Sleeping Beauty (7 page)

She caught the question in Neill's eyes and knew he had to be wondering at DeDe's astonishment over the fact that they were together. She briefly considered telling him that she never dated, which was more or less true. But it wasn't the whole truth, or even the most important part of it, and it didn't exactly paint her in a flattering light, so she settled for what she hoped was a casual smile and opened her menu.

"The hamburgers are excellent here."

She waited for him to ask a question she didn't want to answer, but he simply raised his brows in surprise and asked, "What? No chicken pot pie?"

Neill would have given a great deal to know what was behind DeDe's reaction, but he couldn't ignore the look in Anne's eyes, the plea she probably hadn't been aware of making. So he tamped down the curiosity— a writer's curse—pretended that DeDe's slack-jawed disbelief had been nothing out of the ordinary and set out to coax a genuine smile out of his companion.

"So, what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

Her eyes widened a little, surprise and something that might have been gratitude flickering through the clear gray depths. Neill thought he'd never known anyone whose emotions were so transparent. Everything was reflected in those eyes.

"I was born and raised here." She folded her menu and set it on top of his, carefully aligning their edges, keeping her eyes on the task because it was safer than looking at her companion. "How about yourself?"

"I wasn't born and raised here," he said, shaking his head.

His serious tone startled her into looking at him. Catching the laughter in those impossibly blue eyes, she found herself smiling easily. Despite the nerves jangling in the pit of her stomach, Anne made up her mind that she was going to enjoy the next hour without giving so much as a thought to the fact that DeDe Carmichael was a world-class gossip, which meant that, by the end of the day, everybody who was interested—and quite a few who weren't—would know that Anne Moore had been seen having lunch with a total stranger.

"And here I was, thinking you were a native."

"I think it's important to try to blend in with the native culture whenever possible," he said pedantically.

"You're doing a fine job," she assured him. "Where are you from?"

"Most recently? Seattle, for the last couple of years."

"Is the Pacific Northwest as beautiful as it looks in pictures?"

"There's lots of green stuff," Neill said, without enthusiasm. "I haven't figured out how it manages to grow when there's never any sunlight. If it ever got warm, it would be like living in a sauna. As it is, it's just chilly and damp and...green."

"So why did you live there for two years?" Anne asked, smiling at his bleak description.

"Work," he said, glancing around for DeDe and her pink uniform, hoping she would provide a distraction before Anne asked what he did. But DeDe was on the other side of the counter, arguing with the cook over an order. And Anne was already asking the obvious.

"What kind of work do you do?"

"I'm a writer," he said, tossing the word out with a verbal shrug. He didn't want to talk about his work.

"Really?'' Startled, Anne looked at him. "You don't look like a writer."

The comment surprised him. "What does a writer look like?"

''More...writerly." The smile in those impossibly blue eyes deepened and she shrugged, smiling self-consciously. ''Glasses, maybe. Stooped shoulders. A little vague."

"I think you've got writers confused with absent-minded professors," Neill said, grinning.

"Could be." Certainly the man sitting across from her was about as far from that image as it was possible to get, Anne thought, letting her eyes skim over those broad shoulders. She wondered what he looked like without a shirt. Was his chest smooth or covered in dark, curling hair? She could see the ripple of muscles under the thin cotton of his T-shirt, and she wondered what those muscles would feel like under her hands. Catching his questioning look, Anne felt her cheeks warm and cursed her fair complexion that made it impossible to hide a blush. To distract him—and her own wayward thoughts—she rushed into speech.

"So, what do you write?"

Neill hesitated a moment over the answer. If he told her what he wrote, there was a chance she would connect N. C. Devlin, the bestselling writer, with Neill Devlin, stranded motorcycle rider. Then things would change. She didn't strike him as the sort to start scrabbling for a pen so she could get his autograph, but fame always changed things. And, although he couldn't have said why it mattered, he didn't want to see the look in her eyes shift from interest to curiosity.

"I write nonfiction," he said, shrugging lightly. 'I've done articles on a lot of different things, how to plant a rosebush, ten tips for buying a ladder— that sort of thing."

It was true enough, as far as it went. He'd spent a couple of years scrabbling as a freelance writer, working at odd jobs while he used his spare time to write The Stranger Next Door, his first book and, as luck and the vagaries of the publishing world would have it, his first bestseller. He hadn't lied, he reminded himself in answer to a twinge of conscience, but he was grateful for the distraction provided by DeDe's sudden arrival, pink uniform, blue eyeshadow and all.

"What can I get for you two?" she asked, pencil poised over her order pad, eyes avid with curiosity.

Anne ordered a salad and then listened wistfully as Neill ordered a hamburger, fries and a shake. It was one of the great injustices of the world that men could so often stuff their face full of zillions of calories and never gain an ounce, while most women had only to walk past a Danish to gain weight

He didn't want to talk about his writing, she thought, lifting her water glass to sip. It wasn't hard to understand. She'd never known any writers, but she knew most of them were lucky if they made a bare living wage. It was pretty clear that he was just scraping by. The faded jeans could have been just a matter of style, but he'd mentioned that his bike was old, old enough that he was going to have to wait for parts to be found. Her mother would have said he was a failure, but Anne admired anyone who had a dream they were willing to work for.

"I've heard that publishing is a very competitive field," she said when DeDe had reluctantly departed with their order.

"lt can be."

"But it's worth it, if you're doing what you love."

Her tone was encouraging, the look in her eyes sympathetic, and Neill felt a vicious little pinch from his conscience. Obviously she'd jumped to the conclusion that he was a struggling freelance writer—a conclusion he'd nudged her toward. He nearly told her the truth right then but caught himself at the last minute. What difference did it make what she believed? He was going to be gone in a couple of days anyway, and if he told her now she would probably end up feeling foolish for having tried to encourage him.

