Black Ember Page 8

  “If you insist,” Caryn said, her heart unaccountably lighter.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “You know, you don’t really seem like the waitress type,” Zane said.

  They were sitting in the truck in a corner of the dirt parking lot. It was five minutes before two o’clock, Buddy’s official opening time, and there wasn’t another car in the lot. Since Carrie didn’t have a key, he’d decided to wait with her, and turned off the ignition and rolled down the windows. As a means of killing time, it wasn’t half bad: a cross breeze blew through the custom Silverado, mixed with her scent and accented with the nervous drumming of her fingers on the console.

  “Also,” he continued when Carrie refused to take the bait, “that doesn’t exactly smell like drugstore perfume.”

  Finally, she turned toward him and blinked her heavily made-up eyes. “Oh? Are you a connoisseur of ladies’ scents?”

  “Nah.” And he wasn’t, but he’d bought an expensive bottle or two in his life, mostly as consolation prizes for women he was planning to break up with. “Just making conversation.”

  “You don’t have to wait with me,” Carrie said, for the second time.

  “There isn’t anywhere to sit out there.”

  The parking lot was a bare bones affair, without a fence or a bench or even a cut-up stump to separate the cleared dirt from the field next door. Which worked in Buddy’s favor on those nights when the overflow crowd just drove into the field and parked.

  “I don’t need to sit. I’m sure Opal will be here any second, and besides, I can do some stretches to warm up.”

  “What kind of stretches does one do for waiting tables?” Zane asked, feigning interest. The truth was, in the past two days he’d found a new favorite hobby: trying to figure out the story behind the perplexing woman he’d rescued like a half-drowned kitten. There was something weirdly familiar about her, as though they’d gone to grade school together or she’d once cleaned his teeth at the dentist’s office, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. But even more interesting was the way none of her various parts seemed to go together.

  It was rather bewitching, if he was totally honest with himself—and even if he wasn’t, the cab of the truck was starting to feel very crowded indeed, with the tension between them. Carrie had the sort of figure a man could really spend some quality time with: long, shapely legs that now ended in simple pink sandals, which were totally at odds with her fringed and studded skirt. The holes in her shirt, which seemed to be made out of a fishing net, revealed the thin satin straps of a candy-pink bra—and the smooth stretches of white skin above and below. He’d checked for a belly-button ring, but she didn’t have one, not even a fake.

  Speaking of interesting, it would be very captivating indeed to slip his finger into one of the loopy holes in that shirt and tug her toward him until her pale, gloss-slicked lips were close enough to kiss. But he wouldn’t kiss her right away, he’d stop an inch or two from contact so he could stare deep into those golden eyes and try to figure out what made her tick.

  Zane had gone to law school at the University of Arkansas and clerked at a very fancy Little Rock firm before returning to Red Fork to practice, and he’d seen his share of people from every walk of life. That’s why he felt qualified to say that Carrie talked like the upper crust and dressed like the little match girl dressing slutty for Halloween. And the contrast was driving him wild.

  She hadn’t fooled him in the dining room, either: you didn’t learn to set a table like that from watching the Food Network. Somewhere in the past, Carrie had had a taste of the good life. And he didn’t think she had learned it from working, either; she carried herself like the wealthy women who hired his old firm to handle their high-profile divorces. Entitled, and confident, and sure she was going to get her way.

  Zane had dated a fellow clerk the summer between years of law school. Meghan came from an old Boston family. Her pedigree, her tennis game and her platinum Visa had been entertaining for a while—until Zane tried to ease her into his patented friendly breakup. Then she’d thrown a temper tantrum of epic proportions, and he’d sworn off women from the silver spoon end of the social register.

  As he was thinking all of this over, Carrie had unbuckled her seatbelt and tilted her chair back as far as it would go. Now, she slipped her feet out of the borrowed sandals and set them on the dashboard. She stretched her arms over her head, so that her back arched away from the seat, her breasts nicely displayed.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Zane said hoarsely, trying to prevent his excitement from showing by tugging his seatbelt lower.

