The two customers nearest the door evidently decided it was a good time to leave. They stood up, their chairs screeching across the floor with a noise akin to a freight train making an emergency stop.
“Enough,” Laszlo growled. “You get broom now, or you look for the other job.”
“Hey, fine with me, Fatso.” The girl pulled off her apron and tossed it on the counter. “This job sucks. I can make more money with a squeegee.” She strode to the door, her six-inch platform shoes pounding across the floor like an artillery barrage.
Del squinted as his left eye began to water.
“Nice going, Laszlo,” Joanne muttered. “That’s the second one in two days.”
“She was the idiot. She look like the witch and scare customers.”
“I suppose she couldn’t help it. I noticed right off that her aura was unbalanced.” Joanne retrieved the broom and swept up the shattered dishes. The shards clinked together with the rat-a-tat sharpness of a tap-dancing troupe practicing on a sheet of aluminum.
Del finished his coffee. Placing a paper napkin across his saucer to muffle the clunk, he carefully set the cup on top of it. The bagel he’d managed to eat was sitting in his stomach like a stone, but at least it had gone down quietly.
“Would you like anything else?”
He stifled a groan at Joanne’s perky inquiry. He started to shake his head but thought better of it. “No, thanks.”
“Sorry about the commotion,” she said. “We’re having a hard time finding a replacement for Maggie.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“Poor kid. She was so eager to have that baby, but it took all of us off guard.”
“That it did.”
“We sure were lucky that you happened to be in here. My gosh, I don’t know what we would have done when she went into labor like that.” She tilted her head, smiling at Del. “She told me she named the baby after you.”
“Yes. Delilah.”
“That’s just like Maggie. She’s such a sweet girl.”
“She’ll make a good mother.”
“That’s for sure.” She gave her gum a pensive chew. “Do you have any kids, Del?”
Why was everyone asking him that lately? “No, I don’t.”
“Maggie’s just nuts about them. When I called her this morning she was already talking about having more.” Joanne gasped and smacked her forehead. “Oh, no. Maggie!”
“What about her?” Del asked immediately. “Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing like that. She’s going home today.”
“Already?”
“I promised I would take her, and she’s anxious to leave. She hates hospitals. Laszlo said he’d lend me his car.” She whirled around. “Laszlo! You’ve got to get her back.”
“Who?”
“The kid with the earrings.”
“No. She is the witch.”
“But I have to pick up Maggie. If you don’t get that earring girl back, who’s going to cover for me?”
Laszlo scowled. “You can’t go. Maggie will wait.”
“She can’t wait. She has to clear out of the room this afternoon.”
“She can take subway.”
“The subway? Laszlo, you don’t understand. She doesn’t just need a ride, she needs someone to help her get the baby settled. It would be horrible for her to have to go home all by herself. And taking her child home is such a momentous occasion, she shouldn’t be alone—”
“I need you here.”
“But I promised. She’s expecting me in an hour.”
Del listened in silence as the two tried to figure out what to do. Of course, there was an obvious solution to the problem. His shift wouldn’t start for another few hours. He could easily get to the hospital, pick up Maggie and Delilah and take them home. That would still leave him plenty of time to get them settled before he had to meet Bill at the surveillance site.
That would be the decent thing to do, wouldn’t it? The kind of assistance a friend or an honorary uncle would give? Last night he’d already decided there would be no harm in that, right?
Despite the rain that sheeted down the window and the hangover from hell, the day suddenly seemed brighter. Del’s teeth barely ached as he scraped his chair back and stood up. “Maybe I can help,” he said.
At least the taxi was yellow instead of white, Maggie thought as the cab splashed its way across the Queensboro Bridge toward her apartment in Astoria. As long as the cab was yellow, there would be less risk of getting Del confused with a knight on a white horse, riding to her rescue.
She turned her head to look at him. His dark brown hair clung wetly to his scalp, molding the contours of his head like a helmet. His navy blue windbreaker appeared black, soaked through from the rain and weighed down against his shoulders like tightly woven chain mail. His usually neatly pressed chinos stuck to his thighs, outlining muscles that could easily control a horse.
He’d brought an umbrella with him, but it had been one of those small, collapsible ones. He’d used it to keep her and the baby dry instead of himself.
Darn chivalrous of him, wasn’t it? Like an old-fashioned knight, or maybe a cowboy out of some Gary Cooper western?
Maggie grimaced inwardly. The roller coaster ride she’d been on with her emotions since Delilah’s birth was beginning to slow down, but it wasn’t over yet. She was pathetically vulnerable right now, so she had good reason to be cautious about her reaction to Del.
He was a nice guy, that’s all. A really nice guy. He didn’t deserve to be the focus of all this silly fantasizing—she’d already decided that would only lead to trouble.
After all, that was how it had started with Alan: a chance meeting in the diner, an instant attraction to the man with the charming, too-good-to-be-true manner. He had flirted outrageously, then had swept her into a whirlwind romance. He’d topped it all off with an impetuous declaration of love that she’d wanted too badly to believe.
But Del wasn’t like Alan. He was tender and honest….
Hormones, she reminded herself, swallowing hard against the sudden lump in her throat. She’d read about this in the baby books, too. That’s why she was making such a big deal out of Del’s friendly gesture. He wasn’t trying to be charming, he was simply being, well, nice.
“How’s the baby doing?” he asked.
Maggie lifted the corner of the receiving blanket and peeked at Delilah in the car seat. “She’s still asleep.”
“Good. I was worried the rain might have woken her.”
“Thanks to you, she didn’t get a drop.”
“Great.”
She brushed her thumb across the baby’s knuckles. “It seems as if I’m always thanking you, Del.”
“You don’t have to. I’m glad I could help.”
“I’m sorry about the way Joanne roped you into this.”
“No need to apologize. I volunteered.”
“Thanks, Del.”
Thunder rumbled as the taxi pulled up in front of Maggie’s apartment building. Del got soaked once more as he held the umbrella over Maggie and Delilah and escorted them