Chapter 1.2

Maybe she was coming down with a bug.

“How’s it going?” she asked. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why did she feel the need to speak to him, to get him to speak to her?

He shrugged. “You tell me.”

Dixie blinked. Oh. He was responding to what she’d said, not what she’d thought. Thank God.

She looked around. The tubs of dirty dishes from the breakfast shift were gone. Trays of clean glasses stood stacked in their proper place alongside stacks of clean plates and a stack of napkin-wrapped cutlery settings ready for use.

“Wow,” she said. “You’ve been busy.” She hadn’t expected so much work out of him so quickly.

“That’s what you’re paying me for,” he said with a smile.

How could anyone be so damned cheerful while washing dishes? Dixie hated washing dishes. She’d hated it from the day she’d opened the diner and realized what a horrendous job it was cleaning up after so many customers all day long.

Not that she minded the customers! God love and bless each and every one of them with a hearty appetite. But that didn’t mean she had to like washing their dishes. She had dirty dishes aplenty at home every day.

Out in the dining room, the bell over the front door dinged. She turned toward the doorway. “Back to work.”

The bell over the front door continued to ding frequently with the comings and goings of customers. The afternoon business was good. Wade made it out to the dining room a couple of times to bus tables, but spent the bulk of the afternoon in the kitchen elbow-deep in soapy water. He actually worked up a sweat, but he figured that was more due to the steam rising in his face than from physical exertion. He worked out regularly and was in good shape. No pile of dirty dishes could get the best of him.

When the front bell dinged again at 3:30 p.m., Dixie, who was building a salad at the counter across from the stove, heaved a sigh.

“That’ll be the boys,” Pops said with a smile.

Dixie looked up at the clock over the door. “Right on time.” She started for the door.

Wade got a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach. The boys.

His boss didn’t make it out of the kitchen before the swinging door shot inward and two small tornados burst into the room.

“Mom! Mom!” the oldest called in breathless excitement. According to Wade’s research, that would be ten-year-old Ben McCormick.

“I’m right here,” Dixie said calmly. “No need to shout.”

The boy shifted his backpack from one shoulder to the other. “Gary Thompson fell down the stairs and broke his nose. There was blood everywhere. It was way cool.”

“Yeah,” the younger boy agreed wholeheartedly. “Way cool.” This, Wade knew, would be Tate McCormick, age eight.

“Shame on both of you,” Dixie gave them a deep frown. “Someone getting hurt is not cool.”

Both boys grinned and said in unison, “Yes, ma’am.”

Wade stood at his sink and stared, something deep inside him going still and soft and warm.

“Who’s he?” Tate asked, pointing at him.

God, Wade thought, they were so…perfect. That was the only word he could think of, regardless of the little-boy dirt and sweat and mess that covered them, or the shirttail that was only half tucked or the shoelace that was untied. Those things were simply typical parts of typical boys. It was the big eyes—brown on one, blue on the other—the smiles, the sheer energy emanating from them, the freckles on one, the cowlick on the other, that captured him.

These were the sons of the man whose heart beat in Wade’s chest. He knew it. Felt it more certainly than anything in his life.

“This is our new day-shift dishwasher,” Dixie explained. “Wade Harrison, these are my sons. Ben is ten, and this is Tate.”

“I’m eight,” Tate rushed to clarify.

“We call him Tater,” Ben announced. “’Cuz he’s just a little spud. You don’t look like any dishwasher I ever saw.”

“I don’t?” Wade asked, trying to keep up with the change of subject. “What does a dishwasher look like?”

Both boys looked at Wade with total innocence in their big brown eyes. “Like that.” Ben, the oldest, pointed at the stainless steel automatic

dishwashing machine next to the sink. Then both boys giggled.

Pops chortled. “Had me going. For a minute, there, I thought they were gonna say a dishwasher was supposed to look like a girl.”

“Pardon?” Wade said.

“They wouldn’t dare,” Dixie said with a dark glare for Pops. “He means Keesha, our previous dishwasher.”

“Where’d she go, Mom?” Tate asked. “Where’d Keesha go?”

Dixie put an arm around her youngest son’s shoulder. “Her husband got a new job in Dallas, so they had to move.”

“I knew that,” Ben said. “She left last week.” He gave his brother a slight shove for emphasis. “’Member? We had to wash our own dishes that one time.”

Tate made a face. “Oh, yeah. Ugh.”

“You washed your own dishes?” Wade asked them.

They stuck out their chests as if about to take credit for having built the Empire State Building. “Sure did,” Ben admitted.

“Yes, indeedy,” Tate said with a sharp nod.

“I bet you did a good job of it, too,” Wade told them.

“Yes, indeedy,” Tate said again, this time with a wide grin that showed a missing upper canine.

Ben’s eyes narrowed slightly. “How come you wanna know?” “Well,” Wade said, “I’m new here. I wouldn’t want to get in your way

or anything.” He held up a wet, sudsy dishrag. “Next time you eat I’ll be sure and let you do your own cleanup.”

Both boys gaped, horror slowly filling their eyes. “Mom?” Tate cried. “We don’t really have to, do we?” Ben asked his mother, his voice

tentative.

At the grill, Pops let out a loud cackle. “Got you good, didn’t he, boys?

Got you a good’n, yessiree, Bob.”

Wide-eyed, Tate asked Wade, “You were kidding?” Wade grinned. “I was kidding.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Dixie said with a nudge to each of her sons. “I think the idea has merit.”

“Mo-om,” Tate protested

“Mom, no,” Ben cried. “Oh. You’re kidding, too, right? Sheesh. Grown- ups.”

“Maybe I was only half-kidding,” Dixie said. “By the time I was your age, Ben, I was doing the dishes every day for my whole family.”