Wait for Me (3 page)

“Who would know better?” she asked. “It is her recipe, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, yeah. Someone teaches you how to cook, and for the rest of your life she’s telling you the cannelloni is overcooked,” he said, his speech passionate, his eyes amused. “Go wait on a table or something. It’s not good to see the help standing around with nothing to do.”

He gave her shoulder a fond and indulgent squeeze, then disappeared into the kitchen—to check the cannelloni, no doubt.

She turned to prepare a tray of coffee and espresso for a table of six. She sensed his presence before she heard his voice.

Like the flash from a bolt of lightning, he appeared vivid and sharp in her thoughts. For no reason she knew of, her chest grew tight and achy with emotions she couldn’t decipher. Then she heard it. A voice. It came softly but clearly from a distance. A familiar voice. A voice she was glad to hear. A voice that eased the discomfort around her heart.

She turned her head and she saw him halfway across the room.

So, Oliver Carey had decided to take her up on the free dinner she’d promised him for saving her life. She was pleased. She wanted everything to be perfect for him and his guests, an elderly lady and two very beautiful young women, she noted with no little interest.

She’d told Marie Spoleto and her brothers about Oliver Carey at supper the night she’d arrived. They would be happy to see and meet him also, for, as they frequently said, Holly was their favorite girl.

“Louis,” she hissed, motioning frantically with her hand to a man in his mid-forties. Louis was headwaiter, wine steward, maître d’, and troubleshooter all rolled into a nice round little body, with sharp eyes and a bald top. He’d been at Spoleto’s since the day before the grand opening. “Louis. Come here.”

“What now?” he asked. His tone was gruff, but his presence was patient and obliging. “Have you lost a customer’s credit card? Gotten your sleeve caught on a gentleman’s toupee? Dumped antipasto down the front of a new bride?”

She grimaced, recalling each incident with humbling clarity. “I’m not much of a waitress, am I?”

“No. But you are... stimulating.”

“I like your attitude, Louis.” She grinned and stepped closer. “And if that’s the way you’re thinking, then I’ve been very dull tonight. So I’m going to pester you for a favor.” He braced himself. “See that man over there? Red tie. Handsome. Dark hair. He’s sitting with three ladies?” He nodded. “He’s a friend of mine, and I’d like you to give his table lots of special attention.”

“I give excellent service to all the customers.”

“I know that. But he’s special.”

“How special?” he asked with a raised brow, as avidly interested in her life as her family was.

“His father is ill and he needs some cheering up,” she said. Louis was a devout romantic. She didn’t want him to read anything into her request that wasn’t there.

“Why don’t you take him?”

“I don’t want him to feel uncomfortable, or as if he has to talk to me every time I go to the table. I’ll serve coffee later and say hello then.”

He studied her face with narrowed eyes, then patted her cheek. “I’ll make him feel like a king,” he said, then added, “You are a good girl, Holly.”

A good girl, she thought, watching him approach Oliver’s table. Always a girl. Never a woman in their eyes. She shook her head at the strangeness people called life. She had been eight years old when she’d moved into the Spoleto household. Frightened. Insecure. Unloved. They had taken her to their collective bosom in a greedy embrace. They had loved her hard and fast, made her feel special, raised her healthy and whole. But she’d had to move to San Francisco to feel like a woman. Independent. Freethinking. Capable of making her own life and living with her own mistakes.

They were family, and she loved coming home to wallow in the luxury of being treated as a cherished pet for a while. But just once she’d like to hear one of them say that they’d created a fine woman, instead of a good girl.

She kept a close eye on Oliver and his lady friends. She managed to stay at his back or with her back to him, leaning low to talk to the patrons as if she had laryngitis.

Louis was a pro. He complimented Oliver. He flirted with the ladies. He entertained them with amusing anecdotes and served their meal with great aplomb. She could see that Oliver was enjoying himself. His smile was like a beacon that lit every corner of the room. He was animated and cordial with all three ladies, though to Holly’s eye the blonde at the table seemed a little overly cordial in return. Only occasionally would Holly catch a sad, somber look in Oliver’s eyes. In those brief moments, she would know he was thinking of his father, and her heart would reach out to him.

