by Metsy Hingle
Gina nodded, waiting for Amber to get to the point.
“So I give him my nicest smile, tell him all about the specials and try to, you know, like, make conversation. So here I am being all friendly-like, ready to give him my phone number, when he asks for it—only he doesn’t ask for it. He just orders coffee, then pulls out his newspaper and buries his nose in it.”
“And from that you concluded the man was gay?”
Amber blinked her big blue eyes, rimmed in black. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Amber, honey, I hate to burst your bubble. But believe me, the man’s not gay.”
Amber eyed her suspiciously. “You telling me he hit on you?”
Gina had enough of an Italian temper to take offense at the younger woman’s remark. Instead, she decided to let it pass, knowing that if Amber thought she’d hurt her feelings, she would be devastated. The little airhead really had a good heart, Gina reminded herself. Unfortunately, the girl had been brought up to believe that her looks were all she had going for her. It simply would never have occurred to the girl that a real man would see beyond a pretty face. “No, he didn’t hit on me. But I suspect that’s because he’s already set his sights on Lily.”
“Lily,” Amber said with exasperation. “What is it with these guys that they all zero in on her?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It could have something to do with the fact that she’s beautiful.”
“And what am I? Chopped liver?” Amber countered, striking an affronted pose.
Gina laughed. “Oh, don’t go getting your panties in a wad, sugar. You give half the guys who come into this place whiplash every time you walk across a room. And I don’t even want to think about what you do to their blood pressure. Besides, didn’t that fellow who came in here last week say you should be a model?”
“Yeah, he did,” Amber acknowledged.
“And I seem to remember that trucker who came in yesterday didn’t have eyes for anyone but you.”
“No, he didn’t. Did he?” Amber said, apparently mollified. “So how come this one and the construction hunk who was hanging around here for a while only have eyes for Lily? I mean, look at her. She’s kinda skinny. I’ve never even seen her wearing makeup. And don’t even get me started on that hair.”
“Careful, girl. Your claws are showing.”
Amber sniffed. “I like Lily. You know I do. All I’m saying is she obviously doesn’t put a lot of time in to fixing herself up. Why I bet she doesn’t even own a lipstick.”
“Sugar, this may come as a surprise to you. But not everyone’s into hair and makeup,” Gina pointed out.
“But everyone wants to look their best. Or they should. Let’s face it. Lily’s pretty, but she’s not…you know, movie-star gorgeous or anything.”
Gina heard the unspoken words not like me, but decided to remain silent. She also decided it was best not to point out that Lily’s beauty was softer, almost ethereal, like a young Grace Kelly. Classy, Gina thought, remembering Ricardo’s remark last week.
“All I’m saying is that I just don’t get it. She’s not even interested in men, and the guys still go for her.”
“Maybe they go for her because she’s not interested,” Gina offered.
“Well, that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Neither does your theory that that fellow is gay,” Gina told her, and motioned with her head across the room to where Michael was sitting. “From the way he’s watching Lily, I’d say that what the man wants is definitely not on the menu.”
“So have you decided what you’re going to have, or do you need a few more minutes?” Lily asked the dark-haired man seated at one of the tables in her section.
“What did you say the special was again?”
“Red beans and rice with sausage and French bread.”
“Is it any good?” he asked, and gave her a warm, friendly smile.
“It’s a Monday staple in New Orleans and, May—she’s our cook here at the River Bend—fixes some of the best red beans in the city.”
He snapped the menu shut. “Sold. Red beans and rice it is,” he said, flashing her another smile.
“What can I get you to drink? You want some iced tea or a soft drink? Or are you going to stick with coffee?”
“Iced tea sounds good,” he told her.
She jotted down his order on her pad. “I’ll be right back with your tea,” Lily informed him as she reached for the plastic-coated menu. Only he held on to the menu. She looked up and met his blue gaze. For a moment there was something so intense about the way he looked at her that Lily could have sworn he knew who she was. But then he released the menu and gave her another of those friendly smiles that softened his expression.
“Lily,” he said, motioning to the name on her tag. “Pretty name.”
“Thanks,” she said, averting her gaze.
“I’m Michael. Michael Sullivan.”
Lily nodded in acknowledgment. “I’d better go turn in your order,” she said, and hurried away. But even as she went to the next table, she could have sworn his eyes remained on her.
She took another three orders, served up teas, waters, cold drinks and coffee, keenly aware of Michael Sullivan seated at the table near the window. While he was no longer watching her and appeared to be engrossed in working a crossword puzzle, Lily couldn’t shake the nerves that he’d set off inside her.
She was being silly, she told herself as she filled water glasses and rushed about to accommodate the lunch crowd. The guy couldn’t possibly know who she was. He was simply flirting with her. And the last thing she wanted was to find herself facing another situation like the one she’d had a week ago when she’d ignored the signals and ended up shooting some guy’s ego to bits. What still amazed her was that any man would want to flirt with her now. She’d done everything she could to distance herself from the woman Adam had created. The long, pale-blond hair, the expert makeup, the sexy, revealing clothes, and even some of the curves were gone now. She couldn’t help thinking how furious Adam would be at her appearance. He’d monitored her body and her looks as carefully, more carefully, than he’d monitored his own. She squeezed her eyes shut to blot out the memory of that night when she’d made up her mind to leave him. Of the way he had ripped her clothes from her body, drove himself into her and told her that he owned her—that if she wanted Timmy to go on breathing, she had better never forget that fact.
