Standing there in jeans and a faded, well-worn sweater, with her hair messed up and her eyes a little red, she was so beautiful he just looked at her for a long moment. He didn’t want to just be friendly neighbors who happened to be having a baby together. He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her until neither of them could breathe.
But he’d back off…for now. “You’re welcome.”
***
During Jasper’s post-dinner crowd lull, Paulie ran up the back stairs to her apartment to grab a yogurt and a few minutes of peace. Serving up burgers and fries night after night could seriously put a dent in a woman’s junk-food cravings and she wasn’t in the mood for anything fried. But she’d barely peeled the top off a tub of key lime goodness when somebody knocked on her door.
She set the container on the counter and answered it, almost choking on her tongue when she saw Sam Logan standing in the hall. “How did you get up here?”
“Came up the stairs, same as you did.”
“Did you miss the sign telling you stay the hell out if you’re not authorized personnel?”
“Saw it. Ignored it.”
“Sounds like you.”
He just shrugged. “You going to invite me in?”
“No.”
“That’s too bad.” She noticed how he subtly turned his body toward her so she couldn’t slam the door in his face. “Guess I’ll go back downstairs, then. Maybe chat with my waitress. Or the bartender. What’s his name? Kevin? Funny how they all seem to think your last name’s Reed. Why is that?”
She’d forgotten what a bastard he could be when he wanted something. “Maybe I got married.”
“Or maybe you just changed your name.”
Which he knew, of course. No doubt he’d had his people run a check on her as soon as he left Jasper’s that first night. Maybe he’d even known before then. “What do you want, Sam?”
“I want to come in.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Wonder how your friends in low places would feel if they found out who you really are?”
It’s not as though she was running from the law or anything. She hadn’t done anything wrong, so she had nothing to fear from them finding out her real last name was Atherton. But she didn’t want them to know. She wasn’t that person anymore. “Fine. Come in and say what you want to say. But make it quick. I need to get back downstairs.”
When he walked in and closed the door behind him, Paulie was almost staggered by the sense of how unreal the situation was. Sam Logan. In her apartment.
“Why are you harassing me?” she demanded when it became clear he was more interesting in looking around than talking. “Is this some kind of payback for not going through with the wedding?”
“You didn’t just leave me standing at the altar, which would have been humiliating enough. No, you had to go and make the whole thing into a damn spectacle. Getting halfway up the aisle before you turned and sprinted out of there like there was a gold medal in the parking lot. God, Paulette.”
Paulie tried to ignore the trigger word, but it was a hot button. Paulette, stop fidgeting. You’re making a spectacle of yourself. “And there you go. If I thought for a second you would have been more hurt than embarrassed, I wouldn’t have run in the first place.”
“So it’s my fault.”
“You didn’t love me, Sam.”
“I asked you to be my wife.” His deep voice was taut with a barely restrained rumble of anger. “Why do you think I did that?”
“Because our families expected it? Because I fit your criteria for Mrs. Samuel Thomas Logan the Fourth?”
His jaw tightened. She knew from experience that was as far as Sam losing his temper would go. Like her, he’d been taught not to make a spectacle of himself before he was even potty-trained. “Is that what you think? You think I’m so weak I’d just let my parents choose my wife from a list of most-likely candidates?”
She wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t force the words out. Yes, that’s what she’d thought. And when he got up and started for the door, she should have been relieved. He was leaving and he probably wouldn’t be back, which is what she’d wanted. She thought. But the thought of leaving this still unsettled—unexplained—had her going after him.
“Sam, wait…”
He turned on her so abruptly she almost crashed into him. “If that’s what you thought, why did you even say yes in the first place?”
“I wanted to be Sam’s wife.”
“Yeah, I could tell by the way you sprinted out of the church.”
“I didn’t want to be Mrs. Samuel Logan the Fourth.”
There went that tightening jaw again. “I don’t even know what that means. But I do know you’re way too hung up on my name.”
“Not your name. What it represents.”
“So…what? You wanted to be with me, but you didn’t want anything to do with everything that’s integral to my life.”
That summed it up pretty well. “It’s complicated.”
“Let’s simplify it.”
“How?”
“Go out with me. Nobody knows who we are here. I’m just a businessman from Boston and you’re the saucy serving wench who struck my fancy.”
The surprised laughter bubbled up before she could stop it. “Serving wench? Buddy, if I strike you, it ain’t gonna be in your fancy.”
“Dinner. Someplace nice.”
He was serious. After the very public humiliation she’d caused him, followed by five years of radio silence, he was inviting her on a date? “Sam, that’s just…not a good idea.”
He crossed his arms and gave her a look meant to intimidate grown men into caving to his terms, but it hadn’t worked when her father gave it and it didn’t work now.
“Now, Sam, don’t tell me you’ve been pining for me this whole time.” The lines of his face hardened, making her think she might have actually hurt him. “Look, I—”
“Dinner with me or your friends find out you’re a fraud.”
He said it so coldly she knew he meant it. “Don’t you think blackmail’s beneath you?”
“Nothing’s beneath me when I want something.”
