Free Halos by Kristen Heitzmann

right. He’d just sent them a Kodak moment. Lonely, jilted Steve Bennet has a new love interest. Oh boy. Lest the drama get out of hand, he let her go and motioned her toward a booth near the back.
    She slid into the seat. He liked the way she folded instead of scooching like Barb. But Barb’s feet had hardly reached the floor. She loved being tiny, used it to make him feel big and capable and protective. He hadn’t realized until it was too late that it was himself he’d needed to protect.
    Alessi picked up her menu, then laid it down immediately. “Did you say killer pot roast?”
    He slipped his paper napkin to his lap. “I did.”
    “Then that’s what I’ll have,” she said. “We’ll make it two.”
    “Just like some old couple.” She stashed the menu back behind the condiments.
    He cocked his head and eyed her. “I can’t imagine you old.”
    “I probably won’t be.”
    Odd. “What do you mean?”
    “My mother died at thirty-two. Breast cancer. It’s hereditary.” She picked up her fork and balanced it like a tree.
    “Hereditary factors, maybe. But that doesn’t mean you’ll get it. Or that you’ll die of it. You said she could have gotten help.”
    She held the fork upright with one finger across the tines. “I think both parents dying early is a sign, like a warning for me.”
    “What happened to your dad?”
    “Boating accident. The big sailboats that people charter? He took his out one night and never came back.”
    “You can’t call that hereditary.”
    “No,” she said.
    “Did they recover the boat?”
    She laid the fork back on the napkin. “What was left of it.”
    Moll came to their table, wiping her wet hands on her apron. “Pot roast for you, Steve?”
    “Two.” He looked at Alessi. “What do you want to drink?”
    “Do you have root beer?”
    Moll wrote without answering, then walked away. Steve looked at Alessi sitting across from him, unsure of what to make of her. If she was a con, she stayed more consistent than he would expect. Her car might have been stolen from her in Charity, but as to it being hers in the first place … He still suspected she couldn’t contact her uncle because she’d taken the car and run. If Cooper ran a check for stolen vehicles, he might just find that red convertible Mustang listed already. What then?
    Arrest Alessi? Great. Steve Bennet’s new girl in ankle chains. And it would be embarrassing when they could not come up with the car. More likely, Cooper would ask around, search the streets, and conclude it wasn’t in Charity. Then what? Would they all pretend Alessi had just arrived with the snow? And would it somehow whisk her away after Christmas?
    Moll returned with Alessi’s root beer. She brought him a cup of coffee and a creamer.
    “Thanks, Moll.”
    “Pot roast is coming.” She tucked a string of red hair into her net.
    He said, “It’s worth the wait,” and received the fake smile, silver tooth and all, that said flattery would get him nowhere. It was almost a game.
    Alessi pulled her straw from the wrapper and dunked it into her drink. She glanced at him as she sipped. In some ways she seemed very young, in others older than her years. And this business about dying young …
    “So what was it your grandparents objected to in your dad?”
    “He was the pool boy.”
    “There had to be more to it than that.” Steve peeled the lid from his creamer. He drank his coffee black in the morning but creamed it the rest of the day.
    “He was not supposed to entice the daughters of the people he worked for. He could hardly help it, though. He was very goodlooking.” She rubbed away one of the frosty sections on the glass with her fingertip.
    “What’s good-looking?”
    “In his case? Tall, blond, blue eyes.”
    “Malibu Ken. I suppose your mom was Barbie.” He half believed it, with Alessi herself giving credence to the Barbie-doll shape.
    She leaned back against the booth cushion. “My mother was small, flat chested,