Sleeping Alone (4 page)

“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Sally said, “but you wouldn’t catch me living alone down by the marina. Not with all that vandalism going on.”

“Any woman who’d pay cash for the Winslow place isn’t about to be scared away by some rowdy kids,” Jake pointed out. “She’s probably tough as nails.”

“A real Tugboat Annie,” Rich agreed, laughing. “Could probably arm wrestle the lot of us to the ground without even trying.”

“You’re all terrible,” Dee said, barely restraining her own laughter. “You haven’t even met the poor woman yet.”

“I know the type,” Rich said, “and you can keep her.”

“I thought we were dealing with another Princess Di,” John said. “Now we’re talking about Tugboat Annie.”

Jake nudged Eddie in the ribs. “Maybe she’ll be your dream girl.”

“You talk too damn much,” Eddie said good-naturedly. “Maybe—” He stopped dead, staring over Jake’s shoulder toward the front door.

John swiveled around to have a look. A woman stood near the cash register. She wore a long black raincoat that brushed against the hem of her jeans. Her honey-colored hair was pulled back severely from a face devoid of makeup. She didn’t need any. She was easily the best-looking woman to cross the Starlight’s threshold in at least a dozen years.

Good bones,
he thought. He’d never given the matter much thought until now. Maybe there was something to the concept.

“I don’t believe it,” Dee muttered. “She’s waiting to be seated. You’d think this was a restaurant or something.” She raised her voice. “Sit anywhere, honey. I’ll be there in a sec.”

“Take it easy on her, Dee. I don’t think she’s going to be a regular around here.” It was obvious the woman by the cash register was passing through on her way to somewhere else. She had an air of money and breeding about her, two things that were in short supply in Sea Gate.

Dee made a face at him, then glanced toward the register again. “Oh, great,” she mumbled. Now she’s coming this way. What did I do to deserve this?”

A hush fell over the counter as the old men and Sally turned to watch.

“Wow,” Rich said under his breath.

“Hubba hubba.” Jake sounded downright reverent.

Eddie just stared.

It was her walk that got to John. She walked like a goddess. He could feel her rhythm in his bones.

Dee gestured toward an empty stool at the far end of the counter. “Coffee?”

The goddess smiled. “Coffee would he lovely,” she said, “but what I’d really like is a job.”

“That’s a good one.” The woman behind the counter broke into a grin. She smelled faintly like Maxwell House and Shalimar, Alex thought; an intriguing combination. “Take a seat. I’ll pour you a cup of coffee while you read the menu.”

Alex wanted to pull her raincoat over her head and disappear.
You can’t run away, Alex. You need the money.
She straightened her spine and summoned up a phony but confident smile.

“Has the position been filled?” she asked.

“You want to wait tables?” The waitress made it sound as if Alex had announced a hostile takeover of the diner.

The room was so quiet she was sure they could all hear her heart pounding. “That’s the position being offered, isn’t it?”

“ ‘Position’? I’m not even sure it’s a job.”

“Lighten up, Dee.” The man in the fisherman’s sweater looked up from his cup of coffee. “You’ve been waiting six months for someone to walk through that door and ask for the job. At least give her a chance.”

Alex met his eyes. They were dark blue with thick straight lashes. His chestnut brown hair was in need of a trim, and a night’s growth of beard shadowed his strong jaw. His fisherman’s sweater had obviously seen better days, as had his sweatpants. To her surprise, his feet were bare. They were strong feet, long and tanned despite the fact that it was November. She felt a flutter of recognition in the pit of her stomach, but that was utterly ridiculous. She’d never known his type of man in her entire life. They didn’t exist in her old world. “Thank you very much.”

He inclined his head. “No problem.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” the waitress named Dee said. “Leave your phone number, and I’ll give it to the owner.”

Alex’s cheeks reddened. “Actually, I don’t have a phone yet.”

“You don’t have a phone?” the man in blue pajamas and running shoes piped up. “Everybody has a phone.”

“I just moved into my house yesterday,” she said, wondering why nobody else seemed to notice his strange garb. “The phone company won’t get to me until this afternoon.”

The man in the fisherman’s sweater started to laugh. “You bought Marge Winslow’s house.”

“Yes, I did,” she said, lifting her chin. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“Hell, no,” he said, “but you might the next time it rains.”

“Meaning what?”

“You need a new roof,” he said. “The one you’ve got won’t make it through the winter.”

“The real estate agent said the roof was new.”

“Compared to the house it is. It’s a matter of perspective.”

“You have a very peculiar sense of humor,” she observed. “I wouldn’t laugh if your roof—”

“Are you from England?”

The quavery female voice brought her up short, and she turned to the woman with the missing bridgework. “What?”

