Genuine Lies by Nora Roberts Read Free Book Online Page B

serve sandwiches. And I was a part of it. It was there I met Charlie Gray.”
    The dance floor was packed with GIs and pretty girls. The scents of perfume, aftershave, smoke, and black coffee crowded the air. Harry James was playing, and the music was hot. Eve liked hearing the trumpet soar over the noise and laughter. After a full shift at the diner, and the hours spent dogging agents, her feet were killing her. It didn’t help that the shoes she’d bought secondhand were a half size too small.
    She made certain the fatigue didn’t show in her face. You could never be sure who might drop in, and notice. She was damn certain she’d have to be noticed only once to start the climb.
    Smoke hung at the ceiling, curling around the wagon-wheel lights. The music turned sentimental. Uniforms and party dresses drifted together, swayed.
    Wondering how soon she could take a break, Eve poured another cup of coffee for another star-struck GI and smiled.
    “You’ve been here every night this week.”
    Eve glanced over and studied the tall, lanky man. Rather than a uniform, he was wearing a gray flannel suit that didn’t disguise his thin shoulders. He had fair hair slicked back from a bony face. Big brown eyes drooped like a basset hound’s.
    She recognized him, and pumped her smile up a few degrees. He wasn’t a big name. Charlie Gray unfailingly played the buddy of the hero. But he was a name. And he had noticed.
    “We all do our part in the war effort, Mr. Gray.” She lifted a hand to brush a long wave of hair from her eyes. “Coffee?”
    “Sure.” He leaned against the snack bar while she poured. Watching her work, he pulled out a pack of Luckies and lighted one. “I just finished my shift bussing tables, so I thought I’d come by and talk to the prettiest girl in the room.”
    She didn’t blush. She could have if she’d chosen to, but she opted for the more sophisticated route. “Miss Hayworth’s in the kitchen.”
    “I like brunettes.”
    “Your first wife was a blond.”
    He grinned. “So was the second one. That’s why I like brunettes. What’s your name, honey?”
    She’d already chosen it, carefully, deliberately. “Eve,” she said. “Eve Benedict.”
    He figured he had her pegged. Young, stars in her eyes, waiting for that chance to be discovered. “And you want to be in pictures?”
    “No.” With her eyes on his she took the cigarette from his fingers, drew in, and expelled smoke, then handed it back. “I’m
going
to be in pictures.”
    The way she said it, the way she looked when she said it, had him revising his first impression. Intrigued, he lifted thecigarette to his lips and caught the faintest taste of her. “How long have you been in town?”
    “Five months, two weeks, and three days. How about you?”
    “Too damn long.” Attracted, as he always was, by a fast-talking, dangerous-looking woman, he glanced over her. She wore a very quiet blue suit made explosive by the body it covered so discreetly. His blood swam a little faster. When his gaze came back to hers and he saw the cool amusement in her expression, he knew he wanted her. “How about a dance?”
    “I’ll be pouring coffee for another hour.”
    “I’ll wait.”
    As he walked away, Eve worried that she had overplayed it. Underplayed it. She ran every word, every gesture, back through her mind, trying out dozens of others. All the while she poured coffee, flirted with young, soap-scrubbed GIs. Nerves jittered behind each smoldering smile. When her shift ended, she strolled with apparent nonchalance from behind the snack bar.
    “That’s some walk you’ve got.” Charlie moved beside her, and Eve let out a quiet breath of relief.
    “It gets me from one place to the next.”
    They stepped onto the dance floor, and his arms slipped around her. They stayed around her for nearly an hour.
    “Where did you come from?” he murmured.
    “Nowhere. I was born five months, two weeks, and three days ago.”
    He laughed, rubbing