Surprise Dad (3 page)

And she might take his mind off both the lawyer and the franchise deal. Tonight he just wanted to run his restaurant.

A
LLIE COULDN’T BELIEVE
how quickly it all came back to her. Working at the diner felt as comfortable as the old black flats she’d worn to work. She’d quickly picked up the changes to the menu, and the new cash register was a snap to figure out.

The only downside was that she knew almost everyone who came into the restaurant. And
everyone
wanted to know the same thing—what was she doing working at Mike’s Diner? Why wasn’t she in medical school?

Except that Vermonters didn’t ask people about their private lives. Not directly. Instead, they said, “Allie, heard you were home,” their eyebrows lifted almost to the hairline, hoping she’d explain. When she said cheerfully, “It’s great to be back. Let me tell you about the dinner special,” the next prod was something like, “How’s med school?” And when all she said was, “The university has a great medical school. The special tonight is…” her cross-examiner would say, “Bet your mom’s glad to have you home.”

At which she would smile and blurt out the special, then speed away.

Several times during the evening she’d managed to say hi to Mike, or send him a little wave, but hadn’t had a chance to have a conversation with him. The diner was swamped. At eight, business started to slow down. Allie carried a stack of plates into the kitchen and observed that Mike was in his office.

“Busy night,” she said, just tossing it into the room, not wanting to disturb his work at the computer.

Instead of ignoring her, Mike swiveled his desk chair toward her. “How’re you doing, kiddo?”

She knew he was talking about more than her first night back at the diner. “Okay.” When he kept looking at her, she admitted, “You know, half relieved that I made a move to save myself, half scared to death that I’ll regret it. But I’ll be fine. I have things to keep me busy. One of them is that I’ve agreed to chair the dinner committee for the benefit.”

“Your mother sucked you in?”

“Afraid so.” It was true, but she hated to admit it. “I’m so glad you’re catering it.”

“What choice did I have?” he said. “In fact, what choice did my sister-in-law have when she was planning the benefit? But the good news here,” he added, “is that it sounds like you and Elaine are speaking to each other, at least.”

“Yes, thank goodness. She more or less apologized for overreacting, but I know what she’s hoping I’ll decide.”

“Your mom’s a stubborn woman.”

Allie jumped. She hadn’t noticed Barney standing behind her.

“She’ll come around,” Barney said, and then added, “Just wanted you to know we served all the whatever it
was, the chicken special.” He turned and went back to his after-dinner, pre-breakfast jobs.

“Barney knows my mother?” Allie asked Mike. “I mean, well enough to know she’s stubborn?”

“News to me,” Mike said. “By the way,” he asked her, “what’s the date of the benefit? Nobody tells me anything.”

She named a date in late October. “Any problem?”

“Nope.” He gave her an odd look, then blurted out, “Want to come to breakfast tomorrow morning and talk about the menu?”

“Sure,” Allie said, surprised by the suggestion, but strangely excited, too. “Breakfast would be great.” With a wave, she went back to cleaning up the dining room with Colleen and Becky.

A few words with Mike, and she already felt better. What was it about him? For one thing, he was consistently calm and unruffled. In spite of his bright green eyes and his short, almost military-style auburn hair that indicated some fighting Irish in his blood, she’d never seen him lose his temper.

Hold it back, maybe, but never lose it.

Maybe it was because he was happy with his life. He’d found his calling. Mike and food. They went together like love and red roses.

And what went together with her? She’d learned she wasn’t meant to be a dedicated doctor. She’d always thought it was what she wanted to do with her life until she actually began to study medicine. First she’d had that calm, “I’ll start to enjoy it later,” feeling. Next came doubt, then disinterest. She’d had to force herself to retain her rigorous study habits, her intense focus on being at the top of the class. But at last, she’d been overwhelmed by boredom.

That was when she knew she could never be the kind of doctor a patient deserved.

Sooner or later, she’d figure out what she did want to do. In the meantime, she’d work at the diner and throw the best party—the benefit dinner—Serenity Valley had ever seen.

For now, it was enough.

A
FTER
A
LLIE
walked away, Mike groaned.
Breakfast
. He’d asked her to meet him for breakfast. Had he lost his mind? The entire time she’d been talking to him, he’d been thinking big-bad-wolf thoughts that surprised him even more than they might surprise her. In his current state of uncertainty about how to treat an adult, attractive, no,
desirable
Allie, he should have suggested they discuss the benefit menu by phone, e-mail and fax.

Anything but in person.

