Josie Day Is Coming Home (8 page)

“Hi, Luanne. Hi, Frank!” Not noticing Luke yet,
Josie waved to the diner’s employees, standing on tiptoes to see past the
counter into the kitchen beyond. She surveyed the restaurant, then headed for
an empty booth, her trademark sashay firmly in place. “Hey, Mr.
McKee.”

McKee’s ruddy face turned ten times pinker. Luke would’ve
sworn the man blushed. His reaction was contagious, too. Every last retiree
surrounding him wore a similar rosy hue and aw-shucks expression.

“Hi, Mrs. Webster. Hi, Debra-Ann.”

The women seated opposite the retirees stuck their noses in
the air. The pair behind them snapped their ketchup-splattered menus upward to
hide their faces.

Noticing them, Josie looked troubled. She continued gamely
down the aisle between booths, all the same. Summoning up another smile, she
nodded to two more customers. Then she greeted another pair, a husband and wife
Luke recognized.

“How’s it going, you two?” Her tone sounded warm.
Friendly. “Still hanging out at Frank’s, I see.”

“Hmmph.” The wife stood with such force that her
hair curlers wobbled beneath their head-scarf moorings. She grabbed her
husband’s arm without another look at Josie. “Come on, Henry. I changed my
mind about that pie.”

“But you love the pie here, Linda.”

“
Not
“—she shot an indignant look at
Josie—”
anymore
.”

The two bustled out of the diner. Openmouthed, Josie watched
them. Then she seemed to realize she was still standing in the middle of the
restaurant. She spotted an empty booth and slid onto the worn red vinyl, all
her attention fixed on the menu propped behind the napkin dispenser. She pulled
it out.

Aside from a trembling in her fingers, she seemed all right
to Luke. Composed, straight-backed, and with a neutral expression on her
face—although he sort of missed the beaming smile she’d entered the diner with.
Bothered by what had just happened, he dragged his gaze away from her. What he
saw when he looked around didn’t improve his mood.

To a customer, every last person was either gawking at Josie
or studiously
not
noticing her. He didn’t get it. Donovan’s Corner
wasn’t exactly a hotbed of friendliness to newcomers, but this was ridiculous.

Then he remembered. Josie
wasn’t
a newcomer.

Another minute passed. He wanted to say something, but he
didn’t know what. Despite the fact that she’d just moved into his house, he
barely knew her. Was she one of those talk-talk-talk women? Or one of those
distract-me-with-gifts women?

These days, Luke didn’t have much to offer in the gift
department.

Josie kept her face firmly behind her menu. Only her
Barbie-painted fingernails showed—and he didn’t think they endeared her to the
rest of the plainly outfitted people in the diner. She was a flamingo among
pigeons, a customized flame-painted Kawasaki V-Star racer among stock
motorcycles. She stood out, whether she wanted to or not.

Right now, she did not.

The hell with it. These yokels needed a lesson in how to
treat a lady, Luke decided.

Before he could do anything, though, Josie surprised him.

“Luanne, when you get a minute, could I have the
cheeseburger plate, please?” she asked suddenly, her voice carrying.
“And a Diet Coke to go with it?”

The waitress, clear across the diner and with no obvious
intention of serving her newest customer, didn’t so much as glance up.
“We’re all out.”

“Out of cheeseburgers?” Josie shot a significant
glance at the tabletops surrounding her. Several of them sported thick white
plates full of the day’s special—cheeseburgers and fries. “You’re out of
cheeseburgers?”

“Yep.” Luanne studied her pad of guest checks,
then shoved her pen behind one ear. She put both hands on her hips. Her next
glance took in Frank’s rapt clientele. “I expect we’ll be out of
cheeseburgers all week long.”

All week long
hung in the air, as blatantly false as
Josie’s hair color.

Josie gave Luanne a steady look. “Fine.”

She slid her menu behind the napkin holder again. She rose,
taking a few seconds to smooth out her track pants and tug down her tank
top—motions that held the retirees mesmerized. Then, chin held high, she headed
for the door.

Something about the way Josie walked there caught Luke’s
eye. He would have sworn she was sort of going
sideways
, with a swoosh
and a bump that looked weirdly sexy. He’d seen something like those movements
before, but he couldn’t place where. They were theatrical. Dramatic. And goofy
as all get out, if the truth were told.