“Whoops! Excuse me.”
At the bump from Amber, Lily yanked her thoughts back to the present. Giving herself a mental shake, she realized she was standing in front of the fountain with a half-filled glass of water in her hand.
“You okay?” Amber asked her. “You seem a little distracted.”
“Just a little tired, I guess,” she managed to say. “I was up most of the night with Timmy.”
“Yeah, Nancy Lee said you had to take him to the doctor this morning. He okay?”
Lily nodded. “Except for the fact that he has chicken pox.”
“Ooh, poor baby,” Amber said, making a face.
“You talk to the doctor’s office yet?” Gina asked as she joined them to unload her tray of dishes. “Nothing else is wrong, is there?”
“No, thank heavens,” Lily replied. “They just wanted to let me know that I’d left my sunglasses in the office when I brought Timmy in this morning.”
“Girls, get a move on,” Nancy Lee ordered as she exited the kitchen with two steaming plates of red beans and rice. “We’ve got people waiting for tables.”
Lily didn’t need to be told twice. In the little more than two months that she’d worked at the River Bend Diner, she’d learned to juggle trays heaped with plates of food and drinks like a pro. She’d also learned that for any restaurant to succeed in a place like New Orleans, where good food was as common as mosquitoes, the tables needed to be turned over as often as possible. Not only was it the key to a restaurant’s profits, it also made a big difference in how much she would make in tips. And she neede
d the extra tip money. Timmy’s visit to the doctor, along with his prescriptions, had set her back more than a hundred dollars that morning. She recalled explaining to the doctor’s nurse that her insurance wouldn’t kick in for another month with her employer. She couldn’t help wondering again if she dare stick around long enough to take advantage of that employee benefit. She would like to stay, she admitted. Especially with Gertie here. If only she could be sure that Adam wouldn’t find her, or that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to harm Timmy. Lily thought about the disk again, wondered if there was a way she could use it to protect her son. Vowing to check for any further info on that agent’s death, she zipped over to the pick-up counter.
The dinging of the bell and the repeated, “Lily, order up,” kept her too busy to dwell on Timmy’s bout with chicken pox, the disk or the dark-haired man who went out of his way to engage her in conversation each time she came to his table.
For the next hour, Lily didn’t miss a beat. She lost count of the number of orders she took for the special, or of the number of slices of king cake she’d served. With the exception of Michael Sullivan’s table, most of the tables in her area had turned over at least once as the lunch crowd zipped in and out of the diner.
“Thanks,” she said to the two secretaries who left a couple of ones on the table for her and took the togo boxes she’d handed them. Slipping the ones into her apron pocket, she began clearing the table and was grateful to see that the worst of the rush was over.
She walked over to his table, cleared away the dish that had been filled with bread pudding. “Did you want some more coffee?” she asked.
“That would be great,” he said, and flashed her another smile. “The bread pudding was terrific, by the way. Thanks for recommending it.”
“No problem.” She glanced over to the counter and noted one of the coffeepots was empty and the other was very low. “Looks like I’ll need to put on a fresh pot. It’ll only be a few minutes.”
“No problem,” he told her. “Say, how are you at crossword puzzles?”
“Lousy,” she said, even though that wasn’t exactly true since crossword puzzles were a favorite of hers. But to tell him so would only encourage him, she reasoned, and encouraging him or any man was the last thing she wanted to do. “I’ll go see about that coffee,” she told him. Glad to be behind the safety of the counter, and away from all that charm, she unloaded her tray and set out to brew a fresh pot of coffee.
“So, what do you think of Texas?” Gina asked as she wiped down the counter.
Lily wrinkled her forehead. “The state?”
Gina laughed. “The guy at your table. His name’s Michael Sullivan, and he’s from Texas,” she explained. “He sure is a cutie-pie, don’t you think?”
“I suppose so,” Lily said, looking over at him. Although with his dark hair, blue eyes and that strong jawline, she didn’t think the word cute was one she’d use to describe the man. Cute made her think of soft and cuddly, like Timmy’s teddy bear. There was nothing soft or cuddly-looking about him. He was tall, probably a good ten inches taller than her own five foot five inches. And she suspected that every ounce on his lean frame was solid muscle. His hands were like the rest of him—big—but unlike Adam’s hands, his showed no signs of regular manicures. She was fairly sure that if she were to examine his hands closely, she’d find them scarred and calloused and rough against her skin. No, cute didn’t describe Michael Sullivan, she decided. He was handsome and sexy in a rugged kind of way.
As though sensing her scrutiny, he looked up, locking his gaze with hers. And for the space of a heartbeat, Lily felt as though she couldn’t breathe. At the beep of the coffeemaker, she yanked her attention back to the task at hand.
“He seems like a nice guy. Says he’s been working offshore,” Gina told her.
“You talking about Lily’s new admirer?” Amber asked as she joined them behind the counter, the pique in her voice matching her expression.
