Even in the snow that had started to fall it didn’t take long to get from the apartment complex to The Bistro. Holly could see that Jon-Paul had been right in his predictions. It was still a little before six, and there were already a good number of cars in the lot.
“All right! Even five minutes early,” Felicity crowed. “This is a pleasant surprise.”
Holly scrunched up her nose. “I’m not that predictably late, am I? Don’t answer that.” The grin on Felicity’s face answered for her.
They went over the evening’s specials together and Jon-Paul filled her in on the few changes he’d made during preparation of the night’s featured dishes. Felicity’s hand was on the swinging door between the kitchen and the dining room when she turned back to look at Holly. “I almost forgot—you already have one customer. A fairly good-looking younger guy came in alone and asked specifically for one of your tables. He said he’d wait for you no matter when you showed up.”
“That’s odd. I can’t imagine who that would be.”
“No old flames or anything?”
“Not a clue.” Holly couldn’t even think of anybody who knew she was in Safe Harbor, Wisconsin, who fit Felicity’s description. A growing dread told her that anyone looking for her here couldn’t mean good things. She tried to push the feeling away and listen to what Felicity was saying about the stranger.
“He asked for coffee, and I’ve refilled it once. But otherwise he said he’d wait for you.” Felicity went out to check on her own tables, and Holly got ready for her mystery customer and the rest of the evening rush. She looked at the specials board again, trying to commit everything to memory.
The swinging door whooshed behind her as she entered the dining room. The inside of The Bistro looked like the perfect place to be on a wintry night like this. The fire in the big brick fireplace cast a cozy glow on the big dining room. Surely no place this welcoming and cozy could hold danger.
At the corner table in “her” section, a man sat with his back to her, and his back to the fire. Holly didn’t recognize him right away from his back view, with his neatly cut sandy-brown hair and nondescript jacket.
“Hi, welcome to The Bistro. My name is Holly and I’ll be your server this evening. Would you like to hear our specials?” She got the whole spiel out before she made eye contact with the stranger and her world collapsed in a split second.
Chapter Two
“You don’t look glad to see me.” Alex Wilkins figured that was the understatement of the century. Holly Douglas looked horrified. She had barely kept from dropping the leatherette case holding her order pad, and the pen she had grasped in her other hand slid to the floor.
He almost wished her dark hair hadn’t been swept back away from her face. Maybe if she’d had the luxury of letting it cover her flushed cheeks she could have pretended to be more glad to see him. Even that was doubtful.
Sitting in the cushy booth in this romantic restaurant, reducing a woman to tears by his very presence, Alex decided he definitely hated his job. Nobody was ever glad to see him. It was like being a dentist who only did root canals. No, they all knew it was bad news or an arrest warrant when he was there. Even his own superiors weren’t that happy to see him most days. Since as one of their lead investigators they handed him only the complicated stuff, they were usually in foul moods even before he got to them.
“You’re right. I’m not glad to see you.” Holly’s soft voice, choked with emotion, broke into his thoughts. “This can’t be a social call. Nobody drives over sixty miles in January just to visit in this neck of the woods.”
“Sounds like you’re fitting in with the locals real well. Wish I could tell you that a social call was all I was here for. I’d love to be able to say I made this drive just to check up on you.” Alex watched her face while he spoke to her.
The woman might have been married to a cop, but she hadn’t picked up a cop’s habits. She still wore her emotions for all to see. Including that flutter of hope when she thought for a split second that seeing him didn’t mean more bad news.
“Of course you didn’t. That would make my life too easy. And life right now is never easy.” Holly snapped open that order pad again. “But you better be on the county’s expense account, because I can’t stand here and chat all night with somebody who’s not ordering dinner.”
“Steak. Medium rare. With a baked potato—none of that trendy garlic-mashed, goat cheese stuff.” That got the first ghost of a smile out of her he’d seen. “And a salad, if it’s going to be made up of things I can recognize.”
“For you, I’ll have Jon-Paul put together his famous NWS special.”
“Okay, you have me interested. What’s that?”
This time the smile flashed into an honest grin, and Alex was reminded that Holly Douglas was a young woman, not even thirty. Only the care and trouble of the past few years had dimmed the natural beauty in the planes of her face. “The No Weed Salad. A nice chunk of iceberg flat on a plate with Thousand Island dressing.”
“Make it blue cheese and you have a deal.”
“Will do. And Alex? I have plenty to do for the next three hours. So don’t expect any more attention than the rest of my customers.”
“Don’t worry. I’m a good tipper, even when the county isn’t paying. And things are mostly okay, Holly. I just have a little news you’re not going to want to hear. It will keep until you get done with your shift.”
She looked visibly relieved. Alex felt bad for a split second for trivializing what he’d been sent here to tell her. Holly wouldn’t look that happy again for quite some time once she heard what he had to say. Still, there was no sense upsetting her when she had work to do. Having another three hours of blissful ignorance of the latest happenings in Cook County, Illinois, wouldn’t change Holly’s life in the long run. And it would give Alex a little more time to figure out how to break the news that this new life they’d set up for her might all be tumbling down.
While he thought about what he was going to say, Alex scanned the large room that made up the main dining area of The Bistro. He wondered how Holly went to work here every day. The place was designed for couples to sit at the tufted leather booths, leaning over flickering candlelight. At some of the larger tables there were family groups, or bunches of friends, all of whom would have reminded him on a daily basis of what he was missing as a single adult. And Holly wasn’t single by choice.
Kevin Douglas should still be doing his job on the force, coming home at night to his pretty wife and active kids. They had twins, didn’t they? It was what Alex remembered, and he struggled to recall how old the boys would be now. Old enough to realize that their daddy wasn’t coming back, that was for sure. And old enough to realize something was up when he came home with their mother tonight. Alex hoped they’d be tucked into bed before he went home with Holly. That way there would be one less scene in the course of the evening.
“Tell Jon-Paul that his salad was superb. Almost as good as his steak,” Alex said two hours later as he stretched his legs out under the table.
“I will. Does all this praise mean you don’t have any room for a piece of apple pie?”
“Nobody ever said that. Think you could swing a scoop of ice cream on top, too?”
“Sure. We even have homemade cinnamon ice cream. I know it’s not the traditional vanilla, but you have to let Jon-Paul have his flourish someplace, don’t you? He gets cranky if all his artful touches are denied.”
“Cinnamon ice cream I can handle. Especially after he went to all the trouble to make the rest of the meal as fuss free as possible.”
“Coffee? For most folks I’d suggest decaf this late at night, but I don’t suppose you’re