“Yeah, go ahead,” Cam said, closing her eyes in relief, suddenly remembering why the mere thought of having kids scared the hell out of her.
Chapter Four
Luke slid into the booth at the Go Back Grill, the smell of greasy food all but making him salivate. Though he was still trying to recover from two months of living on nothing but trail mix and rehydrated soup, he had to admit the results felt pretty damn good.
When he’d seen himself naked in the bathroom mirror at Gù Brath that first night, he’d been stunned to realize that he’d lost over twenty-five pounds of fat. But he’d probably added ten pounds of lean, hard muscle, and for the first time in years, Luke was more than casually aware of the six-foot-two, broad-shouldered body that housed his brain. He really had been spending too much time in the lab, and once he got back to work, he’d have to remind himself to get more exercise.
“Beer?” the waitress asked just as he opened the menu.
“What do you have for imported wine?” he asked absently, scanning the various food offerings that were thoughtfully accompanied by pictures.
“Red, white, or blush.”
“What do you have for imported red?”
“That’s it. Red house wine, white house wine, or blush,” she said dryly. “You want anything fancier, you have to drive to Portland. We serve forty-two different beers, mixed drinks, and house wines.”
Luke finally looked up with a frown, only to come face to . . . chest with a set of creamy white breasts being pushed out of an indecently lowcut blouse by an impossibly tight black leather corset.
The woman belonging to the breasts lifted his chin with the end of her pencil, forcing his gaze up to her scowling face. “Red, white, or blush,” she repeated through gritted teeth.
“I’ll have a Guinness,” he said, carefully lifting his chin off her pencil and looking back at his menu. “And your largest steak, a baked potato—loaded—and coleslaw. And,” he said a bit more forcefully when she started to leave, “a large salad, no onions, with blue cheese dressing.”
As she stomped away, Luke heard a soft giggle over the din of patrons. The young woman clearing the table across the aisle continued to laugh behind her hand as she watched his waitress leaving, then looked back at him.
Luke glanced around to make sure he was the one causing her amusement, then smiled at her. “Do you think I should give her a bigger tip for that stunt, or not leave her anything?” he asked.
The young girl tossed her rag in the bucket on her cart of dirty dishes, and walked over. “It took an act of Congress to get her into that uniform tonight,” she said. “Add to that how uncomfortable that leather bustier is, and you’re lucky she only used that pencil to close your mouth, instead of using it to poke out your eyes.” She suddenly held out her hand. “Hello, I’m Fiona.”
Surprised but utterly charmed by the beautiful young woman’s straightforwardness, Luke took her offered hand and gently shook it. “Luke Pascal.”
“Do you live here in Go Back Cove, Luke?” she asked. “Or are you just passing through?”
“I checked into the hotel across the street just a few minutes ago, but I plan to hang around awhile. I’m on sabbatical from work, and I thought I’d spend some time at the coast while I’m visiting Maine.”
“The winter ocean is so desolate and lonely-looking, don’t you think?” she asked. “Sometimes it’s just a bleak gray that softly ebbs and flows, as if it were waiting for its true love to appear, and sometimes it’s churning and angry, mad because that love is taking so long to show up,” she said dreamily, her sad smile and crystalline blue eyes making her face practically glow.
Luke decided she wasn’t charming, she was enchanting. She was beautiful, poised, and well spoken, and she reminded him of his baby half sister, Kate, who had a dramatic streak a mile wide and a romantic imagination to go with it.
“Table three needs clearing,” his waitress told Fiona as she thunked Luke’s bottle of Guinness—and no glass—down on the table without even looking at him. “If you don’t want to get fired your first night, you better keep moving.”
Completely unruffled by the waitress’s stern handling, Fiona reached in her apron pocket and handed her some money. “Here. This is from table three.”
“A buck?” the waitress growled, staring at the single dollar bill in her hand.
Fiona softly snorted. “I saw the man leave you a ten, but when he went to pay the bill, the woman with him stuffed it in her purse and replaced it with a one.”
The waitress turned her back on Luke to whisper to the girl. “I told Dave these stupid costumes would backfire on us. Go on, you better get hustling.” She started walking away with her, still whispering. “You have to stop fraternizing with the customers, Fiona. This is a pub, not a social club.”
“I’m sorry, Camry. I keep forgetting because I like meeting new people.”
Luke didn’t hear any more of their conversation as they moved away, but he did turn to stare after them.
Camry?As in Camry MacKeage? What in hell was a physicist doing working in a bar, dressed like an eighteenth-century wench?
Naw, it couldn’t be her. The probability of stumbling across Dr. MacKeage after being in town less than an hour had to be a million to one.
Not that Go Back Cove was a thriving metropolis or anything. And Fionacould even be the F person who had sent the Christmas card.
What had Grace called it? Magic? Serendipitous coincidence?
Luke picked up his beer and took a long swallow. Naw. He didn’t believe in anything but cold hard facts, and then only if he could back them up with numbers.
Still, if he found out Miss Congeniality had piercing green eyes—assuming he could keep his gaze on her face long enough to find out—then the numbers had just turned a bit more in his favor, hadn’t they?
“Here,” Camry snapped, slapping the dollar bill on the counter in front of Dave. “Put this toward the damages.”
“What damages?” her boss asked, frantically looking around.
“The damages I’m going to cause the next time one of your precious patrons stiffs me. I swear if I’d seen that woman swap my tip, I’d have chased her right out the door and stuffed that stupid dollar bill down her throat.” She tugged on the bustier, which wasn’t only cutting into her boobs but cutting off her breath, and glowered at Dave. “I told you these stupid uniforms would backfire on us. The men are leaving us nice tips, but the women with them are scoffing them up as soon as the men turn their backs. For someone who claims he’s trying to run a family pub, you seem to be moving in exactly the opposite direction. Women patrons do notlike being served by wenches with escaping anatomy, and mothers do notlike their children staring up their waitress’s skirt.”
Dave sighed. “Doris told me she had a similar problem with the tipping, but she also said that the unaccompanied males are leaving double what they usually do.” He grinned, shoving the dollar bill back across the counter. “So that evens things out.”
“I’ve nearly dropped three trays of food because of these stupid heels,” she muttered, shifting her weight to give her left foot a rest. “It has to be against insurance codes or something for waitresses to serve in heels. If we don’t kill someone with a falling tray, at the very least we could pop a tendon.”
“It’s not like they’re stilettos or anything; they’re only two inches high.”
“Doris is nearly sixty, Dave. She’s limping.”