Hell, he thought, getting up to follow her. She really
was
crazy.

Chapter Five

By the time Josie made it to her convertible and peeled
rubber back to Blue Moon, she was boiling mad. She clutched her cell phone as
she stomped across the circular drive, barely hearing Parker’s commiseration on
the other end of the line.

“I wound up doing a
showgirl walk
to get out of
there,” Josie said. “A showgirl walk! Just to try to hold my head up.
I must be losing my mind.”

“Nah. I did one into a Fantasy Tan booth last
week,” Parker confided. “The attendant probably thought I was
nuts.”

“But gorgeously tanned.” Everyone in Vegas was
familiar with Parker’s perma-tan habit.

“Of course,” Parker agreed, a smile in her voice.
“Anyway, after a while the showgirl walk is second nature. We both know
it. Jacqueline is a showgirl-walk Nazi.”

Not comforted, Josie fumed. “I’m telling you, it’s a
nightmare here. The house Tallulah gave me is a wreck, the people are
mean—”

“So come home. You don’t need that crap.”

“—the stupid lock on the front door won’t work.”
Cradling the cell phone with difficulty between her chin and shoulder, Josie
jiggled the Blue Moon doorknob the way she had this morning. Nothing happened.
“I was crazy to leave Las Vegas. I don’t belong here, Parker. I don’t. I
never did.”

Parker murmured sympathetically.

“I tried to get the utilities hooked up at my new
house,” Josie went on, “and the people at the utility company
practically slapped me in cuffs.”

“Oooh, kinky.”

Josie rolled her eyes. “Apparently, I left some overdue
bill unpaid when I left here. By now, with penalties and fees tacked on, it’s a
zillion dollars or something.”

“So come home. Jacqueline is holding your spot for you,
you know.”

“I know. Thank God, too. It looks as if I’m going to
need it.” Josie glowered at the uncooperative door. She kicked it.
“Even my house doesn’t like me.”

“It’s not the same without you here. There’s nobody to
tell me cheesy jokes.”

“Oh, Parker.” At the loyalty in her friend’s
voice, Josie felt a wave of homesickness wash over her. Great. Less than twenty-four
hours into her great adventure and already she was buckling under. “I
don’t know what I’m doing here.”

“Hey, at least you’re not trout fishing.”

Josie mustered a weak smile. Giving up on opening the door
for now, she sat on the porch steps. They were made of smooth stone, as cold
and unwelcoming as the rest of the place.

“The thing is, I had this great idea to open a dance
school here.” At the admission, tears welled in her eyes. She blinked. The
view of the overgrown estate grounds came into focus, reminding
her—unfortunately—of exactly how big a mess this really was. “You know,
like I used to talk about doing? There’s this ballroom here that would be
perfect for a studio…. Oh, who am I kidding? This whole idea was crazy to
begin with.”

“You could make it work.”

That was Parker. Always encouraging.

“Or you could wind up one of those nutty old ladies who
live in abandoned mansions. You could wear only black and peek out the windows
at the neighborhood kids. They’d be so scared, they’d pee their pants.”

“Nice vision of my future. Crazy Lady Wets-a-Lot.”

“I’ll keep you company. I do a great bloodcurdling
shriek. Must be in the genes.”

At that, Josie perked up. That sounded like a clue to
Parker’s mysterious past. “In the genes? What genes?”

“Umm, my skinny jeans. There’s nothing like wriggling a
size eight ass into a pair of size six jeans to make a girl scream bloody
murder.”

Josie was sure Parker was hiding something.

But before she could question her further, a distraction
appeared. Luke. And he seemed to be bearing gifts.

“Parker?” Interested in spite of herself, Josie
let her gaze roam up Luke’s blue jean-clad legs, skim past his hips, and settle
on the paper sack in his hands. “I’ve gotta run. Welcome Wagon’s
calling.”

“Call me if you change your mind about that scary old
lady routine,” Parker said. “I’m there in a heartbeat.”

“If I decide to terrify little kids
semi-professionally, you’ll be the first to know.”

She snapped her phone closed, then confronted Luke.

“The stupid lock is broken again.”

“I’ll fix it.”

“Don’t bother. I’m leaving.”

He angled his head philosophically. “Leaving?”

She nodded. “Yeah, tonight. As soon as I can get my
stuff out of the house.”

“Hmmm. You might as well have this first.”

