Sleeping Beauty by Dallas Schulze Read Free Book Online Page B

he slid into the seat opposite hers.
    "What?" The unexpected question startled her. In the ten minutes since they'd parted company at the grocery store, she'd nearly made herself sick wondering what she would say to him, what he would say to her, trying to think of witty bits of conversation. None of those fragmented scenarios had begun quite like this.
    "Luanne." He tapped a finger against the name emblazoned in black script across a dog-eared red menu. "Is there such a person or did they just invent the name to give the place an air of exotic mystery?"
    "Exotic mystery?'' Anne's brows went up, and, catching the laughter in his eyes, she forgot to be nervous. "Y-yes, I can see how the name Luanne would conjure up images of exotic lands and sultry women. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but Luanne was the first cook here, back in the forties, and, according to what I'm told, she was a black woman, about six foot tall, skinny as a rail, chewed tobacco and had six husbands."
    "All at once?" Neill's brows shot up in a look of exaggerated shock, and Anne had to struggle to hold oft to her serious expression.
    "Of course not. This is Indiana, and we don't permit such things. She was divorced once and widowed five times." She paused and cleared her throat, prunning her mouth in a disapproving line. "There were, I believe, rumors that not all of her husbands departed the mortal coil willingly, but nothing was ever proved, and both the sheriff and the mayor were extremely fond of her chicken pot pie, so they were not, perhaps, as diligent in their investigations as they might have been."
    "I knew there had to be a story behind a name like that." Neill opened his menu, then tilted it so he could look at her over the top. "What happened to her?"
    "Nothing exotic, I'm afraid. She bought the place sometime in the late fifties, then sold it in the seventies and retired to Arizona where, for all I know, she's working on husband number ten."
    "I hope so. I'd hate to think of a woman like that reduced to playing bingo and watching the soaps. It's important to have hobbies."
    "It does sound as if her hobby might have been a little hard on her husbands," Anne pointed out.
    "Yes but a really exceptional pot pie is worth a few risks," he said thoughtfully and was pleased with himself when she laughed.
    She'd looked nervous edging toward frightened when she first walked in, her eyes skittering away from his. But, despite her uneasiness, she'd come to meet him, and he found that interesting. He wanted to believe it was his irresistible charm that had brought her, but he had a feeling she was proving something, whether to herself or someone else, he couldn't be sure. And why he should care one way or another was beyond him. She...intrigued him. For the moment, that was answer enough.
    Neill glanced up as a waitress in a pink uniform stopped net to the table. Somewhere in her mid-twenties, with brassy blond hair and a thin, angular frame, she wore a small diamond solitaire and plain gold wedding ring on her ring finger, but, judging from the blatant invitation in her heavily made-up eyes, she didn't believe in letting marriage restrict her. Their eyes met, and she gave him a sultry smile.
    ''See anything you like, sugar?"
    As passes went, he'd heard worse, Neill decided dispassionately. Fifteen years ago, he'd probably delivered worse lines himself. Hell, fifteen years ago, he might have been flattered, might even have been tempted, though he liked to think that, even at twenty, his taste had been a little more discriminating. As it was, he couldn't help but find such a blatant come-on just a little pathetic and, considering the woman sitting across from him, certainly lacking in manners.
    "I think we need another minute or two." He flicked an impassive look over what she was offering and then glanced across the table. "Anne?"
    Out the comer of his eye, Neill saw the waitress slant a look of studied indifference across the table. Her head was already