They were all men. Well-dressed, cold, irritated, and deeply out of place in a roadside diner with cracked vinyl booths and a jukebox that hadn’t worked since summer.
Elena counted quickly.
Fifteen.
The first man straightened, his jaw tight with annoyance. He was around forty, tall, broad-shouldered, with sharp gray eyes and a face that had likely never been ignored in any room he entered. Even soaked with melting snow, he carried himself like someone used to being obeyed.
“Tell me this place is open,” he said.
Elena picked up fifteen menus. “Kitchen closes in ten minutes.”
His mouth tightened. “We are not exactly here by choice.”
“Funny,” Elena said. “Nobody in a blizzard usually is.”
A few of the men exchanged looks. One of them, silver-haired and expensive-looking in a polished, cold way, stepped forward.
“Our convoy got stuck five miles south,” he said. “The highway is shut down. No signal. No police assistance. We need somewhere warm until morning.”
Walter emerged from the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron. He took one look at the men, then one look at the storm behind them, and nodded in the slow, practical way of people who had lived long enough to know when arguing with reality was pointless.
“Well,” he said, “this sure isn’t the Four Seasons, but if you don’t mind coffee that could wake the dead and pie that’ll make you forgive your ex-wife, you’re welcome to sit.”
The gray-eyed man looked around at the diner, clearly horrified by the upholstery and the fluorescent lighting.
Elena saw it immediately. The instinctive contempt. The tiny flinch that rich people wore when forced too close to ordinary life.
She set the menus down harder than necessary.
“You can either be cold and miserable outside,” she said evenly, “or warm and humble in here. Those are the options tonight.”
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