repeated to herself silently.
“Your reference checked out fine. Great, even. Although you should tell that guy to cut out the fake French accent.”
She didn’t think he’d noticed her come in. His back to the door still, redialing the phone, Tyler reached behind him and placed some papers and a pen on the bar.
“Just fill these out, you can skip the references part, and we’ll get you set up.”
For five minutes he chatted up what sounded like yet another woman on the phone, his voice coaxing seductively, promising anything. Meanwhile, Grace filled out her fake name, and hotel address, and then stared blankly at the lines requesting her driver’s license and social security numbers. She hadn’t figured out a way to wriggle out of this part yet.
When Tyler hung up the phone and finally turned toward her, she flinched involuntarily and started digging through her purse, looking for inspiration.
“Not done yet?” he asked, looking at the half-completed form.
“Um, no,” she mumbled as she shoved her wallet to the bottom of her purse. Then she put on her most innocent, worried look and tilted the purse so that he could look in to see the tangle of makeup and scrap paper. “I think I left my wallet back in my room.”
With any luck, her new boss would just think she was a little flighty, and not a little con artist.
Her luck held.
“Bring it tomorrow,” he said shortly. Punching a button on the register, he popped the cash drawer open and tugged out two twenties. He handed them across the bar to Grace. “Somehow, we didn’t get any limes or lemons with our produce delivery this morning. Not a good thing for a bar. I want you to get as many of each as you can.”
The request was made as casually as if she’d worked for him for years, but Grace still felt as though she was being tested. She wondered what odds he was putting on her returning with the fruit and banished her irritation at being under suspicion. Hopefully, the idea that she’d run off with his cash was the long shot in his mind.
“I don’t really know the neighborhood. I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
She’d apologized automatically, somehow feeling the need to atone for the theft she knew he imagined.
“There’s a store two blocks north on Linden,” he continued. “Make it fast. We’ve got a lot of work to do still.”
She slid off the stool and flew out the front door of the bar. Feeling as though she’d just received a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card in a Monopoly game, she was halfway to the store before she realized that she hadn’t really escaped anything. She would still have to figure out how she could get around showing him an ID.
Tyler might not worry about filling out her paperwork for a day or two, but Grace knew that wouldn’t last. Sooner or later he’d remember that he had yet to see any form of identification from her. She would count on making herself invaluable to the man before that point.
Even if she only had tonight, she’d do it. She’d make Tyler think he couldn’t live without her.
Strange lady, Tyler thought as he continued making the necessary calls to come up with at least a skeleton staff for the night. She’d practically begged him for this job, but she’d rushed out the door on his errand as though she’d just been let out of prison.
The ever-present nervousness in her vivid blue eyes contrasted sharply with the delicate grace of her features. She looked as if she constantly expected him to snap at her. And she had definitely been aware of his spontaneous honesty test. He’d seen the flare of anger she quickly suppressed when she realized he thought she might take his money and run.
He was actually fairly certain she’d return, produce in hand, if for no other reason than to prove his suspicions wrong. What disturbed him was the feeling that he’d be far more than a little disappointed if she didn’t come back. Tyler told himself that it was just that he needed her for the job, but knew that his concern ran deeper than that, even after only a few hours.
Shrugging off his uneasy thoughts, he dialed the next number and waited for the female voice that eventually answered.
“Hi, sweetheart. Tell me you’re not doing anything exciting tonight. I need you badly.”
Two
Right up until the moment when the three-year-old at table six nailed her on the chin with a maraschino cherry, Grace thought the night was going fairly well.
Even as the little demon’s parents apologized frantically for his assault with a flying garnish, Grace just shook her head and marched straight to the rear of the restaurant. She pushed the swinging doors to the kitchen hard enough to set them flapping on their hinges and threw her tray on a stainless-steel counter.
“I quit,” she announced to the room in general. “It is a complete madhouse out there and I’d rather shovel manure for a living than bring another Shirley Temple to that little monster at table six.”
The faces that turned toward her from the grill and the dishwasher were female and smiling widely at her threat.
It was the fourth time she’d quit since the doors had opened at 5:00 p.m. She supposed her threats didn’t carry much weight anymore.
“C’mon, Grace,” Sarah called cheerfully from where she stood at the sink, up to her elbows in soapy water and dirty plates. “You’re the only one of us who knows what she’s doing. You were certainly right that I’d help out most by scrubbing pots.”
Grace flushed with guilt as she remembered how she’d banished Sarah to the kitchen to wash dishes after the second time Sarah had dropped a trayful of drinks in one hour. The man Sarah had drenched with Merlot and beer had only settled down after she’d comp’ed his meal.
“I shouldn’t have told you what to do, Sarah. After all, you’re doing Tyler a favor just by helping out.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m clearly not cut out for waiting tables, and if somebody didn’t wash these dishes, we’d run out of plates to serve dinner on fast enough.” Sarah grinned at her and blew sweaty bangs off her forehead with a puff of breath. The ponytail she’d pulled her hair into was wilting rapidly in the steamy heat of the dish room.
“Besides, if a sister won’t scrub pots for her brother, then who will?” Sarah asked and shook her butt to the music spilling out of the boom box on the dishrack behind her.
Sarah’s easy acquiescence to Grace’s taking charge was only the latest in a string of surprises.
Grace’s first surprise had come when she’d returned to the restaurant, after getting just a tiny bit lost on her errand, to find the tables set, the soup of the day simmering and the makings of a restaurant staff ready to pitch in for the evening. By the time she’d been introduced to Addy, Sarah and Max, Tyler’s older and two younger sisters, respectively, and Susannah, his mother, Grace was spinning in a whirlwind of names and unfairly beautiful dark-haired women.
“Mom, bless her beautiful heart, is going to cook.” A snort of laughter from his mother made them all laugh. “You’ll be fine, Mom. The Garcias
