Return of the Dixie Deb by Nina Barrett Page B

letting her guilty conscience get the best of her.
    She turned as the bell over the front door tinkled.
    “Mac, this is Etta. She and her husband own the cafe.”
    “Glad to meet you.” Etta smiled at him.
    “Hi.” He slid onto the seat beside her. “Water looks good. Could you find a glass for me?’
    “Is something wrong with the car?” she asked as Etta turned away.
    “One tire is low. I think it just needs some air.”
    “The air hose is around the side.” Their waitress returned with his glass. “My husband is making a delivery for Maggie May down the road, but he’ll be back shortly.”
    “I can do it. No problem.” He took a long drink, swirled the water and ice in his glass, and drank again. “So what looks good?”
    “I don’t know. You decide.” She slid the menu over. “How are we fixed for funds?”
    He grimaced. “Getting a little light. Don’t know how long we’ll have to stretch things.” He closed the menu and put it back in the holder.
    “Ma’am,” he called to Etta at the other end of the counter. “Do you think you could get us a couple burgers with the works?”
    “Sure thing.” She came over with her pad and wrote it down. “Anything else?”
    “No, that’ll, well, maybe coffee. What about you, Jan?”
    She shook her head.
    Etta paused on her way back to the kitchen to greet two men in work clothes coming in. Did law enforcement ever drop by the café?
    “We may be sleeping in the car tonight,” Mac said.
    “Big change from the weekend.”
    “Oh, yeah. I don’t know how much farther we can travel.” Mac glanced at the clock above the coffee urn. “It’s after five now.” He lowered his voice. “The pizza place should have opened up and noticed their car was gone. They’ve probably reported it as stolen.”
    “Great.” She buried her face in her hands.
    Etta returned with Mac’s coffee.
    “Cream?”
    “Black is fine. Excuse me, do you get a paper here? A newspaper?”
    “It should be here soon. We get The Fawcett County Herald . They usually deliver it about this time. Dennis,” she called to a man just entering. “I’ve got your take-out ready.”
    “Fawcett Country?” she asked as Etta returned to the kitchen.
    “I knew we were near it. We’re back on the Major’s home turf, although I figure it’s ten or fifteen miles north of here. I think that river we’ve been following along the levee is the same one that runs by the Major’s.”
    He drank his coffee in silence as she played with her glass.
    Her mouth watered as Etta returned with their plates. She thought he was hungry too by the way he grinned. It was the first time she’d seen him relax since the disaster in Titusville.
    “Looks wonderful,” he told their server. From Etta’s smile in return, it looked like she wasn’t immune to Mac any more than most women probably were.
    Transfixed she reached over to pick up the thick bun. The steaming meat dripped juices down onto the crisp lettuce, sweet onion, and red tomato. She took a bite and didn’t stop till Etta returned with two dishes of coleslaw and a plate heaped with golden, fried-cornmeal balls.
    “It’s just hush puppies and slaw from lunch. They’re no good left over so help yourselves.” Etta waved off their thanks. “Enjoy,” she said as she went over to ring up a sale at the cash register.
    Mac was finishing the hush puppies when a pick-up pulled up beside the door. A young man got out of the truck and reached in the back to pick up a load of newspapers. He brought them in to sit beside the cash register and paused to talk to Etta.
    “Let’s see what the news is,” Mac said.
    She laid her fork down as he went to get a newspaper, stopping to look at the front page as he put some change in a glass bowl. Mac’s face was grim as he sat down beside her.
    She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. She pushed her dishes to the side as Mac spread the paper out between them.
    She stared at the picture at the top of the page,