Here Comes Trouble (19 page)

Not that it was any of Lacy’s business. It’s not like they were a married couple and were obligated to share their deepest, darkest secrets with each other. What they shared was nothing more than some compatible sex. Well, more than compatible. Downright combustible. But still, hardly a reason for him to tell her something he wasn’t comfortable with.

Henry plated a cowboy rib-eye and a stuffed chicken breast for Lacy to deliver. After Phil added garlic mashed potatoes and sautéed asparagus, Lacy picked up the two plates and hustled them out to the dining room.

Certainly she didn’t
need
to know Chase’s big secret, if there even was one. Chances were she was reading between the lines of their conversation, although instinct told her he hadn’t been one hundred percent honest with her.

The two diners, receiving the ribeye and stuffed chicken, shoved their glasses out of the way and grinned like people being handed a pot of gold. Lacy wished them a good meal and stopped by the table next to them to clear salad plates. Thirty minutes had passed since Lacy had first spotted the curly-haired sex pot waiting for her rendezvous with Chase. Just as Lacy had known would happen, the woman was still alone. Only now, a noticeable rose-colored blush filled her high cheekbones. Her elegant fingers, once tapping a smooth rhythm, now spun the long-stem wine glass in circles.
Hmm, the sign of a pissed-off stood-up woman?

After dropping the salad plates in the sink, Lacy pushed her way into the dining room once more.

“Would you like to look at the menu again and make a selection?” Lacy asked the agitated lone diner.

She turned her tight-lipped grimace to Lacy. “What I’d like is for you to tell Chase I’m here so I don’t have to wait for him anymore.”

Did the woman not understand basic English? Maybe Lacy ought to run her up to Chase’s office so she could see it was locked up tighter than a fortress.

“Honestly, what is he doing?” The woman craned her head around Lacy’s frame. “I haven’t seen him once. Shouldn’t he be on the floor?” She waved a hand in the air, allowing the lights to twinkle off her emerald ring. “I don’t know, supervising or something?”

Lacy pulled a patience-inducing breath in her lungs. “Like I said before, Mondays and Tuesdays are his days off. He won’t be here until Wednesday. Our mushroom risotto is one of the best items on the menu. Would you like me to have them fire one up for you?”
Because if you don’t order something I’m going to have to kick you out which I really don’t want to do, considering your attitude so far.

“Fine, bring the risotto.” She lifted her wine glass and sucked down an unnaturally large gulp. “Do me a favor and have Chase deliver it. But don’t worry, I’ll still give you a tip.”

Good Lord, the woman put new meaning to the term
dense.

The subject of Chase’s absence wasn’t something Lacy wanted to debate with her any longer. Lacy scribbled
mush risotto
on her ordering pad and stabbed the entry into the computer.

Ten minutes later, Lacy placed the app in front the year’s worst diner. Muttering an
enjoy your appetizer
, Lacy spun on her heel like her ass was on fire and walked to another one of her tables.

“I was beginning to think you had a camper over there,” Diane muttered in Lacy’s ear when the two of them stood at the pass.

“I might still. She’s waiting for Chase.”

Diane snorted and placed on plate on her tray. Henry dutifully inspected the other four while Diane waited.

“She’s going to be waiting a while.”

Lacy grinned. “I tried to tell her but she’s hell bent on sticking around. I managed to talk her into ordering an app so I wouldn’t have to kick her out.”

“That’s always an ugly scene,” Diane agreed.

Lacy glanced at her watch and continued to wait for her entrees. “How’s Tom doing?”

Diane bobbed her head from side to side and ran stubby fingers through her spiky hair. “He’s coping. The pain pills knock him out so he spends most of his time sleeping. The doctors say he needs to spend at least another six weeks off his leg, then he has to go to physical therapy before he can return to work.”

Lacy felt sorry for Diane. Since her husband’s injury at work, she’d become the sole bread winner. Trying to feed a family of six on a waitress’s salary couldn’t be easy.

