I cast a glance at the busy dining room and then smiled at the mother. “I’m Carly, and I’ll be happy to look at your son’s homework and explain it to you when I get a chance. In the meantime, how about y’all find a table in this area, and I’ll be over to take your orders.”

I grabbed several menus and set them on the table they picked, then checked on my other customers. Molly seemed to be holding her own, so I headed over to Annette and her family. They ordered drinks and three of the special, and I told them I’d be back in a few minutes to look over Eric’s homework.

After I hung up their food ticket in the back, I headed over to the bar to get their drinks.

Wyatt was behind the bar, and he nodded toward Molly. “I see Max took my advice.”

“Molly was your suggestion?” I asked in surprise.

He frowned. “Don’t tell me you’re about to protest hiring her because I recommended her.”

I snorted. “Good help is good help, and so far she seems to be holding her own. I don’t care if she showed up on the recommendation of the Grinch, but at least that would explain why Ruth has her britches in a bunch that she’s workin’ here.” The look on Wyatt’s face suggested that he might understand the situation better than I did. “Spit it out. Why doesn’t Ruth like her?”

“That’s between Molly and Ruth.”

His words set a fire in my blood. “Don’t you dare pull that lame bullshit again,” I snapped. “Don’t you dare.”

He gaped at me in surprise, then said, “Molly is the younger sister of Ruth’s former best friend, May.”

“Why is that a bad thing?”

“The hell if I know.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Try again. Why does Ruth hate her?”

His gaze lifted to mine. “Ruth and May had a falling-out, but I don’t know many of the details. I’ll leave it up to Ruth to tell you.”

It seemed like another cop-out, yet I could see it being true. Men were often oblivious to the intricacies of women’s friendships, not to mention Wyatt and Ruth hadn’t been friendly for years.

I placed the family’s drinks on a tray, then slid it off the bar top. “That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” I asked in a brisk tone.

He just grunted as I walked away.

I headed over to the Searcys’ table and passed out their drinks. “Why don’t you get your homework out, and I’ll take a quick look?”

Eric was in Zelda’s class, and his homework assignment was similar to the problems I’d worked on with Zelda. I squatted next to the table and showed him and Annette how to separate the ones and the tens before multiplying.

It took a few tries before they both got it, and I told them to try the next few problems and I’d be back to check on them.

A few more people had settled in at the bar, but Molly seemed to be doing okay. Jerry walked in and gave me a nod. I noticed he’d been coming in later than usual and not staying as long as he normally would, but he didn’t care much for strangers, and the tavern was full of them lately.

I checked on Eric and his family again, looking over the next math problem they’d finished, and corrected their missteps. We’d gotten busier, though, and I couldn’t stay for long.

“I’m so sorry, Annette,” I said. “We’re really slammed tonight.”

“I should be the one apologizing,” she said. “Helping us with Eric’s math is above and beyond.”

“I actually really enjoy doing it.” I paused, wondering if it was a mistake to delve into this part of my old life, but I couldn’t deny it felt good. “We’re usually slow in the late afternoon before the dinner crowd shows up. If you come back tomorrow, I’ll probably be able to actually sit with you guys and help you work through the problems.”

“Thank you so much,” the mother said. “We’ll be here.”

They left soon after and the dinner crowd began to thin. It hit me that Marco still hadn’t shown up for his bouncer job.

Molly was starting to look frazzled, and Ruth and I had been so busy, we’d barely had a moment to talk except for momentarily running into each other at the order counter, but once I had time to catch my breath, I headed over to Ruth to test the waters.

“It looks like Molly’s working out,” I said.

She gave me a look through narrowed eyes. “Please. She doesn’t even have a full section. You took several of her tables.”

“I thought we should ease her into it.”

Snorting, she said, “No one eased you in. You took half the room on a football night.”

“Yeah, but—”

She held up a hand. “Stop. No excuses.”

I released a huge sigh. “We need the help, Ruth. I realize you must have some kind of issue with her, but she did pretty well with the section she had, so let’s give her a chance, okay?”

She gave me a long look and her face softened. “Okay. Sorry. I’ll give her a chance, but I don’t trust her, Carly.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “You obviously know her and have your own perceptions of her, so I appreciate you putting them aside and giving her a chance.” I suspected her problem with Molly stemmed from her falling-out with May, but that wasn’t the kind of thing we should be discussing right now. It was likely more of a beer or wine conversation.

“I don’t know about putting ’em aside,” she grumped, “but I’m lettin’ her stay.” Then she added, “For now.”

I cast a glance toward the bar, where Wyatt and Max were working. “Do you know why Marco hasn’t shown up?”

“You’d know better than I would.” Our conversation was cut short when she headed over to a table of boisterous construction workers to take orders for refills.

My customers looked content for the moment, so I decided to head over to the bar and check on Molly. “How’s it goin’?”

“It’s obvious I haven’t waited tables in a few years,” she said with a wry grin, “but it’s comin’ back to me.”

“You seem to be holding your own,” I said. “How’s Tiny treating you?”

She shot me a surprised glance. “Okay, I guess.”

“He’s not very talkative when we’re busy, but if he’s upset with you, he doesn’t hide it. So that’s a good thing,” I said with a reassuring smile.

“Okay,” she said, looking relieved. “Good.”

“Don’t worry. It’ll all come back. And besides, as you already know, we’re not a formal kind of place. The main thing is to try to keep the customers happy, but don’t take any crap from the guys sittin’ around drinkin’.”

She got an uneasy look on her face, so I reached out and touched her arm.

“Don’t you worry,” I said. “If anyone gets out of hand, Max, Wyatt, or Tiny will be on them faster than a tick on a coon dog.” I cast a worried look toward the front door. “And Marco Roland when he shows up.”

“Wyatt Drummond…” she said with a playful grin. “Rumor has it you two dated.”

“Briefly,” I said. “When I first got to town. But we’ve been over for three times longer than we were together, so there won’t be any drama.” Hopefully.