Snowstorm of Our Past novel · Chapter 21 of 32

Chapter 21: Dale

Nobody moved.

The jukebox kept playing an old country song about a truck.

The kid stopped halfway through his impression with his mouth still open.

Gabe set the coffee pot down on the warmer very slowly.

Then he picked up a mug, filled it and put it in front of the man on the end stool.

"It's still on," he said.

Dale wrapped both hands around the mug.

His knuckles were cracked and swollen. He leaned the cane against the counter.

"You always did make terrible coffee, kid."

"Gran made it."

"Then I take it back." He lifted the mug toward the kitchen door. "Ma'am."

Gran came out of the kitchen with a dish towel over her shoulder.

She looked at him for a long time.

"I had your picture taped up by my register for nine days," she said. "I prayed for you."

"I appreciate that."

"I'd like those prayers back."

Somebody at the round table laughed, then stopped.

I handed Tilly to the schoolteacher.

Then I walked up the length of the counter and stood across from him.

"Why are you here?"

He looked at me with the same squint he'd had in the hole under the roof beam.

"You're the girl," he said. "With the probe. You dug the lieutenant out."

"Why are you here, Dale?"

He drank half the coffee before he answered.

"Because Amber was on the front page of the Denver paper in handcuffs," he said. "Because she's got a lawyer, and I don't. And when she starts talking, she's going to say it was all my idea."

"Was it?"

He shrugged.

"Half."

Every table in the diner had gone quiet.

The old man who eats two eggs at seven fifteen put his fork down and turned all the way around on his stool.

"I owed some people a hundred and forty thousand dollars," Dale said. "Cards, mostly. Some horses. And the Army was about two weeks from finding out where a pallet of night vision goggles went."

He said it.

"So when the slope let go, and I came up out of it with nothing broken, I just kept walking."

Gabe's hands were flat on the counter.

"I saw you," he said.

"I know you did. I saw your light come up out of the snow." Dale nodded at him. "Figured you'd be dead before morning. Then I figured nobody'd believe a kid with his head split open."

← Chapter 20 · All chapters · Chapter 22 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend