“Eight would be fine. I’m usually here until then, anyway,” Mallory said in her easy, open manner. “I get twice the work done when I have the place to myself...”
Tabitha wondered about the woman’s family, how they felt about her working six days a week from morning until late at night—and then reminded herself that just because Mallory was there that morning didn’t mean she was in early every morning. Or even that she worked every day.
Tabitha was surprised by how much she liked Mallory on first meeting. And felt guilty for deceiving her.
It was because this woman might have—please, God—Jackson in her care, Tabitha told herself. Trembling from the inside out, she thanked Mallory Harris, tried to convey with her smile what she couldn’t say in words and silently begged Mallory to love her son until she could find a way to get him back.
Chapter Two
Thankful for the food truck that provided frenetic distraction and took a lot of physical and mental energy, Tabitha worked hard beside Johnny all day Monday, barely taking time to nibble on the contents of a bowl with everything. Sitting in the driver’s seat as she ate, she watched Johnny take orders and then make the bowls, joking with customers, talking to them from inside the truck as he worked, never missing a beat.
He was drop-dead gorgeous. She’d seen him shirtless on the beach. His baby blues and ready grin didn’t hurt, either.
Stepping sideways from the window to his prep board, he grabbed a knife that had cost as much as her monthly car payment and began chopping with expert precision.
You’d think he’d been born a chef rather than the only son of a prominent California family who’d groomed him from birth to take a top legal position within his father’s enormous holdings.
The way he played acoustic guitar on the beach, you’d be forgiven for thinking he’d been born to become an entertainer, too.
But Johnny loved to play and sing; he just had no passion for performing. No desire at all to enter the cutthroat world of the music business. No real need for fans or accolades, either.
No need for her accolades...not that she offered them.
A female voice ordered a veggie bowl with extra dressing. Johnny’s comment, something about the dres
sing, made the woman laugh.
Tabitha had grown to crave the laughter he brought to her life. Just as she’d grown to love putting on her light purple polo shirt with the Angel’s Food Bowls logo on it and climbing up into his food truck with him. She’d helped him create the logo. And choose the shirts.
His sabbatical was three-quarters through, which meant that in another three months he’d be leaving “normal” life to resume his place in the society of the elite. She had to shudder even thinking about it. To have people watching you all the time, to always be “on,” to have to go to extremes, like taking a sabbatical and buying a little house through a third party just to get enough anonymity to grieve... She didn’t envy him that.
But she could tell that he missed it all—the life he’d been born to. The way he talked about his parents, his uncle, his cousins. They were a close-knit family.
And that she envied.
She was going to miss him terribly when their time together came to an end...
“Eat up there, missy, line’s a-forming,” he said with a grin in her direction. She blinked. Realized she’d been staring at him. And accidentally toppled her half-filled rice bowl off her lap and onto the floor of the truck.
* * *
Never one to cry over spilled milk, as the saying went, Johnny didn’t give a rat’s ass about the dressing-smeared rice, veggie and meat mixture plastered on the floor near his seat in the hundred-thousand-dollar food truck. He cared that Tabitha was so far off her game he’d hardly recognized her that morning.
She’d been near tears when she’d thanked him for helping in her quest to find Jackson. Her hand had been shaking when she’d passed him a cup of coffee. She hadn’t caught several things he’d said to her, although they’d been in the truck together. And she’d messed up two orders.
A pediatric nurse had to be able to keep calm in the midst of horrible stress and, sometimes, unbelievable tragedy. This woman had lost her son and missed less than two weeks of work in the year since.
But that day, stress seemed to be getting the better of her.
Unable to give in to his instant desire to head to the front of the truck and help her clean up the mess, or do it for her, he continued to work the crowd. He prepared a bowl, took off his gloves to make change and then washed his hands, pulling on a fresh set of disposable gloves before preparing the next order.
Then she slid into place in front of the window to accept payment for his most recently completed concoction. That allowed him to keep on his prep gloves, but he couldn’t help contaminating them anyway, with a hand to her back. Letting her know she wasn’t alone.
* * *
“You okay to do this tonight?” The question burst from Johnny about a mile from the daycare just after dark fell that July evening. He’d been trying to figure out a subtler way to ask it for most of the afternoon.
“Of course!” Tabitha’s over-the-top enthusiasm—over-the-top for her—brought more concern rather than easing it. From the wheel of the little SUV he’d purchased to tow behind the food truck, he could only afford a quick glance in her direction. But it was enough to tell him, as if he didn’t already know, that this trip was different from all the rest.