift and two who worked nights. Most of the residents were farmers, and everybody in town knew everybody else. It was a place where nothing out of the ordinary ever happened. Nothing, that is, until the stranger came to town.
He arrived on a dark and decidedly stormy Friday night in early-October. The storm was a real gully washer, the old-timers were quick to say, the likes of which hadn't been seen in more than a hundred years. A bad omen, some predicted.
Victoria Lynn Cavendish didn't put much stock in anything the over-seventy-five crowd had to say but she had to admit that in all her twenty-two years, she had never seen or heard a storm like the one pounding on the hammered tin roof of Ozzie's Diner. Nor had she ever seen a man quite like the one sitting at the booth in the far corner, she thought as she approached him.
He was dark, he was, and it wasn't just his clothing or his coloring. It was like he was a part of the darkness itself, a feeling that was reinforced when she looked into his eyes.
Deep blue eyes that seemed as fathomless as Hellfire Hollow, as endless as eternity.
His hair was long and straight and black as a raven's wing, the perfect complement to his straight black brows and long, thick eyelashes that would have looked feminine on any other man. But not on this man. His countenance was darkly beautiful and without blemish, in the way that Satan might appear beautiful as he carefully seduced you down the paths of sin. Looking at the stranger, she thought it might be worth the journey, perilous though it would undoubtedly be to both body and soul.
He remained unmoving under her perusal, a knowing smile curving his perfectly sculpted, sensuous lips.
With an effort, Vicki drew her gaze from his. "What can I get you, mister?" she asked, her pencil poised over her pad.
"What would you recommend?" His voice was low, almost mesmerizing, and strangely intimate, as if he knew her innermost secrets. As if he alone possessed the power to grant her every wish, fulfill her every desire.
She shook off her fanciful notions. He wasn't the devil. He was just a man. "The meat loaf's not bad." It wasn't really good, either, but she couldn't tell a customer that.
"Very well, I will have the meat loaf."
"You want mashed potatoes and gravy with that, or French fries?"
"Either one will be fine."
"And to drink?"
"Would you by chance have any red wine?"
Victoria stared at him. She had worked at the diner for almost four years and in all that time, no one had ever asked for wine, red or white or any other kind. "No, I'm sorry."
"No matter."
"So, what would you like to drink?"
His fathomless gaze rested on the hollow of her throat for a moment before he said,
"Just coffee."
"Gotcha."
She could feel those wintry blue eyes on her back as she turned and walked away.
Knowing he was watching her sent a shiver down her spine.
"That guy at booth six is… " Bobbie Sue Banks, one of the diner's other waitresses, shook her head. "I don't know who he is, but he's kind of spooky, don't you think?"
Spooky was just the right word. There was something just the slightest bit off about him.
If she didn't know better, she might have thought he was some kind of alien. She remembered an old Twilight Zone episode in which the aliens had looked just like everyone else, except one hid a third eye under his hat and the other one hid the fact that he had more than two arms under his coat.
"Well, lett's hope he's a big tipper." Vicki glanced over her shoulder at the booth in the back only to find that the mysterious stranger was no longer sitting there.
Frowning, she looked around the diner and then she saw him through the front window, walking down the rain-swept street with Sharlene Tilden, who had been sitting at table two. Sharlene was a cashier at Perry's Market. She came in for dinner every night at the same time. Sharlene was divorced and it was rumored that, since her divorce, she slept around, but that was none of Vicki's business. Anyway, she didn't believe it for a minute.
Sharlene had never been the type to indulge in casual sex.
With a shrug, Vicki tore up the stranger's order and went to clear Sharlene's table.
The stranger was back again the following night, sitting at the same booth in the back corner of the diner, one arm flung over the back. Once again, he wore black jeans, a black T-shirt, and a long black coat. Once again, it was as if all the darkness in the world had gathered around him.
Taking a deep breath, Vicki pulled a pencil out of her pocket and went to take his order.
"What'll it be?"
He lifted one shoulder and let it fall in a negligent shrug. "The special will be fine."
"Are you gonna stick around long enough to eat it tonight?" she asked, jotting his order down on her pad.
A wry grin lifted one corner of his mouth. "I might."
"Do you want coffee again?"
His gaze held hers for a long moment. Something flickered in the depths of his eyes, something primal and sensual that made her heart skip a beat and sent a rush of sexual awareness to every nerve and cell in her body.
"Sure." His voice was soft and low, and far too intimate.
With a nod, she dragged her gaze from his and went to turn in his order. Standing near the counter, she glanced around the room, noticing for the first time that Sharlene wasn't there. Vicki checked her watch, then shrugged. It was always possible that Sharlene had decided to eat dinner at home. She did that once in a while, though not often. She had told Vicki once that she wasn't crazy about cooking and she hated to eat alone.
Vicki noted the other regulars. There was old Bert Summers, who owned the local newspaper, and Judy West, who worked over at the Pear Blossom Creek Curl and Dye Beauty Salon. Judy was always trying out "a new look." Tonight, her shoulder-length hair was pink and teased into a beehive that made it look just like cotton candy. Jovial Rex Curtis, who owned and operated the car repair shop across town, was avidly reading the sports page; Maddy Malone, who was a teller at the Pear Blossom Creek Bank and Trust Company, had her nose buried in a book. Vicki had always thought Rex and Maddy were made for each other.