A shiver tickled her spine as his gaze bored into hers, making it very clear she was the thing he wanted. And she realized, with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, that part of her was thrilled to be forced into having dinner with him. Not that she’d let him know that. “When?”
“Soon. On a night you don’t work late.”
She didn’t want him to know when she worked late and when she didn’t. But she also didn’t want him talking to her co-workers. Or Kevin. “Maybe.”
He smiled—no, smirked, the bastard—and went out the door, leaving her confused, off-kilter and maybe just a little excited.
Chapter Six
The first thing Kevin saw the following night when he finally escaped the paperwork hell that was his office was Beth. She was sitting at the quiet end of the bar where nobody liked to sit because you had to crane your neck to see the television, picking at the last of her fries.
She looked beat. “Hey, you.”
When she looked up at him, he saw he was right. The exhaustion showed in her eyes the most. “Hey. What’s the secret to your cheeseburgers?”
“It’s a secret.”
That got a smile. “I could have eaten at the restaurant but I was serving a cheeseburger and thinking to myself it didn’t look anywhere near as good as a Jasper’s cheeseburger and…here I am. This big, empty space on my plate is where the burger sat for about five seconds.”
“How was work?”
“Slow.” She shrugged, but he could see how it was weighing on her. “They keep telling me it picks up as we get closer to Christmas shopping time. We’ll see.”
“You want a refill on your soda?”
“No thanks. I’m exhausted. Need to get my check and head upstairs.”
“What check?”
“For
my cheeseburger. The bill?”
Leaning his elbows on the edge of the counter, he shook his head. “We’re not taking your money.”
He hadn’t expected the way her mouth got all tight and her cheeks flushed red. “I can pay for my dinner, Kevin.”
“I know you can, but you’re feeding my kid. I’m not charging my own child to eat. What kind of father would I be?” He gave her his best Kowalski grin—the one with the sparkling eyes and the dimples. “You can come in here and get your fabulous, one-of-a-kind Jasper’s cheeseburger every night.”
She was about to argue with him—he could see it on her face—but Randy happened by and tossed a napkin next to Kevin. Even in the dim lighting the bright magenta lipstick kiss shone like a beacon. Dammit.
Beth was not only stubborn, but she was fast and she snatched it up before he could. “I have whipped cream and cherry lube…want to make a sundae?”
Even though the words weren’t hers, hearing them come out of Beth’s mouth triggered a craving for ice cream so strong his mouth watered. Other parts of his body reacted, too, and he was very thankful he was standing on the other side of the bar.
“I never call them,” he told her.
“Them? You get these a lot?”
He gestured over his shoulder. “There’s a basket. I get a few.”
She tossed the napkin at him with a snort of disgust. “A basket. Of course you save them.”
“Paulie and the rest of the staff get a kick out of reading them. I’ve never called a napkin kisser and you can go look in the office and in my apartment and you won’t find a single phone number written in lipstick on a napkin.”
She looked doubtful, not that he could blame her. “When was your last serious relationship, and I don’t mean with the women who kiss your napkins?”
And there it was. The only thing he didn’t like talking about and there was no way to get out of it. More privacy would have been nice, but at least nobody was close enough to eavesdrop. “My last serious relationship would have been my marriage.”
She doodled in the condensation on her glass. “You were married?”
“Yeah. We divorced a little over two years ago.”
“What happened? Oh wait…none of my business. Sorry.”
That hurt. They were having a baby together. He’d think she’d want to get to know him a little better. “Before I bought Jasper’s Bar and Grille, I was cop. One of Boston’s finest.”
“You were a cop? Really?”
“Yup.”
She propped her chin on her hands. “I can’t picture you in a uniform, with a gun and everything.”
“I’ve got a picture. I can show it to you later.”
“I’d like to see it, but I think what you’re doing now really suits you.”
He smiled, looking her in the eye. “There’s a lot about my life now that suits me.”
“Charming.” She rolled her eyes. “So you were a cop…”
Damn, she was a tough sell. “Yeah, so I always got shitty shifts in the bad parts of town, but I didn’t think much of it. Then, one night, I went back to the house to pick up some paperwork I’d forgotten. I didn’t usually bring paperwork home because the time I had with Vicky, I thought I should spend with Vicky. Found my captain there, banging my wife. And I guess it’d been going on for a while.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I beat his ass until I couldn’t swing my arm anymore. Thank God the captain was married to some big-shot’s daughter so he had to avoid the bad press. He didn’t press charges, I dumped the wife and the job and came home. Bought Jasper’s and here we are.”
The way she looked at him told him he hadn’t quite succeeded in making it sound like no big deal. Bullshit, of course. Losing his marriage and his badge—everything he cared about—at the same time had been a pretty big fucking deal. Even the memory of his captain’s nose busting under his fist didn’t make the memory of seeing the asshole’s dick in his wife any easier to take.
“Did you have any children together?”
“No. That’s about the only good thing about it.” He helped himself to a sip of her soda, hoping to wash some of the bad taste out of his mouth. Didn’t really help. “That Jasper-burger-craving bun in your oven is my first.”