Maybe the upcoming trip to New York would help. He’d be gone for a couple of days, and the change might do him good. Deliberately pushing thoughts of Allie out of his mind, he considered which dinner specials Barney and Maury could handle while he was in New York. Then he went back to worrying about the lawyer.

Twenty-four hours ago everything was fine. Allie was happy in med school, or so he’d thought, instead of running around the diner in a starched white shirt and black trousers that weren’t too tight, but they weren’t loose, either. Nobody was bugging him to franchise the diner and coming to New York to discuss it. Maury wasn’t cutting football practice to learn how to make Moroccan chicken. Lawyers weren’t calling and then not being around to explain why they’d called.

He wished it would all just go away.

At a little after ten, he locked up and wearily climbed
the stairs to his apartment over the diner. It was such a relief not to be pretending anymore that life was just hunky-dory. He poured a glass of wine, hoping it would make him sleepy, and collapsed on the sofa.

His eyelids drooped. He stifled a yawn. Just as he was dropping off to sleep, he heard the phone in the diner ring. He didn’t even try to make it downstairs to catch it before the fourth ring. He needed his rest.

He needed to be alert—and cautious—when he saw Allie in the morning.

When Allie breezed into the diner, she brought with her the hint of autumn in the air, the scent of wood smoke and apples. She was wearing black slacks that skimmed her slender hips and a sparkling white shirt.

“You’re wearing your uniform?” Mike asked her.

“In case you needed extra help,” she said as she came up to him, all smiles, her eyes glowing. “I wanted to be dressed appropriately.”

“Thanks, but we can’t have you working around the clock.” Mike couldn’t help smiling back. Even though he knew it was selfish, knew that Allie should be a hundred and fifty miles away in school, he was glad she was here temporarily and working for him. “What if I started to depend on you? Because when you decide what you want to do with your life, I insist that you desert me.”

“Don’t worry.” Her eyes narrowed. “The second I decide what to do next, I’ll be out of here so fast you won’t even have a chance to say goodbye.”

“Sure you will.” When Allie left—and she would—she wouldn’t just desert him, and they both knew it. He led her to a table in the back. “Want a menu?”

Her eyes twinkled. “I have one, thank you, branded on my memory. The special last night was wonderful, by the way.”

“Thanks,” he said. “It nearly cost Maury his position on the football team.”

Before he could explain away her puzzled expression, Colleen and Becky, both stout and motherly, descended on their table.

“Coffee?” Becky asked, pouring without waiting for an answer.

“Mike?” Colleen looked surprised. “You’re eating?”

“I do, occasionally,” he said, “standing up in the kitchen. It’s me sitting down that scares you.”

She giggled, opened her order pad and turned to Allie. “Gosh, we’re glad to have you back with us,” she said. “It’s just like old times.”

“Good to be home for a while,” Allie said.

“What’s for breakfast, you skinny little thing?” Colleen asked fondly.

“Everything,” Allie said. “Eggs over easy, bacon, home fries, whole wheat toast—”

“We’re serving biscuits now,” Colleen said. “A Southern touch. Want to try one? Barney thinks he’s finally got the recipe just right.”

“Absolutely. Maybe I
should
look at a menu if you’re changing things around here.”

Mike ordered the same thing, added juice for both of them and instructed Colleen to bring out cinnamon rolls as soon as the next batch was out of the oven.

“That’s more than I eat in a week,” Allie protested.

“Good thing you’re home so we can feed you. How
are
things at home?”

“Everything’s fine except that I feel even guiltier now that Mom’s not hysterical anymore,” Allie said. “I’ve disappointed her, and she makes gingerbread for me. I’ve dashed her hopes and dreams for me, and this
morning she brought me coffee in bed.” She sighed. “I’m being killed by kindness.”

Mike laughed. “Maybe she feels guilty for being so upset when you came home.”

“Could be. It seems she ran away once.”

She told him about Elaine fleeing to Vegas. He was astounded. He could have sworn Elaine Hendricks had never done anything reckless her entire life. “That’s an eye-opener,” he said when Allie’d finished. “So she has to understand, right?”

“Ah, but the point is,” Allie said, “that she came to her senses and married my father. The parallel—” and she gestured dramatically as a lecturer might “—is for me to come to my senses and go back to med school.”

Mike couldn’t imagine how it would feel to have a parent in his court the way Elaine was in Allie’s court, but he did know how terrible he’d feel if he let down someone he cared about. “It’s none of my business, but what made you decide to quit?”