  “Waitressing warm-ups,” Carrie said innocently, rolling her shoulder and twisting from one side to another. The top, what there was of it, slid off one shoulder, exposing more of her creamy smooth skin.

  A rumbling sound interrupted her exertions, and both of them turned to see a big old International Harvester pulling into the parking lot. A man in a squashed straw hat was driving with an unlit cigar between his teeth, and Opal sat in the passenger seat with a big white purse in her lap.

  Opal gave Zane a little wave as though she wasn’t the least bit surprised to see him waiting in the parking lot, and the tractor pulled up to the door to let her out.

  “Good thing I warmed up,” Carrie said, smiling impishly. “Now I won’t get a stress injury from picking up beer bottles.”

  Was it his imagination, or was she deliberately toying with him now? Zane’s mortification grew as he wondered if she had noticed the effect she had on him, and this was some sort of sadistic punishment.

  She rolled her head to one side, then the other, managing a couple of impressive cracks of her joints. Then she licked her glossy lips and lowered her eyelids so that he could see the opalescent shimmer of her eye shadow. She leaned in close and said softly, “Have fun at the rehearsal dinner.”

  Then she kissed him.

  It didn’t last long, as kisses went—little more than a brush of the lips and a very light encounter with the tip of her tongue—but it made up in intensity what it lacked in duration. Every cell in Zane’s body went instantly into overdrive, ready to grab her and claim her and make love to her right here in his front seat. His traitorous body seemed to have forgotten that he liked his women polished and intellectual. His hands seemed to have forgotten his keep-out-of-trouble policy, and were itching to grab hold of all the curvy parts of her body.

  Just as he reached for Carrie, to draw her closer and deepen the kiss, she pressed two fingers against his lips, pushing him gently away.

  “Not so fast, counsel,” she whispered. “I’m on the clock.”

  Then she opened the door and hopped out of his truck, heading for the bar with a sashay of the hips and a toss of her chopped-off hair.

  She never looked back, but Opal’s husband gave him a grim-faced salute as the ancient tractor chugged out of the lot, and Zane found himself alone with nowhere to go except back to the den full of bridesmaids.

  “Danger, Will Robinson,” he muttered under his breath. He considered heading into the bar and demanding a tall cold one and an explanation for that searing kiss, but instead, he turned the steering wheel toward home.

  It wasn’t much of a choice. Maybe he ought to simply drive his truck right into the Little Yellow River, rather than try to choose between a wedding party and a woman who just might be even more dangerous than she wanted him to think.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A little after midnight, Turk had announced last call and the customers were straggling out into the night. Some were headed into town to keep partying—Opal had explained that the bars in town stayed open later—but most of the regulars were calling it a night.

  Caryn had decided she’d finally figured out the whole waitressing gig. It was all a matter of shifting priorities—much like the challenges she faced at work when she tried to balance promotion for the current collection with refining her designs for the upcoming one, or when she had to tell a longstanding custom
er that the piece he had his eye on had just been purchased by someone else.

  During her shift, she’d figured out that a new table would give her a few minutes before they got impatient, absorbed in conversation and perusing the bottles up on the shelves, while tables that wanted another round tended to want it fast. She’d learned that a judicious compliment gave even the most demanding customer pause, and that unwanted grabbiness could be forestalled by a pre-emptive twist of the hips or, in an emergency, by pretending to drop her tray and “catching” it right before it landed on the offender’s face. Opal taught her a mnemonic trick for remembering the list of bottled beers, and even Turk seemed to have gained a little respect for her, especially when she washed a sink full of glasses when he went out for a cigar break before the evening rush started.

  “Guess I’ll see you out at the ranch tomorrow,” Opal said after they’d counted their tips. Caryn had managed to double last night’s take, with nearly seventy dollars in small bills and coins, but she was still far below Opal’s tips.

  “Oh?”