For a few seconds he thought she might dig deeper, but then she smiled. “If the baby’s craving Jasper burgers already, I’m going to weigh a ton by spring.”
“And you’ll still be the hottest woman in the bar.”
He wondered if she was even aware of the pink creeping into her face from under the collar of her white work blouse. “Sadly, I’m never going to kiss a napkin for you.”
“If you did, I’d not only keep it, I’d frame it and hang it right there, over the bar.”
“Never gonna happen.”
***
“Excuse me, but I asked for this well done.” Beth eyed the burger her customer was waving in her direction. It looked more like a hockey puck than ground beef. “See this fleck of pink here?”
No, she didn’t see a fleck of pink. “I’m sorry. I can have them make you another one.”
“No, I’ll eat it.”
Then what was the point of complaining, other than advance justification for the crappy tip he was probably going to leave her. She made nice for another moment, hoping to salvage something, and then moved on to the next table.
Her section was almost full and most nights she would have been happy about the potentially full tip cup. But she was tired and out of sorts.
And the problem with getting pregnant on their first date was that she couldn’t pinpoint the exact start date or cause of her irritability. Was it the baby…or the baby’s father?
“Miss, can I get some more coffee?”
She poured and fetched and carried for another hour before it was time for her break. After filling a coffee mug three quarters full of decaf for the baby and a splash of the real stuff for herself, she made her way to the small table shoved into the back corner of the noisy kitchen.
The granola bar tucked into her apron pocket would get her through to the end of her shift and, if she took small bites and chewed slowly, she could almost convince herself it was satisfying. She’d only lived over the bar a few days and the Jasper burgers were already going to her waist.
Julia joined her when she was chewing the last bite. Rumor had it the salt-and-pepper-haired woman had been waiting tables there since the restaurant opened in 1976. Beth didn’t know if that was true, but it was remarkable if it was because Julia was a bit cantankerous for the business.
“What’s wrong with you this week?” Julia asked by way of a greeting.
“Just a little tired. I moved and you know how it is trying to sleep in a new place.”
“When’s the baby due?”
It was a good thing Beth was done with her granola bar or she would have choked on it.
Julia gave a short, smoke-roughened laugh. “I’ve got three sisters and two daughters and they’ve all had kids. Sometimes you get a faraway look on your face and put your hand over your stomach. Probably think you have cramps if not for the dreamy expression.”
She hadn’t wanted anybody to know yet, and that went double for her coworkers. And their employer. Not until she had a back-up plan in case they fired her.
They wouldn’t fire her because of her condition, of course. They’d find another reason to let her go because, right or wrong, a lot of people weren’t comfortable being waited on by a visibly pregnant woman. Made them feel guilty.
“June twenty-eighth,” she said when Julia made a come-on gesture. “Please don’t tell anybody. I…it’s bad luck.”
“Hell, I won’t tell anybody, honey. You make sure you eat right and take your prenatal vitamins or you ain’t gonna get through the day.”
“I will.”
“By eat right, I mean more than a granola bar, by the way. But I better go out back and have my smoke. And, if you don’t want anybody to know you’ve go
t a bun in the oven, keep your hands in your pockets.”
Beth smiled, but it faded as soon as Julia walked away.
It weighed on her constantly—the question of what she would do if or when she couldn’t do this job anymore, whether because of her pregnancy or because she’d been fired.
The idea of not having an income was so repulsive it made even the benign granola bar roll in her stomach. She wasn’t used to being responsible for anybody but herself, and her needs were pretty simple. A baby’s weren’t.
But now she had Kevin, the mini devil on her shoulder whispered. Kevin wouldn’t evict her and he wouldn’t let her go hungry or without medical care. The plus sign on the home pregnancy test had seriously rocked her boat, but she had Kevin now. Kevin, who was able and willing to steady the boat.
The problem with that, the overly cautious angel on the other shoulder argued, was that Kevin would not only steady the boat, but he’d grab the till and steer her boat wherever he wanted.
Then, if he decided to abandon ship, she’d be even worse off. Not only would her boat be rocked again, but she’d be lost without him. Helpless.
No, Beth wasn’t going to depend on Kevin. She was having enough trouble keeping him at arm’s length—a decision her body in no way supported, judging by the way it tossed and turned every night, aching for him.
“You still sitting here?” Julie’s voice jolted her out of her thoughts.
She glanced at her watch. Oops. “Just finishing up.”
She drained the rest of her coffee and dropped the empty mug into a buspan. Then she tossed the granola bar wrapper into the trash and hit the restroom.
Time to paste on a sunny smile and concentrate on making as much money as she could—while she could.
***
A glass smashed behind Kevin and he didn’t even have to look to know Paulie’d done the dropping. How did he know? Because that Sam Logan guy was sitting at a front table—eating a burger, drinking a beer and watching SportsCenter on one of the big screen TVs, like he had almost every night for the last two weeks or so.
Kevin ducked as Paulie went by him with the broom, muttering words he couldn’t quite make out under her breath. “You need help with that?”
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