“Hello, Oliver,” she said, coming to stand at his table when they had finished their meal. She carried a coffee tray with both hands. Her hands were trembling a bit, and she wasn’t taking any chances with a mishap. Not with Oliver. Please God, not with Oliver. “I’m glad to see you changed your mind.”

“Holly,” he said, surprised, getting to his feet to greet her. “I didn’t. I mean, I didn’t change my mind. I hadn’t planned to come. This is sort of a... a coincidence. What are you doing here?”

“Serving coffee. Please. Sit down.” She set a cup of espresso in front of the blonde and served the others coffee, Oliver last.

“Do you work here? I thought you were only visiting,” he asked, hardly blinking while he watched her circle the table in a pseudo-tuxedo that made her seem a little taller than he remembered.

She looked down into his face and grinned. Her insides lurched abruptly. She reached out to straighten the small cornucopia centerpiece.

“It’s sort of a busman’s holiday. I’m going home tomorrow. How was your dinner?”

“You were right. It was the best Italian food I’ve eaten outside Rome.”

“You’ve been to Rome?”

“A couple of times,” he said, amused by her surprise, inordinately happy to see her.

If she were a snappy tune, he would have found himself humming it a hundred times since they’d parted at the airport. He’d thought about her over and over during the long hours in the hospital waiting room. Wondering who she was and what she was doing was a harmless haven of distraction in a sea of misery and heartache. But it was with the assumption that he’d never see her again.

It had seemed only natural that when Johanna suggested Spoleto’s for dinner, he readily agreed. But it had been with the simple idea of connecting with something she was connected to; perhaps to see a member of her family—someone who might look like her; to learn a bit more about her. He hadn’t dared to hope she’d be there.

Though why he would hope at all, he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t fall-on-his-face infatuated with her. She was just a woman he’d met on an airplane. A nice woman. A kind woman. An appealing woman. But certainly no one to get brain-bogged about.

Speaking of brain-bogged, he suddenly remembered his companions.

“Holly, this is my aunt, Elizabeth Carey George. Her daughter, my cousin, Johanna Reins. And a family friend, Babs Renbrook.”

She recognized Ms. Renbrook from the society pages, now that she’d heard her name. Elizabeth Carey George suddenly had a face to go with a name she’d heard many times before. It was with a mixture of pleasure, resentment, and intrigue that Holly connected Oliver Carey to a world she touched every day, battled with constantly, and could never be a part of.

“Barbara,” the socialite corrected him, her voice as sweet as church music—a divergence from the hard, possessive glint in her eyes.

“This is Holly, uh...” He knew every detail of her face, but couldn’t remember her last name? Odd. But then, what was a name compared to bronze-colored eyes that seemed to look gently and fondly on the world from the center of time?

“Loftin. Holly Loftin,” she said, unperturbed.

“We met on the plane coming down and screamed together during the earthquake.” They exchanged secret smiles.

“I’m pleased to meet you,” she said to the ladies.

Elizabeth George shook her perfect silver coiffure. “Why your father insists on living down here is beyond me,” she said to Oliver, ignoring Holly. “Palm Springs is nothing but a showcase of wealth and decadence. We don’t have nearly as much trouble with the earthquakes at home.”

He gave his aunt a sharp look, then turned back to Holly.

“How is your father?” she asked before he could speak.

“He’s holding on,” he said, responding to her inquiry as he might to an old and dear friend’s. “He’s in pain, but they keep him pretty well medicated. He sleeps a lot.” He smiled. “He sent us away this afternoon. I think we make him nervous, hovering around as if we’re waiting for him to die.”

“Oliver!” Elizabeth admonished.

Truth to tell, Holly couldn’t blame Oliver’s father for being nervous under the eye of the watchful women. She was too. With the exception of Oliver and his cousin, Johanna, who sat with a quiet, polite smile on her face, she was getting the distinct impression that she was not a welcome addition to the party.

“We decided to go out for a nice family Thanksgiving dinner,” he said. “But none of us felt much like eating turkey. Johanna’s been here before and wanted to come back—”

“She gets her craving for spicy foods from her father,” Elizabeth injected derisively.

“It’s my favorite restaurant,” Johanna said softly, smiling at Holly.

“I’ll tell my brothers.” She smiled back.

“Your family owns this establishment?” Barbara asked, her expression cool. She glanced from side to side beneath thick dark lashes at the chic surroundings, as if the restaurant’s popularity could only be some sort of fluke, now that she’d met part of the management. “And the whole family works here?”