  “For the wedding. You’re staying out there, right? So you ought to get a first-row seat.”

  Of course Opal was invited to the wedding: the people here all seemed to consider each other part of a big extended family.

  “Are you sure I shouldn’t come in and, I don’t know, take care of things?”

  Opal shook her head. “Honey, won’t be a soul here tomorrow. We’re closing down because me and Turk and most of our regulars are going to be at the wedding. And the few who aren’t could probably use a night off to give their livers a rest.”

  “You’re sure?” Caryn asked. “Buddy won’t mind?”

  “Of course not! And he might even surprise everyone and show up at the wedding. I know for a fact he was invited. And all this nonsense about him hating weddings—I don’t buy it for a minute.”

  Here was something Caryn could dig into, finally, and she didn’t even have to pry it out of Opal. “Oh,” she said casually, “that’s right, you were saying he hates weddings. That he’s kind of bitter.”

  “Oh, now, I wouldn’t say bitter. I’d say…hey, Turk!”

  Turk had announced last call and served the last round, and now he was chatting with a couple of old-timers at the end of the bar. “Yeah?”

  “Would you call Buddy bitter?”

  Turk’s weathered face cracked into a rare, toothy smile. It took years off him and made his blue eyes sparkle, something Caryn figured he’d hate hearing. “Bitter? Buddy?” He chuckled and didn’t add anything else.

  “Maybe I’d go so far as ‘disappointed,’” Opal said. “A little sad sometimes. He’s got this puppy-dog face he makes, pulls his eyebrows together like—well, like you do, come to think of it. Like when you’re trying to write down someone’s order. Here, look confused.”

  Caryn was confused, so it wasn’t that difficult to do.

  “Yes, like that! He’s got the same line up there above his eyebrows and the same kind of squinched-up mouth. That’s pretty much the same expression he makes whenever anyone brings up women or love or marriage, anything like that.”

  “He likes women, though,” Turk called, apparently capable of listening to two conversations at once. “Don’t go giving Barracuda the wrong idea.”

  Turk seemed to have gotten over his dislike of Caryn since yesterday. Maybe it was just because there weren’t any other potential waitresses waiting in the wings—though Caryn noticed he still hadn’t taken down the hand-lettered “Waitress Wanted” sign taped up above the cash register—or maybe, now that she’d become halfway competent, he was willing to give her a chance. She found herself hoping it was the latter.

  “Like Melanie,” Caryn suggested. “He likes her, right?”

  “Oh, that’s a whole other thing,” Opal said, her eyes getting a misty softness to them. “That man loves that gal. Flat-out adores her.”

  A strange, empty sensation filled Caryn. So her bio-dad had found someone to love—she ought to be happy for him. Or maybe indifferent. It had been nearly three decades since Buddy and Georgia split up—surely the statute of limitations for broken hearts had run out long ago, and he deserved to have someone in his life. After all, Georgia had Harry.

  Still, it was hard to hear that the man who’d turned his back on her and her mother had found someone else that he loved enough to stay with. “May I ask you something?” Caryn said stiffly, stuffing her tips back into her pocket. Combined with yesterday’s, she had nearly one hundred dollars

  “Sure, honey, whatever you like.”

  “Is Buddy…well?”

  Opal blinked. “Well? Like, healthy?”

  “Yes. I just wondered…I mean sometimes they can do amazing things, with palliative care, right up to the end—not that this is the end—but if he had, say….”

  She couldn’t quite get the words out: cancer. A tumor. Liver failure. Heart disease. All the ignoble, terrible diseases that stopped people in their tracks.

  “Where on earth did you get that idea?” Opal asked. “Did Turk tell you that? Because those two, they’re a pair of practical jokers, only they ain’t either one of them half as funny as they think.”

  Caryn snuck a look at the bartender, who’d moved on to wiping out the popcorn bowls while he argued about the Twins pitching lineup with a customer. “No, it wasn’t him. I just…”

  How was she supposed to explain, without revealing the whole reason she was here, and who she was? The only way out that she could see was to lie, and Caryn Carver made a firm policy of telling the truth.

