Her Scream in the Silence (Carly Moore #2) - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,2
and one of Tiny’s world-famous burgers?” Then he turned to his lunch partner and said, “Good to see you, Neil. Did you have any trouble finding the place?”
Anger seethed inside of me. He’d dismissed me as though I were hired help. Okay, so I was hired help, but no one enjoyed being treated like dirt. Besides, he had to know I was dating Wyatt, his older son. They were estranged, but it was a small town. Everyone knew.
As I headed to the service counter, I cast a glance at Max, who had been watching our exchange with worried eyes, although I wasn’t sure what or whom he was worried about. His father? Me?
I hung up the ticket, still keeping an eye on the two men in the dining room. It looked like Bart was having a business lunch…but at Max’s Tavern? Then again, there wasn’t really anywhere nicer to eat in this one-stop-sign town. Although Watson’s Café, a block down, nearly had us beat.
“The fact you’re not carrying a plate of food back must mean your cranky customer didn’t have any complaints,” Tiny called over from the grill.
“He’s fine,” I lied. “But this is an order for Bart Drummond himself. Said he wants one of your world-famous burgers.”
Tiny rushed to the counter, much nimbler than I would have expected from a six-foot-four, two-hundred-and-eighty-pound man. He peered through the opening, trying to get a view of the dining room. “Bart Drummond is here?”
“So it is unusual?” I asked.
“I ain’t seen him in here in years. Not since Max bought the place. Used to see him a lot when Wyatt was runnin’ things.”
I did a double take. “What?”
He shot me a look of surprise. “You didn’t know Wyatt used to run the bar?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I knew that part. I’m referring to the part about Bart comin’ in all the time when Wyatt was in charge.”
“Wyatt used to be a daddy’s boy, through and through. Then the incident happened and… well, they had their falling-out.”
Except I’d heard two different versions of the timeline. Wyatt had told me he’d fallen out with his father before he was arrested for a DUI and breaking and entering. In fact, he’d been caught trying to steal back a baseball his father had sold out from under him out of spite. Still, most of the townsfolk seemed to think the divide between father and son had come afterward. I had yet to learn the truth.
My past made it hard for me to trust men. My first week in town had been an intense whirlwind, and Wyatt and I had gotten caught up in it, and in each other. Maybe a bit too quickly given everything that had happened. I’d been plagued with nightmares and anxiety after Seth’s funeral. So much so that Wyatt had convinced me that we should take a week to process everything before discussing our plan to reveal our fathers’ crimes. And at the end of that first week, he’d suggested that we wait another week just to enjoy each other’s company.
I’d resisted. My father had destroyed my mother and my former life, and from the sound of it, Bart Drummond wasn’t much better. Besides, Wyatt knew so much more about me than I did about him, and all the things I didn’t know felt like a barrier between us. But my bluster hadn’t come to anything. Wyatt had taken my hand and quietly told me that Hank had heard me screaming the night before, and that had been enough to make me cave. Thanksgiving had been that week too, and since it had been Hank’s first holiday without Seth, I’d wanted to make it special. Max went to their parents for dinner, but Wyatt joined Hank and me for turkey, dressing, and all the fixings, with a few diabetic-friendly recipes sprinkled in.
Wyatt and I had agreed to talk over the weekend, but then he’d found out about an auction in Virginia. A couple of tow trucks would go on the block, and the opportunity was too good to be missed, even though he’d offered to do just that. I’d encouraged him to go, even though it hurt a little to do it. We’d talked on the phone a few times, but there’d been a Wyatt-sized hole in my days. Last night, he’d called to say he’d won his bid on a tow truck and would be back in Drum by early evening. He was coming to Hank’s after I got off at midnight.