"So, where did you live before Seattle?" Anne asked, thinking a change of topic was in order, since he was so obviously self-conscious about his lack of material success in his chosen field. The vulnerability that revealed made him seem just a little less overwhelming. She settled back against the booth and smiled, suddenly almost comfortable with him.

Anne had eaten at Luanne's more times than she could count. She could remember her father bringing her here when she was a little girl, in the days before he'd withdrawn so completely into himself. They would sit at a booth, and the meal was always punctuated by people stopping to say hello to Doc Moore. On rare occasions her mother would join them, though never without mentioning some restaurant she'd known in Atlanta and how much better the food and atmosphere had been there. Fewer people stopped to say hello when Olivia was there.

When she was a little older, Jack had sometimes condescended to take his baby sister out for a hamburger or a piece of pie. He'd preferred to sit at the counter, the better to flirt with any girls who happened to be there. He never scolded her for spinning round and round on her stool, and he always let her order whatever she wanted, without telling her that her eyes were bigger than her stomach.

The few dates she'd had in high school had, often as not, ended up at Luanne's. Lacking a mall or a McDonald's restaurant, it was the hangout of choice for local teenagers. The first time Frank Miller asked her out, a little less than a year ago, he'd brought her to LuAnne's. Since then, with the precision of a metronome, their weekly dates had altenated between Luanne's and Barney's Bar and Grill.

In all the times she'd been here, Anne couldn't ever remember really talking to whoever she was with. Her father had always been a man of few words, her brother had been more interested in flirting with the girls, and Frank... Well, Frank just wasn't much of a conversationalist

In one forty-five minute lunch, she talked more to Neill Devlin than she had in the last six months' worth of dinners with Frank. He made her laugh with his stories about the horrors of a cross-country road trip, like the motel in Wyoming where he'd awakened in the middle of the night when one of his neighbors put a fist through the wall next to Neill's bed. And the one in Nebraska where the pipes had been so rusty that the shower water had made him feel like he was an extra in a horror movie.

Laughing, Anne shook her head. "You won't have to worry about that while you're here."

"The fights or the rust?" Neill asked as he poured ketchup over his French fries.

"Either one." Anne pushed a fork into her salad and tried not to think about how good his fries and burger looked. ''Dorothy runs a tight ship. No rust or fist fights allowed."

"When I checked in, I felt like I was on Jeopardy. What's with the movie trivia?"

"Oh." Laughter sparkled in her eyes. "The shoes should give you a clue."

"Shoes?" Neill cocked one brow. "Red sneakers with or without glitter?"

"All her shoes are red. And of course there's her name. Dorothy Gale." He gave her a blank look and she shook her head disapprovingly. ''Obviously you don't know your Wizard of Oz.''

''Wizard of...'' Neill started to grin. ''You're kidding, right?"

"Absolutely not. The movie opened on Dorothy's eighth birthday. They had the same name, and Dorothy even had an Aunt Em. The similarities had a powerful influence. As far as I know, she's worn red shoes ever since."

"Tell me she has a dog named Toto," Neill begged,

"A cat, actually." Anne grinned when he laughed. "She doesn't like dogs, but, over the years, she's had a whole series of cats, all of them named Toto."

"I love it." He saw her eyeing his plate and, picking up a French fry, offered it across the table. "Have a bite."

She leaned forward without thinking, only becoming aware of the casual intimacy of the moment when the crisp fry brushed her lips.
Idiot
, she thought. He expected you to take it from him, not to feed it to you. Now he's going to think you're a total moron. But it was too late to pull back gracefully, so she opened her mouth and took the fry with as much grace as she could manage.

Despite her determination not to, she looked at him as she drew back, and the heat in his eyes made it clear that his thoughts were not on her IQ or lack thereof. No one had ever looked at her like that, as if they were contemplating the possibility of nibbling on any part of her that might be within reach. Her pulse skittering, she lowered her eyes, staring blindly down at her salad while she tried to think of something casual to say.

"When you think of it, it's a really good thing that Dorothy didn't share a name with Bela Lugosi," Neill said, breaking the silence before it could become uncomfortable. "Red shoes are a minor eccentricity, but it would be pretty hard to carry off a cape in this kind of weather."

Anne laughed a little more than the comment warranted and hoped he wouldn't notice that her cheeks were flushed.

That was how David Freeman saw her as he walked up to the table—laughing, her face delicately flushed. He hesitated, his expression suddenly still. He'd known Anne her whole life, and he'd never seen her look like that. Looking at the man with her, he had no trouble guessing the reason for the extra color in her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes. She looked...happy, he thought, and it was only seeing her that way that made him aware of the shadows that were usually in her eyes.

His expression thoughtful, he walked up to the table. "Hey, Anne."

"David!" Her smile changed, became self-conscious. "I didn't see you there."

''Just came in to pick up lunch." He nodded to Neill. "I was going to head over to the motel later, tell you what I found out about your bike."

Neill grimaced. "That sounds ominous."

"Good grief, I didn't realize how late it was." Anne glanced at her watch and immediately began sliding out of the booth. "I was due back at work twenty minutes ago." She hesitated long enough to give Neill a quick, shy smile. "It was nice talking to you. Good luck with your bike."

Before he could say something casual—like "How about dinner tonight?" or "Would you like to bear my children?"—she was hurrying toward the door. The strength of his urge to follow her kept Neill where he was.
He was leaving,
he reminded himself.
Leaving. Going to Florida to soak up the sun. No plans. No commitments. Most especially no commitments.