Unconcerned, Luke pulled something from the paper sack and
held it toward her. A Styrofoam take-out box, balanced in his big manly hand.
His big, stupid, didn’t-fix-the-lock hand. Unreasonably, looking at him made
Josie mad all over again.

“I don’t want it.”

“Spoiling for a fight, huh? Move over.”

Before she could protest, Luke hunkered down and nudged her
sideways. He settled his studly backside on the steps beside her, then balanced
the take-out box on his thighs. Josie couldn’t seem to tug her gaze away from
the sight of his hands. They might be incapable of fixing the damned lock, but
they did look tanned and gentle against the pearly Styrofoam.

Pearly Styrofoam
? Geez, she was losing it. She had to
get out before she started rhapsodizing about
supple cardboard
or
something.

“Do you always sneak up on people like this?” she
groused.

“I came up past the carriage house.” He nodded
toward the pine trees, where the gravel drive meandered once it passed Blue
Moon’s front door. “You haven’t seen any of the outbuildings yet.”

“That’s probably a good thing. If they look anything
like the rest of the place, I’d probably have to fire you if I saw them.”

“Geez. You get crabby when you don’t eat.” He
patiently unfolded the arms she’d flopped, crisscross-style, over her lap. He
set the Styrofoam container in their place. “Hurry up. Riding here on the
back of my bike probably didn’t improve that much.”

Josie let it sit there. She had a perfectly good sulk
happening and Luke was ruining it. It occurred to her that now that she was
leaving, she didn’t have to maintain an employer-handyman relationship with
him. She could flirt all she wanted.

“Bike, huh? I love cyclists. No wonder you have such
great muscular thighs.”

His lips quirked. “Must be all that pedaling.”

“What’s so funny?”

“I ride a Harley.”

“Oh.” Her image of him changed. She pictured Luke
on a rumbling bad-ass motorcycle, the wind in his hair and the sun glinting
from his sunglasses. In her imagination, he looked good. Really good.
Apparently she was as susceptible as the next girl to the allure of the stock bad
boy.

Her bad boy reached over and popped the top of the Styrofoam
container, unperturbed by its close proximity to her lap. Josie wished she
could say the same thing. The smooth slide of Luke’s fingers against her thigh
as he steadied the Styrofoam left her rattled. She possessed none of his
physical easiness—and, all at once, every ounce of the awkwardness that dance
had been meant to train out of her.

Greasy, salty aromas wafted from the take-out box. Luke
pinched three French fries in his fingers and, companionably, offered them to
her. Josie shook her head.

Wow, he looked good. Even while eating filched French fries.
His face fascinated her. The angle of his cheekbones, the deep color of his
eyes, the shape of his mouth. This close, she could see whisker shadow
darkening his jaw—could almost feel its scratchy texture. It made Luke look
rough and ready. Sexy. Dangerous.

Catnip to a lifelong rebel like her.

“Ever been on one?” he asked.

“A motorcycle?” Abruptly switching her focus to
the pile of French fries in her lap, Josie grabbed one. She munched it while
she considered motorcycle riding. “Not yet.”

“Hmmm.” His assessing expression settled on her.
“Most people just say no. Or they look horrified. Like somebody asked them
to lick pavement.”

“So?” Hmmm. Was that a cheeseburger in there?

“So
you
said, ‘Not yet.’” Seeming
interested in that, Luke chewed a few more fries. He splayed his hands on the
porch and studied her. “I might have finally found my dream girl.”

His half-teasing, half-cynical delivery wasn’t lost on her.

“Sorry. I could never live happily ever after with a
man who bogarts the French fries.” She burrowed deeper into the crispy
pile, realizing exactly how hungry she really was. “Hey, there
is
a
cheeseburger in here!”

Happy, Josie maneuvered the sloppy burger out of the
container with both hands. It smelled divine. She took a bite.

“Mmmm.” Suddenly, she couldn’t get enough.
“Yum.”

Bemused, Luke watched her. “You looked like an
‘everything on it’ kind of girl to me. I got ketchup, mustard, relish, lettuce,
tomato, mayonnaise, pickles—”

“
Lots
of pickles. Perfect!”

She munched her way through half the cheeseburger. It could
have been hotter or less greasier, but to Josie it was the tastiest thing she’d
eaten all day. She didn’t know how Luke had known she was craving this, but she
was glad he had.