After a moment Tyler turned slowly back around to face her and she saw him fight to keep the smile under wraps. She’d really put her heart into the imitation of the TV waitress, Alice, and knew the voice sounded funny coming out of her mouth.
“Did you chew gum?”
She drew a cross over her heart with one finger. “It was part of my job description.” She paused. “My manager had a cardboard cutout of Alice standing by the front door. He kissed it every night when he left. I couldn’t make this up if I tried.”
And then he did laugh, and she knew she was safe. She’d pulled it off. The relief was strong enough to make her glad she was sitting down.
“What’s your name?”
“Grace,” she said. The feeling of having escaped from danger was overwhelming, but she still remembered to use her mother’s maiden name. “Grace Desmond.”
The danger returned with Tyler’s next words.
“Okay, Grace Desmond. Consider yourself hired. Grand Opening is at 5:00 p.m. tonight, so show up back here at three and we’ll fill out your paperwork. Bring your license and some other kind of ID, and an apron if you have one. If not, I’ll give you one.”
Grace was shaking her head yes, in agreement, even as her mind started to panic. There was no way she could show this man her driver’s license. Even if he didn’t recognize her family name as one of the most prominent in Chicago, the address on her identification was not one a diner waitress could possibly have. Not unless she had a wealthy benefactor.
Tyler stretched a hand across the bar, ready to shake on it at last. For a moment Grace just stared at his hand, wide-palmed and strong, showing scars around the knuckles that spoke of hard work and harder play. Then she reached out and fit her own, smaller hand into his and shook on her new job.
When she tried to pull her hand away, he didn’t let go. She glanced up sharply at him, concerned. His dark eyes seemed to swallow all the light in the room as he leaned forward, gaze locked on her face, and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. She could feel the shape of his mouth on her fingers, the dampness of the inner edge of his lips catching on her skin. All over her body, muscles froze tightly in place to keep from shivering as Tyler slowly dragged his lips from side to side just once.
“And I’ll need a reference. Before you leave.”
She waited until she turned the corner and was sure he couldn’t see her from the bar windows before breaking into a run. She’d gone at least two blocks without seeing a pay phone anywhere when she remembered the cellular phone in her purse.
Surely they couldn’t be tracing her cell phone. Wasn’t that impossible? Grace decided to keep the conversation short.
She dug the phone out, flipped it open and dialed the number from heart. While she listened to the electronic rings chirping in her ear and prayed that Paul would be home, she remembered the look in Tyler’s eyes as he’d folded up the napkin on which she’d written the name and telephone number of her reference. She didn’t know if he was trying to intimidate her into the truth or to seduce her, but she was afraid that he might do both.
“Hello?” a grumpy, hoarse voice finally answered.
“Paul? Thank God, you’re home.”
“Where the damn else would I be at this ridiculous hour of the morning? And who is this calling me?”
“It’s going on eleven in the morning, Paul. Are you sure Louis can handle the lunch crowd at Nîce without you?” she teased. The little stab of pain at the thought of her favorite restaurant was ignored.
“Gracie?” She could hear him coming out of sleep, her mentor, her good friend, and today, hopefully, her savior. “Is this my little Gracie?
“Bien sûr, Paul,” she reassured him in his native French. “Have you missed me?”
“Missed you? You little brat, I am crazy with worry about you. I can’t cook. Where are you? Are you well?”
Grace felt her breath catch and the tears start to collect at the corner of her eyes. For the first time in weeks she was talking to someone who really cared about her, and the warmth in Paul’s voice was nearly enough to break her. As she took a deep breath, trying for control, she realized that Paul was still speaking to her.
“—absolument crazy around here without you. Your family talk of hiring an investigator. And your fiancé, that crétin, trying to take over my restaurant. Listen, chérie, tell me where you are and I send a taxi to get you and bring you here. And then we straighten this whole mess out.”
Investigator.
That one word was enough to snap her back to reality, which was that she was standing on a street corner in full view of the world, talking on her cell phone, and meanwhile her family, not to mention Charles, might have already hired someone to try to track her down. To bring her back.
“Paul,” she broke into his stream of words. “Paul, listen to me. First of all, Charles and I are not engaged, no matter what the family says. I never said yes. And I’ll discuss everything else with you later, but right now I need you to do me a favor. Please.”
“You know you have only to ask,” he answered immediately, the solid strength of his voice reassurance in itself.
“This is going to sound crazy, Paul, but I need you to be a reference for me so I can get a job waiting tables.” She repeated the description of the diner that she’d given to Tyler, although since Paul wasn’t familiar with the 70’s sitcom she’d based her story on, there was some confusion as to why he would ever let one of his employees chew gum. Not to mention the famous quote.
“I have eaten these grits, yes? And that was bad enough. But why would anyone want to kiss them, chérie?”
By the time she explained to Paul what he would need to say, and described what might show up on his caller ID to alert him to answer the phone “Mel’s Diner,” she was frantic to get off the phone.
“Thank you, Paul. You are saving my life.”
“I still don’t understand why you want to wait tables when you should be running all of your family’s restaurants. You know that’s what your grandmother wanted. But if it will help you, and if you promise to call me soon…”
“I will, Paul. I promise.”
After a sweaty walk during which she seriously mourned not having her personal driver still available to her, Grace made it back to the kitchenette room she was renting at the Sherradin Hotel. She watched the cockroaches scatter as she opened the door and let in the light from the hall. The bright September sunshine outside couldn’t penetrate the grime covering the small windows.
“Olly, olly, oxen-free,” she murmured, reminded of games she’d played as a child where everyone scattered into hiding places and waited for whoever was It to come and find them. She wondered how long it would take her to make enough money for a deposit on a better room.
And how are you going to rent an apartment, Ms. Grace Desmond, without any identification to show a landlord? she asked herself. Not to mention convince Tyler to keep you on.
“I don’t know,” she answered out loud, “but I have to get out of this pathetic excuse for a hotel. I don’t care how they spell it. I am never going to think I’m staying at a Sheraton.”
The single room had a bright overhead light and a sturdy lock on the door, and that was about all that could be said about it of a positive nature. On this hot, late summer day, the air was positively stifling since air-conditioning was a luxury definitely not found here. Never in her life had she lived without climate control. The discomfort of it was a revelation she’d not been thrilled to have.
Grace had bought a cheap set of blue-striped sheets and some brightly colored plastic