“No,” she said, feeling as if she were taking an oral test. “I mean, yes, two of my brothers own it, but we don’t all work here.”

“We... all?”

Holly recognized the intonation in her voice. Growing up in a large family, she was accustomed to the envy of some, the awe of others, and the disgust of a few who would automatically assume that Marie Spoleto had a problem with birth control.

She drew her head up high and tried to be as civil as possible, for Oliver’s sake.

“I have ten brothers, Ms. Renbrook. There are only three left here in town, and the rest are scattered across the country as far away as New York. Two are doctors, one’s a lawyer, one teaches at MIT, two own this restaurant, another owns a hardware store, another designs cars for Chrysler, and the other two own the Spoleto Construction Company in Atlanta. So, you see, we don’t all do menial labor. Just me.”

“And that’s only until tomorrow,” Johanna said, stepping in cheerfully. “Where is home, Holly?”

“This is home, but I live in Oakland now.”

“Really? We do too. Well, San Francisco, but what’s the difference?” she said.

With the Bay between them, Oakland was to San Francisco as Queens and the Bronx were to Manhattan. A part of the whole but never thought to be the best part or even a part worthy of belonging to the whole. The differences were enormous, but it was nice that Johanna didn’t think so.

“Which restaurant do you work in there?” she asked.

“I don’t,” Holly said, liking Johanna almost as much as she liked Oliver, who was sitting quietly at her elbow, watching her. Needing something to do with her hands, she blindly added cream to Oliver’s coffee. “I come down two days before Thanksgiving every year to put up my mother’s Christmas lights—on her house, you know? Then I work here on Thanksgiving because of the crowd, and to pay for the plane fare back, and to be with my family, of course.”

“Couldn’t one of your many brothers put up your mother’s house lights?” Elizabeth asked, with an obvious disdain for gaudy decorations. However, her curiosity was mere and mild compared to her interest in Oliver’s coffee—into which Holly added two white packets of sugar. “Aren’t there ladders involved? I believe most people would hire someone to do it.”

The Spoleto family finances were no one’s business but their own, but the woman’s attitude was irksome.

“They could do it, I suppose, or even hire someone. But I’ve always done it. And ladders don’t bother me.”

“Then do you come back for Christmas too?” Johanna asked, also watching Oliver’s coffee. Holly stirred it, then slid it closer to him without looking.

“No. I do something else at Christmas, but I come back in the spring and again about midsummer.”

“What service,” Barbara exclaimed dryly, making a point of Oliver’s coffee cup.

Holly frowned and looked, then gasped in horror when she realized what she’d done.

“Oliver, I’m so sorry,” she said, quickly taking the cup away, thinking Louis would be glad to know that the evening wouldn’t be tediously dull after all. “I’ll get you a fresh cup and—”

“No. No,” he said, taking her free hand. “That’s exactly the way I drink it.” He chuckled. “I was just trying to figure out how you knew I took cream and two packets of sugar and not artificial sweetener. I must have taken it that way on the plane. No, I...” He frowned.

“You had a drink on the plane,” she said.

“Yes, I did,” he said, puzzled. “Jack Daniels.”

He continued to look at her, a baffled smile on his lips as he recalled the drink she’d given him and his quiet surprise that she’d chosen his preferred brand. And now her strange knowledge of his coffee-drinking habits...

“Weird, huh?” she asked, moving her gaze from the cup to his face. She wasn’t reading his mind, was she? He didn’t believe in such stuff, but still, she had an uncanny way of responding to things he was thinking about. “Or are you just saying you drink it like this to be nice?” she asked.

“Oliver? Nice?” Barbara chuckled, sounding as if she thought Oliver couldn’t be nice. The notion rang a familiar bell with Holly. Her first impression of him was that he might be a rather severe sort of person, but as he’d been nothing but kind and gentle with her, she took instant umbrage to the inference.

Oliver didn’t notice it.

“Truly,” he said, squeezing her wrist gently, reassuringly. “This cup is fine. Perfect.”

“Okay.” She nodded feebly. “Then if there’s nothing else I can get you, I’ll leave you to finish. It was nice to meet you,” she said to the ladies in general, with a special smile for Johanna. “It’s been nice seeing you again, Oliver. I’m glad you came.”