Where the Heart is (Interracial with Baby) (BWWM) Page 2

  But she shook herself and helped her mother pull the blankets back and get to her feet. "What do you want for breakfast, Mama?" she asked, handing her the bathrobe that hung from the bedpost.

  "It's cold this morning. What about grits?"

  Jamie grinned. "With cheese?"

  "You shouldn't even have to ask, girl."

  Her mother's good spirits always managed to make Jamie smile, and she led her mother into the kitchen, getting her situated with a glass of orange juice while she made coffee and got breakfast going.

  As much as it hurt to see her mother needing so much help when she'd once been fiercely independent and proud of it, Jamie couldn't deny that she enjoyed the time they spent together now. The mornings were quiet, and they talked about the nurses and Jamie's job and story ideas.

  They'd spent plenty of time together before, but there had always been things getting in the way, and now they had a time when it was just the two of them.

  Jamie scrambled eggs to go with the grits and pulled out the pills for that day, listening to her mother talk about Christmas dinner and what they should have. They would be limited to whatever Jamie could whip up with her meager cooking skills, although the idea of having a nice meal catered bounced around in her head.

  She had some money put away, and her mother deserved something nice after all she had been through. It was certainly something to think about.

  The two of them sat down to a nice breakfast together, and Adelaide took her pills under the watchful eye of her daughter.

  Jamie hung around long enough to watch her mother's energy drop even after only being awake for a couple of hours and for the afternoon nurse to show up and then headed back to her place to shower and change for work, worry eating at her.

  It was bitterly cold outside, and Jamie was grateful for the warmth as she let the door of the diner bang shut behind her. The small space was already packed with people, customers filling almost every table and all the chairs at the counter. It was clearly going to be a busy night, and Jamie was grateful for it, welcoming the distraction of a hectic work shift to keep her mind off of more depressing things.

  "Where've you been, Jamie girl?" called Sal, the 'head chef' as he liked to call himself, as she made her way through the kitchen.

  "Don't even try that, Sal," Jamie called back as she headed to the little office area in the back so she could shed her coat and gloves, put her purse in her locker, and pull on an apron. "I'm not scheduled to start until four, and if you look at the time, it is just barely fifteen til."

  Sal's booming laugh echoed through the kitchen, and Jamie stepped back in just in time to see the new girl almost drop her tray. She shot a dirty look at Sal's back and then headed out to the seating area, balancing a tray filled with cups of soda.

  "You're gonna make Megan quit if you keep that up," Jamie said, leaning against one of the counters and popping a pickle into her mouth.

  "Eh, wouldn't be the worst thing. She takes orders in the worst way."

  Jamie grinned and shook her head. John Salinger, or Sal as he preferred to be called, had known her practically since she was a child. Her mother had brought her here after school when she'd done well on a test or made the honor roll, and Sal would make her a burger as big as her head just about and congratulate her. He'd been calling her 'Jamie girl' since he'd met her, and she smiled with affection every time. The man was well over six feet tall and had more muscle on his wide frame than anyone Jamie had ever seen before. There was a rumor that he used to be a body builder back in his younger years, but no one had been able to find proof of that.

  "How's your mom?" Sal asked, glancing at her and then back at the grill.

  "Today wasn't one of her good days, let's just say," Jamie replied. "She's gonna have to go back in for another round of tests or something, I guess. I dunno what's making her so tired, but just getting her out of bed is starting to become a struggle."

  Sal made a sympathetic noise. "She's a strong lady, Adelaide is," he said, nodding his head. "She'll pull through."

  Jamie gave him a wan smile. She appreciated the optimism, but she'd been preparing herself for the reality that one day she would let herself into the house and her mother wouldn't be there anymore for a long time. There wasn't a cure for her mother out there, and she knew that. Anytime they had together was borrowed at this point, and there was very little anyone could do about that.

  Wishing otherwise would just make things worse when the inevitable came to pass and she had to deal with how much it was going to hurt.