“You sound foreign,” the woman said, studying her with the same blatant curiosity that Alex saw on every other face in the diner.

“I’ve lived abroad.” A careful answer designed to keep her secrets. She’d always been a sponge for accents. In another few months she would sound as if she’d been born and bred on the Jersey Shore.

“I hear they have real bad toilet paper over there,” the woman said.

Alex grinned despite herself. “It’s dreadful.”

“I’m Sally Whitton, Whitton’s Bait & Tackle.”

“Alex Curry.” She paused a beat. “The Winslow house.”

In short order she was introduced to the men seated at the counter. Rich. Jake. Two Pauls. Dave. Eddie of the blue pajamas. They were all in their middle to late sixties except the one at the end in the fisherman’s sweater. His name was John, and he had the saddest, most beautiful eyes she’d ever seen.

“Are you and Eddie related?” she asked as normal conversation finally resumed around her.

“The Gallagher gave it away, did it?”

“And the fact that you look a great deal like him.” The older man must have been as ruggedly handsome in his day as his son was now.

“He’s my father.”

“Ah.” Her attention strayed toward the older man.

John Gallagher followed her gaze. “You’re wondering about the pajamas.”

“I am curious,” she admitted.

“He sleepwalks.”

“That would explain it.”

“You’ll be seeing a lot of Eddie if you get the job.”

“I’ll make sure to keep his coffee cup filled.” Would she be seeing a lot of his son as well? There was something slightly unsettling about him, although she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was. She turned to Dee. “I’ll call you this afternoon with my phone number.”

“I’m not making any promises,” Dee said, not unkindly. “My boss is the cheapest man in town. He might decide to keep me lashed to the mast alone a few months longer.”

John shot Dee a look. The woman didn’t seem to notice, but Alex did, and wondered if it was a signal she should get out of there before they started asking about her job experience.

“Well,” she said, beginning to inch her way toward the door, “thanks very much.”

“Stay,” Dee said. “Have some coffee. The breakfast rush is just about over. If you can wait a little while, we’ll talk.”

“No!”

Dee’s eyebrows shot toward the ceiling. “No?”

Oh, God, she was making a terrible mess of things. “I mean, that’s a wonderful idea, but I must run. I have a million errand... you know, moving in and ail...”

“It’s not even seven in the morning,” Dee said, obviously puzzled by her explosive reaction. “Believe me, the diner’s the only place open at this hour. Why don’t you—”

“She has things to do, Dee,” John Gallagher broke in. He met Alex’s eyes. “Next thing you know, she’ll be putting up a fence to keep the paying customers inside.”

“Don’t give me any ideas,” Dee muttered, swatting him with a dish towel. “Call me this afternoon,” she said to Alex. “Maybe I’ll have an answer for you.”

Alex didn’t need a crystal ball to know what that answer would be.

* * *

Dee waited until the door closed behind the woman, then motioned for John to join her in the kitchen.

“Way to go, Johnny!” Sally waggled her painted-on eyebrows. “It’s about time you and Dee got cozy.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling him,” Eddie said with a loud sigh. “One of the Gallaghers has to snap her up.”

John ignored the lighthearted banter as he pushed open the swinging door and stepped into the kitchen. Will, the cook, was smoking a cigarette on the back step.

“So what do you think?” Dee asked as she poured herself a glass of orange juice. “Do we hire her to wait tables or call
Vogue
?”

“You were a little rough on her out there,” he said, grabbing a glass of juice for himself. “Her hands were shaking.”

“Did you see those hands?” Dee countered, glancing at her own hands with obvious dismay. “I don’t think they’ve done much more than arrange flowers.”

He’d noticed. Hell, he’d noticed just about everything about Alex Curry, from her thick mane of dark blond hair to the perfectly polished loafers on her narrow feet. She belonged at the Starlight about as much as he belonged at Buckingham Palace.

He leaned against the sink and polished off his juice. “So she probably doesn’t know from manual labor. Do you want to hire her or not?”

“You’re the boss,” she said. “You tell me.”

“Keep it down, will you?” He gestured toward Will on the back porch. “Nobody else needs to know.” Nick, the former owner, had skipped town two months ago, leaving a paper trail of unpaid bills that shocked even his accountant. His customers thought he was visiting relatives in Greece, but the truth was he’d vanished into the ether and wasn’t coming back. The bank had wanted to foreclose on the diner, but John stepped in and took over the payments, with the proviso that his intercession be kept between him and the bank. Too many people depended on the Starlight Diner to let it go down without a fight.

Dee hopped up on the counter opposite John. “I don’t think she knows the first thing about waiting tables.”

“Yeah,” he said slowly, “you’re probably right.”

