The Harder They Fall
Read The Harder They Fall Online
Authors: Trish Jensen
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Restaurateurs, #Businesswomen
“I laughed so hard I fell off the couch
. . .
More please.”
—
All About Romance
“Trish Jensen is the undisputed queen of comedic romance.”
—
Kathy Boswell,
The Best Reviews
Food fight, love match, or both? She’s a lovable klutz. He’s a stuffed shirt. Who will trip up and fall in love first?
Darcy Welham’s dad is ready to sell his five-star restaurants and retire, but she’s determined to prove she can be trusted to keep the family business going. Darcy’s sure it’s what her mother would have wanted. Only one problem: her life turns into a comedy show when she’s nervous. Pratfalls, spills, slips and fires—all in a day’s misadventures for Darcy. She can’t even wait on tables without dumping food into the customers’ laps.
When supper lands on a sensitive area of businessman Michael Davidson’s finely creased trousers he tries to have his gorgeous but careless waitress fired, only to discover that she’s the person he has to win over if he wants to buy the restaurant chain for his bosses.
From that antagonistic start, Darcy and Michael soon find that there’s more to each other than first expected. She’s clumsy because she’s got low self-esteem. She may be a disaster as a waitress, but she’s a genius as a cook, with a talent for creating mouth-watering new dishes. Darcy begins to realize that Michael is not a stuffed shirt at heart—he’s patient, strong and brave, which any man who dates Darcy has to be, because she turns into a Danger Zone every time he makes her heart flutter.
Trish Jensen is the bestselling author of STUCK WITH YOU. Look for more funny and romantic Trish Jensen novels coming soon from Bell Bridge Books.
Visit Trish at http://TrishJensen.com.
From Bell Bridge Books
The Harder They Fall
Stuck With You
Against His Will
Just This Once
On the House
Send Me No Flowers
For A Good Time, Call
Phi Beta Bimbo
by
Trish Jensen
Bell Bridge Books
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.
Bell Bridge Books
PO BOX 300921
Memphis, TN 38130
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-143-2
Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-126-5
Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.
Copyright © 1997 by Trish Jensen
Stuck With You
excerpt copyright © 2001 by Trish Jensen
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
A mass market edition of this book was published by Harlequin Books for the
Love and Laughter
line in 1997
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Cover design: Debra Dixon
Interior design: Hank Smith
Photo credits:
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To my parents, Herb and Nancy Graves, for gifting me with a vivid imagination, a sense of humor and a romantic soul. I am so blessed.
Darcy Welham knew she was in trouble when the grilled tuna landed on the man’s lap. High up on the man’s lap. Very high up on the man’s lap.
“Oh, no!” she moaned. “Not again!”
She tried to grab for it before he noticed. She missed. The mass in her hand most certainly wasn’t tuna.
He noticed. He shot to his feet like a missile, knocking her tray out of her hand in the process. Water flew through the air. Before she could yell, “Duck!” he was as wet as one.
Cringing, she chanced a glance at him. His piercing blue eyes narrowed, his ink-black hair dripped water down his face and neck. A muscle in his jaw jerked rhythmically.
Darcy snatched the edge of the white tablecloth and tried to blot at the wet spots on his tailored navy suit. “I’m sorry! I’ll . . . pay to have it cleaned.”
The man backed up. Darcy followed, trying desperately to save his designer tie.
The crash of china and silverware stopped her in her tracks. With a grimace, Darcy looked over her shoulder.
The good news was, the candle had been extinguished during its fall to the floor. The bad news was . . . everything else.
She dropped the incriminating cloth as if it had caught fire. Glancing around the room, she realized she’d captured the attention of every single patron of Welham’s Restaurant. Closing her eyes, she whispered a quick, beseeching prayer to God to deliver her from this situation.
Cracking one eye open, she knew her prayer had fallen on deaf ears. Again.
“Darcy . . .” Tom Murphy, the restaurant manager, said slowly, “May I see you in my office?”
Darcy sighed. Glancing at Tom, she saw the telltale tic begin to twitch under his left eye. That wasn’t a good sign. She also noticed the tuna man staring at her as if he’d like to ward her off with a cross. Darcy didn’t take offense. She’d grown used to seeing that expression on people’s faces. Eventually everyone looked at her like that, including the succession of nannies she’d had during her youth.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’ll go put in another order for tuna—”
“No!” the man shouted. “I mean,” he said, lowering his voice, “I think I’ll just have some coffee.”
Well, there went another tip, Darcy thought. She didn’t think Tom would let her charge the man for his tuna, seeing as it landed . . . where
did
the tuna go? she wondered, looking around.
Anthony, the busboy, had already started cleaning the mess behind her. He must have picked it up. With another sigh, Darcy retrieved her tray from the floor. “I’ll get you that coffee,” she said to the man, who was using his handkerchief to dry his face. She moved to step past him, but her shoe landed on something soft and squishy. Her foot slid out from under her.
Darcy windmilled her arms in a vain attempt to keep her balance. The tray in her hand connected with something solid, and she heard a grunt of pain.
Her bottom landed hard on the floor. Thank God her uniform included black pants, because her legs ended up splayed in a very unladylike position. Peeking through lowered lashes, she tried to determine what she’d hit with the tray.
Since the customer was clutching his nose, she thought she had her answer.
Tom Murphy was trying to console the man. Darcy got a
little miffed that he was ignoring her. After all,
she
was the one who’d fallen on her rump.
Well, she did feel bad about the man’s nose. If she remembered correctly, he had a very nice nose. In fact, come to think of it, all of his features were quite nice. Combined, they managed to make him very attractive. When he wasn’t glaring at her, like he was doing right now.
“I think I found your tuna,” Darcy said lamely.
“First, you flooded
the kitchen!”
Darcy. sniffed. “That was my first day on the job. No one told me the dishwasher trap had to be cleared after every cycle.” She waved vaguely. “I wasn’t cut out to wash dishes, anyway.”
Tom Murphy stopped pacing back and forth across his office and pointed at Darcy’s nose. “Then, you nearly burned the place down.”