  But now wasn't the time to think about that.

  Now was the time to tuck her order book into the pocket of her apron, stick a pencil behind her ear, and put on her 'I would be thrilled to serve you' smile.'

  The sound of a tray crashing to the floor made her jump, and she peered out the kitchen window to see Megan scrambling to pick up a tray loaded with silverware. She and Sal exchanged a glance and Jamie shook her head.

  It was going to be a long night at this rate.

  She dove into the fray, sidestepping Megan and going over to her table, smile in place, pencil poised and ready to take down orders. "Hi," she said. "Welcome to The Pit. I'm Jamie, and I'll be taking care of you this evening. What can I get you to drink?"

  It was a familiar speech, and one that she said about thirty times a day when she was working a full shift. Sometimes more. It was ingrained in her head so well that she didn't even have to think about it anymore. Just replace the time of day, rattle it off, and wait.

  Her table, full of tired looking twenty somethings, clearly on their way to or from some kind of road trip, probably home for the holidays and just passing through, ordered coffee and sodas, and Jamie made a note on her pad to pour them the extra strong stuff. She winked at the one who had his head on the table and a yawn cracking his jaws and recommended the chili. "So spicy, it'll wake you right up," she said, before dashing off to take the drink orders of the next three tables so she could fill them all at once.

  She'd worked out a system in the six years she'd been working at The Pit, and it served her well. Drinks were easy to bring out, keep an eye on the cups for refills, serve people in a line.

  Jamie had been working at the diner since she'd started community college, and while it wasn't anywhere close to what she wanted to do with her life, the money was alright, the tips were excellent, and it kept her in enough free food that her grocery bill was the smallest thing she had to pay.

  It also had flexible enough hours that if her mother needed her, she could move her schedule around easily.

  She liked most of the people she worked with, Megan not withstanding, and it wasn't a job that took a lot of mental energy, though by the end of the night her feet were going to be killing her.

  "Hey, Jamie," said Adam, one of the cooks who worked under Sal. "What're you doing after your shift?"

  Jamie made a face at him. "Well, since I don't get off until midnight, I think that's pretty obvious," she said as she poured sixteen cups of coffee.

  "Hot date?" He wiggled his eyebrows at her, leaning against the counter while she arranged her trays.

  "Oh, yeah. Steamy even. It's gonna be long and I'm gonna be naked in under five minutes."

  It was sort of hilarious how caught off guard Adam looked, and Jamie rolled her eyes, hefting the tray with practiced ease. "Because I'm going to go home and take a long bath, idiot," she said, flashing him a smile and heading back out to deliver her drinks.

  "He wants to bone you so hard," Kathryn whispered as she took up Jamie's soda tray and helped her bring it out.

  Jamie snorted and started setting coffee in front of people, smiling and demurring when they offered heartfelt thanks. Coffee made the world go round, was what she had learned in her time working here, and there was a lot to be said for keeping a coffee cup full. She took the tray from Kathryn and started handing out drinks, rolling her eyes again. "You don't know that."

  Kathryn laughed. "I know everyth
ing about this place, Jamie. He wants you bad."

  "What does that have to do with anything?"

  "It just does. Trust me. I've seen more cooks try to bang waitresses than you even want to know, and I know how it starts." Kathryn winked. "I'd look out if I were you."

  She wanted to argue, but Kathryn was the only waitress who'd been here longer than she had. She was in her thirties, tall and gorgeous, and no one knew why she worked here when she was clearly talented in other fields, but whenever someone asked, she just smiled mysteriously and kept filling salt shakers or whatever it was she had been doing before.

  It was clear that they weren't going to get an answer out of her, and Jamie was fine with that. She liked Kat's company, and they had developed an awesome working relationship that she didn't want to give up.

  Ever since Simon had left without looking back, Jamie hadn't exactly had a lot of friends. She'd made some acquaintances at school and she knew all of the waitresses and cooks at the diner, but none of them had the same connection with her that she'd had with Simon.

