Somebody's Baby by Annie Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

sympathetic customers and fixed her attention on the man who had slipped in through the open back door.
    “I wasn’t talking about you behind your back.”
    “No? Well, you sure were listening about me behind my back.” He managed to sum up the situation without coming off arrogant or angry.
    She smiled. “Then come on out in the open. I’m sure people here will be more than happy to talk about you right to your face.”
    He did not look amused.
    Josie felt bad. She hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings. She’d only tried to lighten the mood, to distract the man a bit after he’d caught her trying to find out more about him. And…and she wanted to show him her diner.
    There. That was it. For some reason she wanted her baby’s father to see what she had accomplished this last eight months since the first round of factory layoffs. She wanted him to know his son was being cared for by someone with drive, ambition, good sense and…and her very own pie carousel.
    “I was just kidding, Ad—”
    He put his index finger to his lips to cut her off. “Please. Don’t say my name.”
    She glanced over her shoulder toward the dining room, which had gone uncharacteristically quiet. “Why not?”
    “I don’t want anyone to know I’m here. Not yet. I’m staying at a hotel on the highway and being very careful about the streets I take. Please don’t undo all that now.”
    “I have to ask again, why not?”
    He glanced toward the dinning room as well, then lowered his head and his voice. “Look, I just came by to see the kid. Went by your house and your neighbor told me you had to take him to work with you today.”
    Wanted to, not had to, she thought. To keep him safe from you. And she was wise to do it, apparently, since the man had already been by her home and it wasn’t even 9:00 a.m. yet.
    As if he sensed her trouble, the small boy in the playpen in the corner of the café shouted and threw a toy in the direction of his mother.
    And on the heels of that, Jed, who had been playing with the child, stood up and called out, “Everything all right in there, Sweetie Pie?”
    “Sweetie Pie?” Adam stood just inside the door of the kitchen.
    Josie rolled her eyes then began pushing at the mess on the floor with the toe of her already pie-plopped shoe. “That’s what everyone around here calls me.”
    “Oh?” Adam squatted down and used the pie pan to scoop up the mess. Unlike the spoiled, rich, suspicious-acting man she had been warned about, he didn’t seem to mind getting his hands dirty. Josie could not say the same for his sense of humor. “I thought that your sister was more the everybody’s sweetie type.”
    “Leave my sister out of this,” she snapped.
    He dropped the pie—pan and all—in the trash, then wiped his hands off on a towel.
    Josie rushed over and snatched the pan out again. “I already lost the cost of ingredients on that. I can’t afford the price of a perfectly good pan, as well.”
    “Sorry,” he said, and seemed to actually mean it. “My mind was on other things…Sweetie Pie.”
    Josie heaved an exaggerated sigh, then went to the cherry pie that had been cooling all this time, cut a healthy slice, slapped it on a plate, then pressed that into his hand. “They call me that because of this.”
    He gave her a wary look.
    “What’s the matter? You too good to eat small-town-diner, homemade pie?”
    “No one ever accused me of being too good for anything, ma’am.” He dipped his head, his eyes glinting. “But my mama did manage to instill enough manners in me that I try not to eat pie with my fingers. At least not in front of a lady.”
    Josie blushed at her oversight and hurried to get him a fork.
    He dug in, taking as big a bite as the fork would hold. He tasted. He paused. He swallowed. “Mmm.”
    “Does that mean you like it?” Why it was important for this man to like her pie, Josie didn’t want to think about. But it was. Very important.
    “So good it gives me an