Читать книгу Beauty & the Blue Angel - Maureen Child - Страница 8

Daisy Cusak ignored the ribbon of pain snaking through her. “Just a twinge,” she whispered, then ran the palm of her hand across her swollen belly. “Come on, sweetie, don’t do this to Mommy, okay?”

The pains had been intermittent all day, but she’d brushed them off. All of the books said there was nothing to worry about until the contractions were steady and just a few minutes apart. Well, heck. One every hour and a half or so wasn’t anything to worry about, right?

Besides, on a busy Friday night, she could make a lot of tips serving dinner at Antonio’s Italian restaurant. And right now, that money would mean a lot.

All around her, noises of the busy kitchen echoed—pans clashing, chefs cursing, expensive china plates clinking. It was music of a sort. And the waiters and waitresses were the dancers.

She’d been doing this for four years and she was darn good at it. Though people wouldn’t exactly consider being a waitress a career, Daisy didn’t have a problem with it. She loved her job. She met new people every night, had a few regulars who would wait an extra half hour just to get seated in her station, and her bosses, the Contis, were just so darn nice to work for.

Rather than fire her for being pregnant, members of the Conti family were continually urging her to sit down, get off her feet. Someone was always near to help her with the heavier trays, and she’d already been assured that her job would be waiting for her after she took some time off with the baby.

“You’ll see,” she said, smiling down at her unborn child. “It’s going to be great. We’re going to be great.”

“Everything all right, Daisy?”

She turned abruptly and grinned at Joan, one of the other waitresses. “Sure. I’m good.”

The other woman looked as though she didn’t believe her, and Daisy silently wished she was just a little bit better at lying.

“Why don’t you take a break?” Joan said. “I’ll cover your tables for you.”

“It’s okay,” Daisy answered firmly, willing not only Joan, but herself, to believe it. “I’m fine. Honest.”

Her friend gave her a worried frown, then stacked two plates of veal parmigiana on her serving tray. “Okay, but I’ve got my eye on you.”

Along with everyone else at Antonio’s, Daisy thought. She picked up a pot of coffee, pushed through the Out door and walked into the main dining room. Casual elegance flavored the room. Snowy-white linens draped the tables, candles flickered wildly within the crystal hurricane globes and soft strains of weeping violin music drifted from the overhead speakers.

Above the music came the comfortable murmur of voices, punctuated every once in a while by someone’s laughter. Wineglasses clinked, forks and knives clattered against china, and men and women dressed in starched white shirts and creased black trousers moved through the crowd with choreographed precision.

Daisy smiled at her customers as she offered more coffee and took orders. She bent to grin at a toddler who was strapped into his high chair and laughing over the spaghetti he’d rubbed into his hair. Most of the wait staff hated having kids in their sections. It usually meant lost time when the customers left, because the mess had to be cleaned before anyone else could be seated. And lost time meant lost money.

But Daisy had always loved kids. Even the messy, cranky ones. Which, Joan had told her too many times to count, made Daisy nuts.

A group of men in their thirties followed the hostess and began to thread their way through the maze of tables to the huge, dark maroon leather booth at the back of Daisy’s station. As they passed, she caught a look of apology from the hostess seating them. Four men would be big eaters and probably end up running Daisy’s legs off. On the bright side, though, they might turn out to be good tippers, too. And she was always trying to beef up the nest egg building ever so slowly in the bank.

Another pain gripped her, this time sharply, briefly, in the middle of her back, and Daisy stiffened in reaction. Oh no, honey. Not now.

As if her baby heard that silent plea, the pain drifted away into nothing more than a slow, nagging ache. That Daisy could handle.

All she had to do was get through the next couple of hours and she’d be home free.

All he had to do was get through the next couple of hours and he’d be home free. That was what Alex Barone kept telling himself.

He was the last to be seated, and caught himself damn near perched on the edge of the leather banquette, as if ready to hit the floor running. When that thought flashed through his mind, he gritted his teeth and eased back on the bench seat. Damned if he’d feel guilty for coming into this restaurant.

Damned if he’d worry about the ramifications.

Although, if he’d known his friends were going to choose Antonio’s, he might have bowed out. There was no point in going out of his way to antagonize an old family enemy.

He glanced around at the place and smiled to himself. As a Barone, he’d been raised with stories that made the Conti family sound like demons. But if this was their hell, they’d made a nice place of it. Dim lighting, soft music…the scents coming out of the kitchen nearly made him groan in appreciation.

Nearly every table was full, and the wait staff looked busy as ground troops settling in for a big campaign. That thought brought a smile. He’d been in the military too long.

While his friends laughed and talked, Alex let his gaze drift around the room again, keeping a watchful eye out for any loose Contis. But since none of them knew Alex personally, what were the chances he’d be recognized as a Barone? Slim to none.

So he was just going to relax, have dinner, then leave with no one the wiser.

In the next instant, all thoughts of leaving raced from his brain.

“Hello, my name is Daisy and I’ll be your server tonight.”

A gorgeous woman seemed to appear out of nowhere, standing right beside Alex as she gave the whole table a smile wide and bright enough to light up all the shadowy corners in the room.