  "But he's clearly not coming back, so get over it," she muttered to herself as she set her tray down in the kitchen with a bit more force than was strictly necessary. Seven years, and she still wasn't over it.

  Her mother had told her that it took almost twice as long as the relationship had lasted to really get over someone, and when Jamie had reminded her that she and Simon had never really been dating, her mother had just smiled and nodded as if she didn't believe her.

  "That's what I said about me and your father," she'd pointed out.

  Jamie had scowled. "And look at how right you were."

  Her father had skipped out on them before Jamie was even old enough to make memories of him, and that was the last thing she wanted to think about when it came to Simon, but she had to admit that he'd done kind of the same thing.

  But no. Thinking about that while she had tables of hungry people to deal with wasn't going to make this shift go by any faster, so she shook her head and went back out, letting the soothing rhythm of taking orders and handing tickets to the cooks keep her occupied.

  She got a ten minute break at six, and she wrapped her coat around herself and stepped gratefully out back, leaning against the worn brick of the building and lighting a cigarette.

  Jamie only smoked when she was stressed out, and there was something about the holiday season that always made her blood pressure skyrocket.

  Maybe it was the fact that she knew her mother wasn't going to have many Christmases left. Or maybe it had something to do with how small the celebrations were now. Back when they were kids, Simon's family had always invited her and her mother over to celebrate with them, and it had been cozy and nice, like they were an extended family.

  But ever since Simon had gone away, those invitations had stopped.

  Adelaide had been just as hurt as Jamie because she'd truly thought that there was more to it than just it being for the sake of the kids, but apparently that wasn't the case.

  With how tired her mother was these days, Jamie wasn't hoping for more than a quick dinner and listening to carols on the radio, and she made a mental note to stop at the liquor store on her way home so she could at least drown her sorrows once her mother inevitably passed out before nine pm.

  She took a long drag off her cigarette and exhaled, watching smoke curl up towards the dark sky.

  Sometimes she was completely content with her life, and other times she had no idea what she was even doing. She wanted to be a writer, but there weren't a lot of opportunities for things like that in their tiny town. And though her mother was always saying that she didn't have to stay just for her, that she would be fine with her nurses and friends, Jamie didn't have it in her to leave. What if she moved away and then her mother just...

  It didn't bear thinking about, and Jamie didn't understand why she was so bad at clearing her head tonight. Usually a smoke and an eight hour work shift didn't leave room for thinking about anything else, but apparently her head was too full to completely switch off.

  "Just get through your shift and go be emotional at home," she muttered under her breath as she stamped out her cigarette and headed back inside, shaking the cold from her fingers as she got back to work. She could make herself a nice hot toddy and sit in the bath and drown in her sorrows then.

  She snorted. She was twenty-five years old and apparently that was her idea of a good time. Where had her life gone so wrong?

  But that was veering back into dangerous territory, so she shook the thought from her head.

  There were six more hours left in her shift, and while she wasn't looking forward to dealing with the customers or listening to the same Christmas carols on the radio five hundred times, it was better than being alone at home for the next six hours.

  A group of truckers had just come in, and she was already prepared to be hit on while she filled their orders.

  As much as she hated it, that would be one more distraction that she could layer on. The sound of Sal's laughter would help, too, and she inhaled deeply as she took up her pad and pencil once again, smile back in place.

  Chapter 3: A Return

  "I promise you'll be home in time for Christmas, Mrs. Hutchinson," Simon said, flashing the older woman a smile that made his dimples show. "All you have to do is take your medication like the nurse says, and you'll be out of here in no time. You're too lovely to be in this hospital bed longer than you have to."

  "Oh, Doctor Blake, you're always saying that," Mrs. Hutchinson said, flapping a hand at him, but her cheeks were pink with pleasure. "I'll take the medication, I just don't like how they make me so tired."