  But it wasn’t Caryn standing in this bar in borrowed shoes and a tight, short skirt. And luckily, Carrie Sawyer didn’t have any problem lying when it suited her purposes.

  “It’s just that I figured that was why he’d cut his hours so far back. I mean, a successful business like this, and him being old enough to retire, you got to figure the only reason he’s not around is he’s either tired of the job and looking to unload the place, or just not able to hack it any more.”

  “Naw, he’s a spitfire, half the time I can’t—” Opal stopped midsentence, her expression turning to alarm. “What do you mean, unload the place?”

  “You know, like sell it, so he could retire. Lots of people do that so they can spend their golden years fishing or playing bridge or, I don’t know, gardening—”—or spending all their time on charitable boards, or running for Congress, but Caryn assumed that normal people had a better sense of balance than Georgia and Harry. “—Or maybe just being with loved ones.”

  That last bit tasted bitter in her mouth; she couldn’t quite bring herself to say the name “Melanie.” Maybe if her mother had spent more time trying to please Buddy, doing whatever this Melanie did instead of nagging him to work harder, earn more, while she was dreaming of wealth and fame—maybe then they would have had a shot at the American dream: mom, dad, kid and a white picket fence.

  And that was the uncomfortable truth that she usually did such a good job of keeping hidden, even from herself. That she’d trade every high-profile event, every interview in glossy fashion spreads, every zero in her bank balance, to know what normal was. What it felt like to clip coupons, iron a husband’s shirt, teach a child to ride a bike, water a lawn, wave to a neighbor.

  “Why the long face?”

  She spun around, mouth dropping open at the familiar—but very unexpected—voice.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Zane was leaning on the bar, looking her up and down. He had to have snuck in while she was talking to Opal—well, snuck probably wasn’t quite the right word, since the door was wide open. But he was supposed to be safely sequestered at a rehearsal dinner, toasting the happy couple and flirting with the bridesmaids, a problem that was out of sight and, therefore, out of mind. Except that he hadn’t been out of mind all night.

  In fact, her mind had slipped back to thoughts of him so often—especially that reckless, spur-of-the-moment, what-was-she-thinking kis
s—that it almost seemed like she’d summoned him with the power of her own stupid crush.

  “Howdy, Zane,” Opal said, tucking her pen up into her stiff sprayed hairdo and grabbing a rag. “How’s about you help us put up these chairs. Quicker we get this place locked down, quicker we can all go home and enjoy our day off tomorrow.”

  Zane nodded but didn’t move to comply. Opal went to clear the last table, saying goodnight to the final customers who were walking out the door.

  Caryn tried not to stare, but Zane had dressed up for the rehearsal, and the effect was nothing short of breathtaking. Because Zane in a suit and tie, it turned out, was even more spectacular than Zane in jeans. Which was strange. Caryn saw well-dressed men every day, in vendor presentations and fashion shoots and publicity meetings, and she was rarely moved. Having been around beautiful people her entire life, she was generally unimpressed by physical perfection or the accouterments that money could buy. In fact, she secretly enjoyed ogling men at the other end of the spectrum—delivery men, construction workers, bike messengers, security guards—men whose appeal came strictly from their God-given assets.

  But Zane was different. He wasn’t perfect—his nose was a little too wide, his compelling gray eyes a little too far apart. What Zane was, was comfortable in his own skin. Somewhere he’d learned what looked good on him, and he was taking full advantage of that fact tonight, in a jacket that looked like it had been tailored by an expert, and a tie in a shade of aquamarine that made his eyes stand out even more. But he didn’t let the clothes wear him, either. He was neither vain nor insecure, qualities Caryn had long ago learned to recognize a mile away. She’d venture a guess that Zane was as comfortable wearing a suit to a dive bar as he would be wearing an old T-shirt on Madison Avenue.