“A lot of things,” she told him. “Not enjoying the work, being bored by it. I tried hard, but my grades weren’t up to my standards. Not bad, just…”

“A three-point-five average instead of a four?”

She cleared her throat. “Three-point-seven,” and when she saw how much that amused him, she said defensively, “but when you’ve made all As for twelve years and a four-point grade average in college, it’s not enough.”

Mike nodded. She’d always been a perfectionist, even when she was folding paper napkins in the diner. “Just remember it’s your decision,” he told her. “Sooner or later you’ll find your four-point field.”

When he realized he was holding her gaze too long to call it “making eye contact,” he forced himself to
look away. What was he doing here? This was not good. Allie was a friend. He was eight years older than she was. He’d known her since she was a kid.

He had to cut it out.

“…better be sooner” she was saying when his mind stopped wandering and he started listening again. “I have to make a fresh start at the beginning of the second semester. I just
have
to.”

Mike nodded, fiddling with his napkin to keep his eyes off her face. “You will. You did the right thing,” he said, and there he was, gazing at her again. “You figured out you’d made a mistake and you did something about it before you invested too much in it to quit.”

“I guess,” she said, “but I feel better when I have a plan.”

“You’ll have a new plan in no time at all.” He had to stop wanting to touch her. He was behaving like an idiot. So he’d start babbling like an idiot instead. “I’d always wanted to be a chef, and when I got tired of being yelled at by pretentious chefs dreaming up pretentious food to serve to pretentious people, I decided instead to open a down-home diner. I was scared out of my wits. What if I replumbed this place, redid the electrical system, decorated it and bought all that kitchen equipment—and then it failed? My only option would have been to drown myself in vinaigrette.”

Instead of laughing, she looked at him in a way that made his heart pound. “But you didn’t fail. The diner’s doing great.”

Something in her voice touched him. She sounded as proud as if the diner belonged to her. “Yeah, actually it is. I don’t know why or how.”

“I do.” She smiled. “Great food, a staff that loves working for you…”

“I work them to the bone,” he said.

“So I’ve noticed.” Her smile was warm and rich.

Scrounging desperately for some impersonal small talk and coming up with nothing, he was deeply relieved when their breakfast plates showed up. It pleased him no end to see how enthusiastically Allie dug in.

“T
HIS BISCUIT
is too good to be true,” Allie said, spreading the homemade strawberry preserves Mike bought from a local woman on top of enough butter to block even the healthiest aorta. “Barney got it right for sure.”

“Want another one?”

“No, please, no. I’m going to have to run to Holman and back to work off this one.”

She was glad to be home. Glad to be working for Mike. Hanging around with him had always made her feel good about herself. He teased her, laughed with her—he was like the big brother she’d never had.

Yes, just like a brother. She’d been, thank goodness, a sensible enough girl not to get a crush on her boss, so they’d had an easy friendship. She hoped they could go right back to it as if time hadn’t passed, but she realized she was noticing things about him now that she hadn’t all those years ago. How green his eyes were. That his light-brown lashes were thick and long. That his body was lean but powerful-looking, and his shoulders had that broad, muscular look that made you feel safe when he was around.

She suddenly didn’t feel safe and dragged her thoughts away from Mike’s body. He’d invited her to breakfast to talk about menus, and she felt it was definitely time to get started. “I’m so glad you can cater the benefit dinner. It’ll be an affair to remember.”

Good grief, could she have said anything more Freudian? She’d never for a moment dreamed of having an affair with Mike. She barreled on. “I haven’t spoken to Daniel’s wife about the details yet, but it’ll be a seated dinner, so the sky’s the limit where the menu is concerned. I thought we’d spend about forty-five minutes just standing around talking, so do you think some simple hors d’oeuvres would be in order? We’ll hire valley kids to serve, of course—”

Mike was listening intently, the gleam of his amazing eyes heightened by the morning sun coming through the windows. “Yes, definitely hors d’oeuvres, scattered around on a few tables. Incidentally, the food and labor will be my contribution, so don’t worry about the cost. I was thinking beef Wellington, potatoes Anna, roasted asparagus, sautéed grape tomatoes as a surprise, an endive salad to start and a knock-’em-dead dessert that I haven’t figured out yet. Oh, yes, and our homemade bread. It’s a gourmet take on meat and potatoes. What do you think?”

Her eyes met his. “It sounds perfect.”

He smiled. For a long moment, he gazed at her, catching and holding her attention. She couldn’t look away. Then some spark, some indefinable awareness passed between them.

