Free Firebird (The Flint Hills Novels) by Janice Graham Page B

German. He disappeared and returned with a violin case which Annette opened. She removed the violin, examined it, and after a brief exchange, she paid him in cash. He chatted away to her as he followed her to the door and held it open as they left.
    "Was that German you were speaking?" Ethan asked as they walked away.
    "Yiddish," she replied. "He's a holocaust survivor."
    Ethan was ready with another question, but she sidestepped it and said to him brightly, "I'm starved. Have you had eaten?"
    "I could do with some lunch. What sounds good?"
    "Crêpes?" she teased. Then she added, "Just take me wherever you normally eat."
    When they reached his truck and he opened the door for her, she hesitated and finally said, "I'm afraid I'll need a lift again." He offered his arm, and this time he made no attempt to avert his eyes from her legs when she stepped up.
    They settled on a Sonic drive-in that took Annette's fancy as they drove by. She thought it would be fun to eat in the truck and have the waitress serve them on a window tray. "We had these drive-ins when I was a little girl. I thought they'd disappeared," she said, and he laughed and said she had indeed been gone for a long time. Ethan, who was always beset with moral indigestion when he ate anything but beef, was content. From the moment she'd leaned on his arm in the cathedral, the former awkwardness between them had been swept away. Their conversation flowed easily now, and Ethan found her an eager listener. She asked him questions about cattle ranching, and he talked at length about the soil of the Flint Hills and bluestem grass, its special properties that made it unique in the country, on par with the renowned pampas grass in Argentina that fed the beef she ate in France.
    Ethan got a kick out of the way she handled the chili dog. She set it on her lap and used a knife and fork, cutting it up, bun and all, into bite-sized pieces.
    "You've gone quiet on me," said Ethan.
    "Hmm," she replied as she dangled a greasy onion ring from her fingers.
    Ethan finished long ahead of her.
    She was peering out the window at the menu. "I think I'll have a chocolate milk shake."
    Ethan pressed the button and ordered it for her.
    "So, tell me, how'd you learn Yiddish?"
    "My husband was a Hungarian Jew, but he grew up in Antwerp."
    "Is he still in Paris?"
    "No. He conducts the Dallas Philharmonic now."
    "Well, there you go. Another reason to stay around. Eliana's closer to her dad."
    Annette's quick look told him he had stepped into forbidden waters. "Eliana doesn't ever see David." She paused, looking out the window, and said, "There's no need for her to."
    She looked back quickly at him and her eyes held his in a gentle pleading look. "You mustn't judge me by that. It's not as it seems."
    "I don't get to see my son much," he said after a moment.
    Annette looked surprised. "You have a son?"
    "Jeremy. He's fifteen. He lives in Los Angeles with his mom. She moved out there after we got divorced."
    "That's a dreadful place to raise kids. Especially when they reach their teens."
    The chocolate milk shake came. Ethan passed it to Annette and she took it and stirred it slowly with the straw. There was a long, hovering silence while Ethan stared at his steering wheel.
    "He's run away from home," he said suddenly.
    "Oh, Lord, no." She lifted her head and looked into his eyes, and Ethan blurted out all his misery. He was not accustomed to talking about himself, but Annette Zeldin's eyes were never more focused than when he spoke to her about his son.
    "When Paula said she wanted to move out west, I didn't like the idea. But she wasn't happy here. And that wasn't good for Jeremy, so I agreed. It was hard for me to get away to see him and he didn't like coming here on his summer holiday. He complained that he was bored, so I'd try to get him outside with me, riding the herds, things most kids would like. But all he wanted to do was sit around on his computer playing games or talk on the phone to his