She inclined her head toward the front of the diner. “Did you see the way the old guys looked at her? I’ll be mopping up drool marks if she comes on board.”

“Could get messy,” he agreed.

“It’ll probably take me weeks to get her up to speed. I’ll be working twice as hard.”

“Which is the last thing you need.”

Her brown eyes flashed. “Damn right it’s the last thing I need.”

“So you don’t want to hire her.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“So what are you saying?”

“Hire her.” She tossed a plastic tub of maple syrup at him. “You’ve always been a sucker for a hard-luck story.”

“Who says she’s a hard-luck story?”

Dee’s familiar glower melted into a grin. “She wants to work here, doesn’t she?”

* * *

“That’s it.” The telephone installer crawled out from behind the sofa and slapped dust off his knees. He handed Alex a sheet of paper. “Your phone number is on there.”

Alex started to laugh as she read off the ten digits. “This is wonderful!” she said, unable to contain her excitement. “Thank you, thank you!”

“Hey, it’s only a phone number, lady. No big deal.”

Maybe it wasn’t a big deal to him, she thought as she locked the door, but it was a
huge
deal to her. A house, a car, and a telephone. Now all she needed was a job and she might be able to hang on to them.
So what are you waiting for? Call the diner and give them your number.

She flipped through the crisp new phone book until she found a listing for the Starlight Diner, then quickly dialed before she lost her nerve.

“Starlight, Dee speaking.”

“Hello, th—this is Alex Curry. I came in this morning and spoke to you about—”

“The job,” Dee interrupted. “I remember.”

Alex’s knees were knocking, and she sat down on the arm of the sofa. “I—um, I said I’d call you with my new phone number and—”

“You’ve got the job.”

Alex slipped off the arm and landed on the end sofa cushion. She must be dreaming.

“Are you still there?” Dee asked.

“Did you say I’ve got the job?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Oh, my God.”

“You’ve changed your mind?”

“No!” She sat up straight, as if phone posture counted. “Absolutely not! I’m thrilled.” Not to mention shocked.

“So when do you want to start?”

“I can be there in ten minutes.”

Dee started to laugh. “Honey, talk to me again this time next year. I was thinking more like Monday.”

“Monday?” Alex couldn’t hide her disappointment.

“It’s Thanksgiving week,” Dee said. “We’ll be closed Thursday, and things are usually pretty light over the holiday weekend.”

Monday. Alex suppressed a sigh. “What time?”

“We open at seven, but I try to get there by six or six-fifteen.”

“I’ll be there at six.”

“Why is it I have the feeling you’ve never waited tables before?”

Alex’s heart dropped to her feet. “Is that a rhetorical question?”

“No,” Dee said after a moment. “Actually I wouldn’t mind an answer.”

“I’ve never waited tables before.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you change your mind about hiring me.”

“I wouldn’t blame me either,” Dee said, “but I have the feeling you need us as much as we need you.”

“So I still have the job?”

“You still have the job.”

“You won’t regret this,” Alex promised as she danced around the room. “I’ll be the best waitress you ever saw.”

“Just show up on time,” Dee said. “I’ll take it from there.”

* * *

The phone blasted John awake at 4:14 on Thanksgiving morning. The green numbers glared at him from his digital clock as he fumbled around on the nightstand for the receiver. Not even dawn yet, and already the day sucked for air.

“Is this John Gallagher?” A woman’s voice. That got his attention. Even his sleep-fogged brain recognized it as a damn fine woman’s voice. Vaguely familiar. Definitely not a hometown voice.

“Who is this?”

“I’m looking for John Gallagher,” she repeated. “If this isn’t his number, I—”

“This is John Gallagher.”

“Your father is here with me.”

“Who the hell is this?”

“Alex,” she said. “Alex Curry.”

The goddess. He woke up the rest of the way. The goddess was calling him? “He can’t be there. My old man’s sound asleep.”

“Yes, he is,” she agreed. “In my living room.”

He groaned and dragged a hand through his tangled hair. Twice in two days. What the hell was going on?

“I found him on my front porch in his pajamas,” she went on. “I think he was sleepwalking and stopped here.”

“You’re the Winslow house, right?”

Her laugh was soft, infinitely enticing. “I’d rather think of it as the
Curry
house now.”

“Whatever you do, don’t let him leave,” he said, reaching for the jeans he’d left draped over the closet door. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

* * *

Five minutes? Alex’s stomach did a back flip. She’d found John Gallagher unsettling enough at the diner. The thought of him in her living room almost made her wish she’d left Eddie out there on the front porch. She wasn’t afraid of John Gallagher—he was just so overwhelmingly male that he made her aware of herself as a woman in a way she hadn’t been for a long time.