  Simon made a note on his chart. "I know, but you do need your rest. It's the only way you're going to recover fully."

  She sighed and nodded. "You're right, of course. Such a good boy. You know..." She leaned in like she was going to tell him a secret. "My great niece is single. A nice boy like you ought to be thinking about settling down, don't you think?"

  He kept his face fixed in his usually sunny smile. "Maybe one day, Mrs. Hutchinson, but for now, I'm pretty focused on my career. I've got a ways to go yet before I can say I've reached all my goals."

  He turned her over to the care of one of the nurses and then let himself out of her room with a sigh. It was coming up on his fifteenth straight hour of being on call, and he wanted nothing more than to go home and get in the bed. Actually, at this point, he would very gladly settle for one of the couches in the break room.

  But there were at least six more patients he had to see to before he could even think about going home, and when he got there it wasn't like he was going to have a chance to relax.

  "Your head's in the clouds," came a gently amused voice from beside him, and he blinked and looked over to see Camilla Channing, one of his fellow 'newbies' as they were called around the hospital.

  "My head is thinking about being on a pillow," he said. "So maybe in the clouds. But you don't get to make fun of me because I've been here forever and you've been here for what? Three hours?"

  "Oh please," she fired back. "You get to take two weeks off for the holidays. I don't even want to hear that. I'm going to be here on Christmas Eve and New Years, and you already know the ER's gonna be full of idiots who thought they'd ring in 2015 by jumping off of something tall or lighting themselves on fire. And I'll be here dealing with it, while you're curled up with a cup of cocoa somewhere."

  Simon wanted to tell her that it very much was not going to go down like that (the part about him and the cocoa, not the part about idiots at New Years because that was very likely to happen), but he didn't want to get into a whole thing about his family and their history.

  It was already hard enough knowing that when his marathon shift was finally over he was going to have to go home and pack, heading back to the place where he'd grown up for the first time in almost ten years.

  He'd never meant to stay away so long, but things had happened, and the lon
ger he was gone the harder it seemed it would be to go back.

  Now that he was comfortable here and had built a life for himself, going back to the tiny town where he'd grown up felt like moving backwards, and it was the last thing he wanted to do.

  But he'd promised his father he'd come, and despite everything that had happened over the years, Simon Blake found it hard to break a promise.

  Most of them, anyway.

  "Hello, paging Dr. Blake," Camilla said, waving her hand in his face. "You were drifting again."

  Simon shook himself. Despite his chosen career, he didn't do well with being sleep deprived. He usually handled the long shifts by sleeping as much as he could before and after them, but for some reason he hadn't been able to sleep at all before this one. And really, he knew exactly what that reason was.

  He batted Camilla away and sighed, running a hand down his face. "I'll be fine. Tell you what, since you're so full of energy, you go check on Mr. Campbell in room six, while I take a bathroom break."

  "Will do," she replied, saluting him before she made her way down the hall.

  Simon slumped against the wall for a second but then continued off to the bathroom, locking himself in and leaning against the sink.

  This wasn't like him.

  One of the things he had always prided himself on was the ability to keep his composure under pressure, but here he was, going to pieces just because he had to go back home. Honestly, he should have known that it would happen eventually. He couldn't go seven years without seeing his family and just expect that they would be content to leave it like that.

  Simon shook his head and turned the water on, washing his hands and splashing some water on his face for good measure once he'd taken his glasses off. He squinted at his reflection in the mirror and sighed.

  Aside from looking exhausted, he looked like himself, and he still had to smile with pleasure at the sight of himself in the white coat that meant he was well on his way to getting what he wanted out of life. Same pale skin and hazel eyes, same high cheekbones and nose that seemed just a bit too big for his face. Same dark brown hair that he couldn't seem to bring himself to cut, held out of his face in a messy bun at the back of his head. Strands of hair had escaped and were falling into his eyes, and he swiped them back and out of the way, washing his hands once more for good measure.