Lacy placed a hand on the other woman’s round shoulder. “Hang in there. It’ll get better.”

Henry finally placed the last four dishes on Diane’s tray. “I just keep praying.” Deep laugh lines bracketed Diane’s heart -haped mouth when she smiled. Lacy had to give the woman credit; she never lost face.

Lacy’s placed four dishes on her tray, then carried them out to the dining room. After setting them in front of the diners, she checked on two more tables and took drink orders for three others. Chase’s so-called “date” remained by herself. The bowl that held her mushroom risotto sat empty and discarded in the middle of the table. A sleek black cell phone was pressed up against the woman’s ear but her lips didn’t move. After a second, she pulled the phone away from her ear and tossed it in her purse with a disgusted snort. Lacy didn’t want to, but she approached the table to take the empty dish, only because she was obligated as the woman’s server.

“Are you ready to order an entrée?”
Please say no and take your evening somewhere else.

“I just want the check,” she muttered while digging through her purse.

Thank the good Lord.
Lacy processed the check faster than she’d ever done in her two years of waiting tables. Within a minute, she had the check printed up and delivered to Miss High And Mighty, who’d already pulled cash out of her wallet. She tossed a one hundred dollar bill, along with a fifty, on the table.

“And you can give this to Chase while you’re at it.” The brown paper bag landed on the tabletop. “He asks me to drop them off them doesn’t even show up.”

Lacy’s gaze remained fixed on the paper sack while Tarantula Woman huffed out the doors.

“Diane, will you keep an eye on my section for a minute?” Lacy asked after she’d snagged the bag and headed toward the break room.

Diane barely had time to get out a, “Sure thing” before Lacy let herself in the break room.

What kind of person did this? Lacy wasn’t the nosy sort who rifled through other people’s stuff. Normally. But she supposed since Chase had been
inside
her, several times, that gave Lacy at least a reason to be curious, if not a righ,t to know just what that woman wanted with her lover. Okay maybe not full-on rights. Anyhow, she was damn curious and, really, who would know if she unrolled to top of the bag and took a little look-see?

Ten seconds later, Lacy wished she would have just left the bag closed and tossed it her locker.

Inside the bag sat Chase’s black boxers, neatly folded.

****

A line of sweat trickled down the indentation of his spine and was absorbed in the cotton waistband of his shorts. The circa nineteen-fifties oscillating fan, which sat on his workbench, did nothing more than to stir the musty air of the garage, giving him no reprieve from the humidity. The stuffiness didn’t slow him down. Instead, Chase continued to lift the chest-press away from his torso until the muscles in his arms quivered from the strain and a bead of sweat materialized at his temples. With practiced care, he lowered the chest press back down, then pressed it up again. Just for shits and giggles, he’d decided to add an extra ten pounds to his normal two-fifty. After the first few reps, he’d developed a steady rhythm that had lasted for the past half hour.

That morning he’d been greeted by a cheerful phone call from his father, saying the cash drawer had come up ten dollars short last night. Chase hadn’t been at the restaurant last night so he had no explanation for the shortage. For some reason Martin seemed to think Chase could give some reasonable account for the missing money. But he couldn’t. The only people who had access to the cash drawers were the restaurant key holders: Anita, Martin, Henry and himself. Short of jimmy-rigging the drawer, no other employee had access to it.

The case of money coming up short was more baffling than the missing food.
Anyone
could get their hands on the food and other various supplies. While Henry seemed like the logical culprit, as much as Chase didn’t want to admit it, that didn’t explain the cash. Henry was never anywhere near the cash drawer.

In any event, Chase didn’t have an answer for his father. The old man was growing impatient and wanted Chase to start interviewing employees. Suffice it to say, he and his father differed in opinion. Martin was ready to pounce on any employee who so much as raised a hair of suspicion. So far the collective evidence was weak at best. With the exception of one of the waiters taking potatoes off one of the lowboys, they had nothing. Chase wasn’t in the habit of accusing innocent people. As for interviewing employees, he told his father he’d compile a list of staff who happened to work on days things were taken.

