“Thanks, Dad. I feel bad leaving you behind. Want me to get you something?”

“No, I’m fine. You go.” He fluttered a hand, urging them along. His frown returned when he glanced at Caleb. “Drive carefully.”

Sitting in the backseat of the car and muddling over Jane’s decision to leave school, Maggie distractedly directed Caleb to Dilly’s, choosing it automatically. She and her parents had eaten at Dilly’s for as long as she could remember.

But when they got there, the parking lot was full. Caleb slowed by the front doors.

“I’ll check on the wait time.” Linnie hopped out of the car and hurried inside. A minute later, she returned. “An hour, maybe longer. A couple’s celebrating their golden anniversary. Looks like they invited every grandma and grandpa in town.”

Caleb shook his head. “I’m starving.”

“Me too,” Linnie said. “What about that place we passed on the corner?”

“At the top of the hill?” Maggie had to think for a moment before she remembered its name. “Timberline Tavern. Never been there. I think it’s just a burger-and-beer joint.”

“Beer.” Caleb smiled. “I could go for one.”

“Just one,” Linnie said. “Don’t want Mr. Arioli to smell booze on you.”

“He wouldn’t mind,” Maggie said. “Dad likes a Guinness himself now and then.”

“Oh, he’ll mind. He will mind, baby girl.” She winked.

Maggie frowned.

Caleb ignored Linnie. “Let’s check it out.”

A few minutes later, they entered the bar’s dimly lit interior. While Linnie gave her name and their party’s number to the hostess, Maggie peered around curiously. The paneled walls, plank floors, and beamed ceiling made her feel as if she’d entered a lodge in the forest. But its smell was definitely that of a restaurant: charred meat and smoke.

Caleb inhaled lustily.

Linnie rubbed her hands together. “No free tables yet, but no line, either. Let’s wait at the bar.”

It wasn’t until Maggie trailed them, passing the booths and tables on her left and, on her right, a handful of guys holding beers, their eyes trained on the games filling two huge television screens, that she realized her mistake.

Her feet slowed, even as her heart began to race.

They never should have picked this restaurant.

16

HEADS BEGAN TO turn. Conversations died. Ahead on the wall was a painted mural. Football players sprinted across a mountain-encircled field in the direction of the end zone. The clouds had been painted to suggest a wispy-white tiger, like a pagan god overseeing the action.

She hadn’t entered just any bar. She’d entered one popular with the Tigers and their fans.

Feeling a hard stare, she glanced toward the restaurant side of the joint.

A waitress, poised with a raised water pitcher, glared her way.