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

his great height, walking slowly to the end of the bar. He hadn't been behind a counter like that since college when he'd worked a part-time job at Woolworth's. Things hadn't changed much, he noticed, eager to face the encounter that awaited him in the kitchen, but feeling odd behind the lunch counter, doing nothing.
    "Can I get you anything while I'm back here?" he asked, addressing the avid audience of five. "More coffee, anyone?"
    They waved their hands over their cups and shook their heads and muttered polite refusals, grinning and giggling. He shrugged and walked into the kitchen. Rose was waiting, but not patiently.
    "Will you please stop acting like this," she shouted at him, though her voice was only a stern, strained whisper. "I have to live in this town, and its embarrassing to have you acting this way."
    "Which way is that?" he whispered back at her. There was so much intimacy in a soft, hushed voice. And they had to stand so close to hear each other.
    "Like you're in love with me. Like you can't keep your hands off me—like we've even touched in the first place. Those people out there will have us sleeping together before the night is over."
    "Great"
    "What?"
    "I'll take all the help I can get."
    "This isn't funny," she hissed. "I've already had to live down more than one scandal in this town, and I don't want to have to deal with another. I have Harley to think about, too. It's bad enough for him already. Stop this."
    "If those people want to think that I'm in love with you and want to touch you, let 'em. There's nothing wrong with that. People do it all the time."
    "I don't. And besides, it isn't true."
    "What if it is true? What if I fell in love with you the first time I saw you? What if I want to touch you so bad, I ache?" he asked, reaching out to content himself with a light touch to her arm.
    "Oh, stop." She flailed her arms, waving away his hand, and took a step back. "You don't even know me. Yon don't know anything about me."
    "I know me. And I know enough about you to feel the power of the possibilities between us."
    "The what? Power of the possibilities? What is that? What does it mean? That you've got hot pants and I look available?"
    "Not entirely," he said, undaunted. After all, where was the sense in wasting the time to deny the truth. He did want her. And in a very big way. "Possibilities come in a lot of different shapes and sizes. Bigger than sex, smaller than fear; as ordinary as common gossip, more peculiar than love. Possibilities are limitless, Rosemary. Really bad and really good, but you never know which until you try one."
    "Chances," she said, redefining his possibilities. She glanced out the window again to be sure they weren't being overheard. "I have too much at risk to take chances. I won't do that to Harley."
    "Or to yourself."
    Okay. He had her pegged. He'd thumbed her like a magazine and found her out. She was scared. So what?
    "That's right. Or to myself," she said, wanting to smash all his possibilities to smithereens; wishing he'd go away and leave her alone; hoping she could seal up the crack in the dam before it split apart and let loose all her emotions. "I took most of my chances a long time ago, and I lost. I have two left and I'm not going to screw them up." She hesitated for the briefest moment. "I've changed my mind about tonight. I appreciate the offer for dinner, but I don't think it's a good idea."
    "Okay. Fine. That's it," he said, stomping out of the kitchen.
    Her heart was racing and her chest was tight. She didn't like to fight and she hated hurting people . . . and she really had liked Gary. In a way. Mildly. He was a nice man. Personable. Funny, in his way. Her life wasn't his fault. He was a little overenergized, a little too intense, too full of life—sort of pushy and vigorously laboring under the false impression that she had something left in her heart to offer a man—but he wasn't a bad person.
    She listened for the door of the diner to slam closed