Free Angels Fall by Nora Roberts Page B

off, I'd work it off for me and my boy. Nobody else. So I landed here. Got a job as cook in what was. back then. The Chuckwagon."
    "Your place? Joanie's was The Chuckwagon?"
    "Greasy burgers and overfried steak. But I made it mine within four months. Owner was an idiot, and was losing his shirt. He sold me the place for a song, seeing as he was about to go under. And when I was done wheedling him down, it was a damn short song at that." Satisfaction over the memory showed on her face. "I lived up above, me and William, we lived up above where you do now, for the first year."
    Recce tried to imagine a woman and a small boy sharing that space. "Hard," she murmured, with her eyes on Joanie. "'Very hard for you to start a business, raise a son, make a life on your own."
    "Hard isn't hard if you've got a strong back and a purpose. I had both. I bought this land, had a little house put up. Two-bedroom, single bath, kitchen about half the size this one is now. And it was like a palace after being cooped up with an eight-year-old in that apartment. I got what I wanted because I'm a stubborn bitch when I need to be. That's most of the time, to my way of thinking. But I remember. I damn well remember what it was like to pick up and go, leave what I knew—no matter how bad it was—and try to find my place."
    Joanie gave a halt shrug as she drank more coffee. "I see what I remember when I look at you."
    Maybe she did, Reece thought. Maybe she saw something of what it was that made a woman wake at three in the morning and worry, second-guess. Pray. "How did you know it was yours? Your place."
    "I didn't." With quick jabs, Joanie stubbed out her cigarette, then drank the last swallow of her coffee. "It was just someplace else, and better than where I'd been. Then, I woke up one morning and it was mine. That's when I stopped looking behind me."
    Reece set her mug clown again. "You're wondering why someone with my training is on your grill. Wondering why I picked up stakes and landed here."
    "I've given it more than a passing thought."
    This was the woman who'd given her a job, Reece thought. Who'd helped her with a place to live. Who was offering her, in Joanie's no-nonsense way, a sounding board. "I don't mean to make a mystery of it, it's just that I can't talk about the details. They're still paintul. But it wasn't a person—not like a husband—that had me pulling up stakes. It was… an event. I had an experience, and it damaged me, physically, emotionally. You could say it damaged me in every way there is."
    She looked into Joanie's eyes. Strong eyes, steely. Not eyes full of pity. It was impossible to explain, even to herself, how much easier that made it to go on.
    "And when I realized I wasn't going to heal, not really, it I stayed where I was, I left. Mv grandmother had already put her life on hold to take care of me. I couldn't stand it anymore. I got in my car one day, and I drove off. I called her, my grandmother, and tried to convince her I was fine. I was better, and I wanted some time alone."
    "Did you? Convince her."
    "Not really, but she couldn't stop me. Over the last few months, she's relaxed with it. She's started to think of it as Recce's Adventure. It's easy for me to color it that way when it's e-mail and phone calls. And sometimes it's true. It's an adventure."
    She turned to take an apron off the hook by the mudroom. "Anyway, I'm better than I was. I like where I am now, for now. That's enough for me."
    "Then we'll leave it at that. For now. I want you to make up some piecrusts. If I see you've got a decent hand with that, we'll move on from there."

Chapter 5
     
    WITH ONLY a scattering of customers, Linda-gail took counter duty. She dumped a piece of apple pie in front of Lo, topped off his coffee. "We've sure been seeing a lot of you in here the last couple of weeks."
    "Coffee's good, pie's better." He forked up a huge bite, then grinned. "View's not bad."
    Linda-gail glanced over her shoulder to where Reece