Talk of the Town by Mary Kay McComas Read Free Book Online Page A

or on special occasions."
    The gratification on his face became smug and exasperating. She had to stop acting on her impulses, she decided then and there.
    "What do you want?" she asked, pulling a pad and pencil from the pocket of her apron.
    "You're going to write it down?"
    "Yes."
    "Okay." He looked thoughtful. "I suppose I want what other men want. Family. Home. Something satisfying to do with my time . . ."
    "To eat."
    "Oh," he said, grinning, knowing full well he was getting closer and closer to triggering her detonation. "The special, I guess. Since you recommend it."
    "Drink?"
    "Sure. Sometimes. Do you?"
    Danny O'Brian snickered into his coffee cup at the other end of the counter and the table of four ladies  behind him giggled.
    "This isn't funny," she said in a harsh whisper, her hands dropping to her sides. "I work here. I have a job to do. I'm serious."
    Though perhaps not as serious as she could have been, she reflected. He was so obvious in his tactics to yank her chains and get a rise out of her that it was having quite the opposite effect. She wanted to get frisky and box his ears. Light flirtation was called for, not anger. However, she'd never been any good at the former and the latter was a standard in her life—though she preferred to avoid it whenever possible.
    "I can see you're serious. And I'm sorry," he said, looking far from repentant. "I'd like a very serious cup of coffee, black, when it's convenient."
    It so happened to be convenient at that moment. The off-season lunch rush at Lulu's was hardly a tidal wave, and the trickle was nearly over anyway.
    "You know," she said mildly, keeping her voice low as she poured his coffee. "It's a darn good thing I'm so good-natured."
    "I agree. It is a good thing," he said, matching her tone of voice.
    "Otherwise, I'd think you were a pain in the neck and I'd have to be sorry we ever met."
    "That's true too," he said, smiling, his hazel eyes warm and bright. "But you're not, are you? Sorry that we met?"
    "Not yet." Then she added pointedly, "But I have a feeling I will be."
    "You can get rid of that feeling," he said. "Because once you get to know me, you're going to wonder how you ever got along without me."
    "I doubt that." But she was beginning to suspect that he wasn't going to go away any time in the near future. “I’ve been muddling along on my own for a long time. And I like it that way."
    "Do you like to dance?" he asked abruptly. "I forgot to ask last night. That's one of the reasons I came back today."
    "You could have called to ask me that."
    The animation drained from his face as he stared at her, then he grimaced, shook his head, and laughed out loud.
    "It never crossed my mind," he said, self-amused. "I was too busy thinking that I wanted to see you again, I guess."
    It was her turn to shake her head. He was hopeless, brain damaged from all those garbage fumes. She turned and pushed open the door to the kitchen. She went to the oven and took out the meatloaf—accidentally cutting his piece a little bigger than she'd cut the others that afternoon.
    "So, what about dancing?" he called out when she stepped in front of the window between the kitchen and the lunch counter. "Do you like to dance?"
    "I don't dance." Hadn't danced was more the case, in thirteen . . . no, almost fifteen years. She was sure she'd forgotten how. She poured gravy into the pool of mashed potatoes on his plate.
    "Well, I was trying to decide where I'd take you tonight, and there's a little jazz bar in Eureka that's nice. . . . But then I thought, if I took you dancing, I could hold you in my arms. Are you sure you don't dance?"
    Her head jerked up. Danny O'Brian and the ladies at the table were eagerly awaiting her answer.
    "Yes," she snapped, blushing to the tips of her ears. "Will you come back here, please," she said, setting his plate down so she could cross her arms defensively across her chest. "I want to talk to you in private."
    He turned on his stool and rose to