He had a feeling his old man wouldn’t be satisfied until one of his wait staff was escorted from the premises in handcuffs. After everything, Chase hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

In addition to that, there were a few people on staff Martin wasn’t crazy about, including Lacy. He’d never said so directly, but most likely kept Lacy in the forefront of his mind as a suspect, purely because of her father. Martin had always loathed Dennis Taylor and Lacy had never fared much better. But Martin didn’t know Lacy
 
like Chase did. She possessed lightness and a determination that had always lacked in Dennis. The only thing Dennis was determined to do was sit in jail.

To appease his father, he’d interview Lacy and prove to his old man she was not the dishonest thief her own father was.

Chase lowered the chest-press to its holding place, and sat up. Sweat glistened on every surface of his body. His heart beat a satisfying pounding rhythm through his veins. The last time a workout had this effect on him was Saturday night in Lacy’s bed. He’d rolled off her with his heart beating just as fast and the same beads of sweat popping up on his skin. They’d spent three nights together this past week. Three hot, erotic, mattress-rocking nights filled with tangled limbs and life-altering orgasms. Chase didn’t often make a habit of returning to the same woman’s bed multiple times. Unless, of course, the sex happened to be outstanding, as was the case for maybe three or four women he’d known over the years. After the newness wore off he’d been of the frame of mind to move onto the next conquest. But there was something about Lacy that kept drawing him to her. He kept expecting the novelty of being with her to wear off. Seeing her smile light up her eyes and hearing her whisper his name was like a tight fist around his heart every time. His defenses around her grew weaker by the day.

A torn, permanently stained white towel hung haphazardly on the edge of his workbench. Chase swiped it up and ran the course fibers over his face and chest. He stepped inside the house, tossed the towel in the laundry basket and headed to the kitchen.

So far, he had no explanation for returning to Lacy’s bed time and again. Other than the fact that she was hot as hell and had stamina strong enough to match his own. Maybe it was because she’d yet to show him the real her. The woman had erected a barrier thicker than the Great Wall of China. She was a selective person who picked and chose what people saw of her. Chase understood that; he did it too. But she was a woman with secrets.. What would it take to coax some of them out? Sex would only go so far. There had to be a way to get her to show that deeper side.

He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, downed a refreshing sip, then started up the stairs to take a shower. Just as he entered his bedroom, a harsh pounding came from his front door. Ignoring it seemed like a great idea so he kept walking toward the bathroom. Only the pounding got louder and more insistent. He bounded down the steps and yanked the front door open, not at all pleased to have a visitor.

Bright afternoon sunshine sifted through the trees of his front yard and reflected off the candlelight-colored strands of Lacy’s hair. He drank in the sight of her standing on his front porch. Long, smooth legs were encased in a pair of white cotton shorts and high, round breasts strained beneath a fire-engine red spaghetti-strap tank top. The only thing that stopped him from pressing her against his sweaty chest and dragging her fine ass to his bed was the look in her eyes. Thunderclouds swirled behind the green depths of her eyes. Her full, beautiful, unpainted mouth was pressed in a flat line. Chase knew a pissed off woman when he saw one.

“What’s going on, Lace?” he asked instead of inviting her in.

“I have a present for you.” She lifted her toned arm to reveal a brown paper sack, dangling from her hand. “One of the notches in your bedpost brought this for you.” Her mouth lifted in a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “She wasn’t too happy about you standing her up.”

What the hell? More cryptic words had never been spoken. The tone in her voice told Chase she hadn’t come bearing a freshly baked batch of brownies. And who the heck was she talking about?

“Um…okay,” he replied. “You want to come in and show me what you have?”

“I’d rather not.” She was shoved against his chest with enough force to throw him off balance. He rocked back on his heels and managed to hold onto the bag before it landed at his feet. Without waiting to see if he’d received her gift, Lacy spun on her petite heels and marched back down the concrete walkway with all the fury of a woman scorned.