Buried Truths

Chapter 4

After a week of restlessness and anxiety, the only thing holding the last thread of Mac's sanity together was the upcoming weekend. Specifically, Sunday. The day she was off work and the day that she could be free of the stifling town, if only for a day. A trip she had been planning for over a month.

Her neighbor Mrs. Preston had agreed last week to let her borrow their small sedan to take to the nearest city in exchange for helping her and Mr. Preston with their harvest. Their land was not large, and it had only taken a few days between the three of them to scrounge up the vegetables, during her free hours of course. She not only left with the promise that she could take their car for the day, but also with three sizeable bags of potatoes. She tried to protest; three bags were too much for one person to eat but gave in when Mrs. Preston threatened to make her leave with five.

All she had to do was get through Saturday, and she would be home free.

If only she could have skipped Saturday altogether.

All had gone blessedly normal for the lunch shift—which meant uneventful. She had even gotten used to seeing Mystery Man, who had shown up all the days she worked, and all the days she didn't. Which meant one thing—he was only there for the food. Not her, thankfully.

Mac wanted to kick herself for acting like a skittish mouse around him. Why did she think she would be so special, the reason he had come to town.

Not that she wanted that. That would be bad.

But the wild imaginations of her mind had clearly blown things out of proportion. She wasn't important. The sooner her brain caught up with that fact, the better she would be able to sleep at night.

Mac and Rae had switched off serving him during the week, neither wanting the pleasure of it all to themselves. Mac had kept a close eye on the tips between the two of them, finding that there was an unfortunate difference. While Rae was left with a dollar or two, Mac was always left with the leftover change from a twenty.

She'd tried to keep his outrageous generosity to herself last night, but was unlucky, as Rae had seen the twenty he'd left before his swift exit.

"What's this?"

Mac looked at the twenty held in her hand innocently.

"Maybe he was in a hurry?" She shrugged cleaning away his plate and glass.

Rae didn't look convinced. "You're telling me that tightwad—" she jabbed her finger in the direction he had left "—gave you a twenty for a $6 burger and just left?"

Mac could only shrug again as she grabbed the bill from Rae's fingers, heading to the kitchen. "I'll make sure to give it back to him next week. I'm sure he was just in a rush."

A deep breath escaped her lips as she stuffed the bill in her apron pocket. Rae didn't let up, following right behind her. "Well, how much has he left you before?"

She didn't look her in the eye as she dropped the dishes at the dishwashing station. "I don't know, I don't keep track."

Mac had always been a terrible liar. Rae picked up on it like a bloodhound.

"He's done this before?"

Mac scrambled to come up with any other explanation, but her hesitation confirmed enough. Rae's eyes narrowed at her. "Why did you lie about it? Is he paying you for something...extra?"

She spun around to face her. "Look Rae, I'm sorry I wasn't honest with you, that's on me. I just didn't want—"

"Save it." Rae bumped her shoulder as she strode past her.