“Callie, come on,” I said. “It’s just someone’s idea of a prank. I’d like to know who, so I can smack ’em.”

Callie’s expression didn’t change one bit. She was a little wisp of a thing, but when she’d made up her mind, she didn’t back down. The whole town knew it from experience.

Janie rolled her eyes.

A man reached down to our table and picked up the folder containing the other photo, the one of the mystery man in front of J.T.’s. I looked up at him in surprise. He was standing right beside Callie, but I hadn’t noticed him. Maybe this was the new live-in boyfriend Suzanne had told me about.

He was looking at my picture without permission, so I didn’t hesitate to give him the once-over. He was a white guy of average height with brown hair and eyes and bland, even features. He was wearing jeans and a blue sweatshirt. Thoroughly uninteresting. And really rude.

“Excuse me, you didn’t ask to see that,” I said, reaching for the folder.

He ignored me except to turn slightly, so the folder would be out of my reach.

Just as I took a breath to object, Janie cut in. “So,” she said, drawing out the word in a way that made me cringe, “you’re the one who’s living with Our Lady of Christian Virtue, here? Living together outside the bonds of matrimony? Are you sure that’s proper?”

Oh god. This was the part of Janie I didn’t admire so much: she had the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

The man ignored Janie, but Callie sucked in a scandalized breath and turned tomato-red. That heavy, quiet feeling instantly surrounded us, the one that means every person within earshot is holding very still and listening. Two short-order cooks and a busboy stuck their heads out of the kitchen to watch. Jackie paused with her water pitcher cocked over someone’s glass. Pete himself stood up from behind the counter, hands full of the straws and napkins he’d been stocking.

“He’s not … I mean, we’re not … he’s just a houseguest!”

“Oh, right, he’s a houseguest,” Janie echoed in a knowing tone, added a wink and air-quotes for good measure. “Got it, got it.”

“He is! I’d never … you know.”

“No, no, of course you wouldn’t,” Janie said in a soothing tone, which she immediately undercut by snorting loudly.

“Oh,” she said, “excuse me.” And snorted again.

The man slid the photo back into the folder and reached over to set it on the table. A thick, lumpy red scar ran across the back of his wrist. Yikes. No wonder he wore long sleeves.