Lily frowned. “My admirer?”
“The hunk with the dreamy eyes,” she said with a sigh. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed him. A woman would have to be dead not to notice a guy like that.”
“He’s all right,” Lily replied, uncomfortable talking with the other women about men. Female friends were something she’d never really had—in part because she’d spent her early years caring for her ailing grandmother, and later, when she’d been sent to boarding school, her relationship with Adam had marked her as different. Once she and Adam had married, he’d made it clear to her that her only duty had been to be his wife. Not that she’d had any female friends. Even the wives and girlfriends of his associates shunned her because they, like most people, had believed her to be a bimbo who had slept her way to a cushy lifestyle. The one and only friendship she had formed had been with Emily, a strong-willed and independent young woman who owned and ran a flower shop that she had begun to frequent. It had been Emily who had encouraged her to do something for herself and had offered her a part-time job in her shop. Two weeks later, Emily’s shop had burned down. And Lily had never bothered to try to form another friendship after that.
“Lily girl, you better get your pulse checked,” Amber told her. “That guy is so hot, he’s ice.”
“She’s right, hon,” Gina said. “He could give those movie-star heartthrobs a run for their money.”
“You can bet if he’d been looking at me the way he’s been looking at you, I’d have noticed,” Amber informed her.
Suddenly uncomfortable, Lily offered, “Why don’t you bring him his coffee and check?”
“You’re kidding, right? You’re really not interested in him?” Amber asked, looking at her as though she’d lost her mind.
“No, I’m not. And you’d be doing me a favor. I really want to get back to Timmy, and Nancy Lee said it was okay for me to leave a little early.”
“Well, sure, I’d be glad to help out.”
“But the tip is hers,” Gina told Amber as the girl took both the check and the coffee and sashayed her way over to Michael Sullivan’s table.
“I really don’t mind Amber getting the tip,” Lily told Gina.
“You need it more than she does,” Gina insisted. “I’m guessing that doctor’s visit set you back a chunk and I know your insurance hasn’t kicked in yet. Besides, Amber would only spend the money on makeup or clothes and she’s already got plenty of both.”
“Thanks,” Lily said, touched by the woman’s understanding. She started to wipe down behind the counter, when Gina took the sponge from her hand.
“I’ll finish up. You go on home to that baby.”
“Thank you,” Lily murmured, and stripped off her apron. She hurried into the back office where she signed out and gathered her purse. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she told Gina when she came back out front.
“I still think you’re nuts for passing on Texas, you know.”
“I know,” Lily said. “But I’m sure he’ll be happy to move on to Amber once he realizes I’m not interested.”
“Don’t count on it,” Gina said to her retreating back. “Something tells me that he’s one man who doesn’t give up easily on something he wants.”
Six
“How long are you going to be in town?” Amber asked.
“I’m not sure,” Michael said, doing his best to discourage the girl without hurting her feelings and, at the same time, trying to keep an eye on Lily.
“Well you picked a good time to visit with it being Mardi Gras season and all. Most people don’t realize the celebrations and parades go on for a month before the big day. You been to any of the parades yet?”
“Hmm? No. No, I haven’t,” he said as he watched Lily talking with the brunette waitress named Gina.
“If you’re going to be around this weekend, there are a lot of parades scheduled. You think you might want to see a couple of them?”
When the girl fell silent, Michael assumed she was waiting for an answer from him. But he did
n’t have a clue what she’d been talking about. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I was wondering if you thought you might want to, you know, maybe catch a couple of parades this weekend.”
“Um, sure. I guess so,” Michael said absently. His attention still on Lily, he tracked her movements, noted she had her purse and was retrieving her coat and hat from the rack by the door.
“Great. We’re not open for dinner. So what about Saturday night?”
Michael jerked his attention back to the smiling redhead. “Saturday?”
“Can you make the parade Saturday night?”
Damn! Michael wanted to kick himself for not paying closer attention. “I don’t think so. You see, I sort of promised a buddy of mine that I’d help him out with a fishing charter this weekend.”
“You’re going fishing? During Mardi Gras season?”
“Afraid so. But I appreciate the offer. Maybe another time.”
“Sure. Another time,” she said, but he caught the note of disappointment in her voice.
“Man, will you look at the time? I had no idea it was so late. I need to get going.” He stood, tossed a twenty on top of the table. “Thanks again for the invite. It’s not every day a gorgeous woman asks me out. But I guess my loss is going to be some other lucky fellow’s gain.”
“You’ve got that right,” Amber said, beaming at the compliment. “I usually catch lots of the long beads. They’re the best ones, you know. If you’re still around next week, I’ll bring you a few.”
“Sounds great.” He dropped another five on the table before snagging his jacket from the back of the chair and exiting the diner.
Michael walked slowly across the street toward his truck and scanned the area in search of Lily aka Elisabeth Webster. Damn, where had she gone? he wondered as he unlocked his Ford Bronco and climbed inside. Taking his time, he adjusted his mirrors, all the while looking for the woman. Finally, he spied a small, ancient brown Chevrolet traveling up from a side street. The car stopped at the corner across from him to check for traffic.