At last, Mike cleared his throat and looked away, shattering the sensation. He turned the conversation back to the benefit dinner menu, but Allie wasn’t really listening. Something odd had just happened, something personal, unsettling. A pull of attraction had danced between them. She’d never felt anything remotely like that before with Mike, and she didn’t like it. Now wasn’t the time to do anything reckless. She liked him. He was a friend. That was all.

She realized with a start that Mike had stopped talking. He was looking at her with a puzzled expression on his face.

“That’s good,” she said quickly.

“Good that I’m worried about Barney’s health?”

Allie blinked. Yikes. She hadn’t heard a word he’d said about Barney. “No. I mean, yes. Yes, I think it’s good of you to worry about him if he’s working too hard. Maybe you should talk to him, see if you can get him to take some time off.”

He looked even more curious. “You okay?”

Other than the fact that she had no idea what career she was going to pursue and now she was finding herself attracted to one of her oldest friends, everything was just terrific.

“I’m fine. Just distracted. Too much has happened in the last couple of days.” She stopped talking, no longer certain what to say next.

He came to her rescue. “That’s understandable.”

He smiled at her again, and this time, her heart actually seemed to flutter. Good grief! What in the world was wrong with her?

“Cinnamon rolls, right out of the oven,” Colleen said, appearing beside the table.

Allie had never been so happy to see another person. “Thank God,” she said, realizing too late she’d said it aloud.

Mike and Colleen stared at her as if they thought she’d lost her mind. She couldn’t blame them. It definitely was a possibility.

“Guess you really need these,” Colleen teased her. “I didn’t realize it was a cinnamon-roll emergency.”

Allie shot a glance at each of them, feeling her face
heat up, then reached out and grabbed a roll, hoping it would restore her sanity.

There was no doubt about it. She needed to go back to school. Fast.

W
HEN
A
LLIE LEFT
, Mike felt the room had dimmed, as if somebody had closed the curtains. Had she wanted to stay longer? He couldn’t tell. At some point in the conversation she’d gone off into her own world, had gotten jumpy and nervous.

Which had made him feel jumpy and nervous. He missed the old days, when he could relax around her. This new Allie, grown-up and gorgeous, made him uncomfortable.

He hated it.

The FedEx delivery person came through the door as Mike was on his way back to his office. The packet had come from Abernathy Foods, Inc.

He signed for the envelope and opened it. Plane tickets from Burlington to New York. Notification from a car service he’d had no idea was available in Vermont that a driver would pick him up at eight Wednesday morning to take him to the airport, and yet another statement regarding the driver who would pick him up at JFK airport in New York to take him to the St. Regis Hotel.

Clearly, Abernathy Foods was sparing no expense.

Also included was an itinerary: who he’d meet with, and when, and why.

Should he even consider franchising? Could he really let other people get involved in his diner?

He had no idea what to do. All he knew was that he had too many things to worry about at the same time and it was addling his mind.

A
LLIE’S INSIDES
were churning with uncertainty and tension as she left the diner. The meeting hadn’t gone well. She only hoped she wouldn’t act the same way when she came to work later that afternoon.

She had enough going on without getting sappy about Mike. She was grateful to him for giving her a job. Gratitude. That’s what it was.

Okay, he was a good-looking guy, but she knew lots of good-looking guys.

Maybe she was just tired. Life with her mother and father, then just her mother, had been a protective cocoon, but now she was a butterfly, out in the real world where she had to make her own way.

She couldn’t go on living at home. Her maturity would regress five years in a week. Her mother would treat her as she had when Allie was a child, cooking for her, doing her laundry, cleaning her room. It was already happening, in fact. She’d stepped out of the shower this morning to find her bed already made, and the few clothes she’d put in the hamper were gone.

Could she even afford a place of her own? It wouldn’t hurt to look, would it? She bought a copy of the local newspaper, sat down on one of the old-fashioned benches that were placed here and there on Main Street and turned directly to the classified ads for apartments.

“Top flr twnhse, furn…”

She was familiar with the row of townhouses at the bottom of Hubbard Hill. They were new and cheaply built. She’d hate to think how they were furnished.

“Room for rent at…”

No thanks. If she didn’t need independence and solitude, she’d stay at home with her mother. There were so few rental offerings that they took about a minute to skim. She knew every house, every apartment in town,
and knew none of those few in the paper would meet her needs, even if she could afford them. The decent places were snapped up as soon as they came on the market.