A purely male instinct had Alex straightening up in his seat for a closer, more thorough look. Her long, curly chestnut hair was caught at the nape of her neck with a slightly tarnished silver barrette. Her eyes weren’t quite blue or green, but a tantalizing combination of both. Her pale skin looked satin smooth and soft. Her voice held just a hint of humor. Alex’s interest was piqued…until her enormous belly nearly bumped him as she shifted position on what had to be tired feet.

Pregnant.

Taken.

Well, damn. Disappointment shot through him. His gaze dropped automatically to her ring finger. Nothing. Not even a white mark to indicate there might have been one there at some point.

He frowned to himself. Not married? What kind of moron would walk away from a woman like this? Especially if she was carrying his child?

“Hello, Daisy,” one of the guys—Mike Hannigan—said with a slow whistle of approval.

Alex shot him a disgusted look, but apparently it didn’t bother the woman at all.

“Can I start you out with some drinks? Appetizers?” she asked as she handed around several long menus.

“Beers all around,” Nick Santee ordered, and she nodded as she made a note on her order pad.

“Your phone number?” Tim Hawkins ventured.

She grinned, and the full, megawatt force of that smile hit Alex like a fist to the gut. Damn, this was one potent female, even in her condition.

“Sure,” she said, rubbing one hand along her belly. “It’s one eight hundred way too pregnant.”

Then she turned and walked off to get their drinks. While the guys laughed and kidded Tim about his lousy pickup skills, Alex half turned in his seat to follow her progress through the restaurant. She had a bounce in her step that he liked. The smile on her face had wavered only once, when she’d grimaced and dropped a hand to her belly, as if comforting the child within.

And who, he wondered, comforted her?

As the evening wore on, his interest in her only sharpened. When she brought the pitcher of beer and four glasses, he slid out of the booth to take the heavy tray from her.

“Oh. I’m okay, really.”

“Never said you weren’t, ma’am.”

She looked up at him, and he decided that her eyes were more blue than green.

“It’s Daisy. Just Daisy.”

He nodded, standing there, holding a trayful of drinks and looking down into fathomless eyes that seemed to draw him deeper with every passing second. “I’m Alex.”

She licked her lips, pulled in a shuddering breath and let it out again. “Well, thanks for the help…Alex.”

“No problem.”

He unloaded the beers, handed her back the empty tray and then stood in the aisle watching her walk away.

“Hey, Barone,” Nick called, and Alex flinched, hoping no one else had heard his last name.

“What?”

One of the guys laughed.

Nick said, “You gonna sit down and have a beer, or do you want to go on back to the kitchen and help her out there, too?”

Embarrassed to be caught fantasizing about a pregnant woman, Alex grinned and took his seat. Reaching for his beer, he took a long drink, hoping the icy brew would help stamp out the fires within.

But still he couldn’t help watching her. She should be tired. Yet her energy never seemed to flag. And she was stronger than her fragile build seemed to indicate. She lifted heavy trays with ease and kept up such a fast pace he was pretty sure if she’d been walking in a straight line, she’d have made it to Cleveland by now.

“Geez, Barone,” Nick muttered, leaning closer. “Get a grip. There’s lots of pretty women in Boston. Do you have to home in on one who’s obviously taken?”

“Who’s homing in?” Alex countered. Silently, though, he reminded himself that she wasn’t taken. At least not by a man who appreciated her enough to marry her. “I’m just—”

“Window shopping?” Tim asked.

“Close your hole,” Mike told him.

Alex glanced around at the men gathered at the table. Men he’d known for years. Like him, they were navy pilots, guys he’d trained with, studied with and flown with. There was a bond between them that even family couldn’t match.

And yet…right now, he wished them all to the Antarctic.

Stupid, but he wanted their waitress to himself.

When she set their check on the edge of the table, Alex picked it up quickly, his fingertips brushing hers. She drew back fast, almost as if she’d felt the same snap of electricity he had. Which was kind of weird. She was pregnant, for Pete’s sake. Very pregnant. It should have put her off-limits.

“So, are you guys shipping out now?” Daisy asked, trying to keep her gaze from drifting toward the man sitting so close to her.

His friends were easier to deal with. They were friendly, charming, casually flirtatious, like most of the navy men she’d waited on at Antonio’s. And she’d treated them as she did all of her customers—with polite friendliness and nothing more.

Since the day Jeff had called her a mantrap and walked out the door, leaving behind not only her but his unborn child, Daisy hadn’t given any man a second look. Until tonight. This one—Alex, with the ebony hair and dark brown eyes and sharp-as-a-razor cheekbones—was different. She’d known it the minute he looked at her. And the feeling had only grown over the last hour and a half.

She’d felt his gaze on her most of the night, and didn’t even want to think about the feelings that dark, steady stare engendered.

Hormones.

That had to be the reason.

Her hormones were out of whack because of the baby.

“No,” Alex said, and she steeled herself to meet that gaze head-on. “We’re on leave, actually.”

“Are you from Boston?” she asked and told herself she was only being friendly, just as she would with any other customer. But even she didn’t believe it.

There was just something about this man…

“I was raised here,” he was saying.

One of the other men spoke up, but his voice was like a buzz in her ears. All she heard, all she could see was this man watching her through the darkest, warmest eyes she’d ever seen.

“You have family here?”

A slow, wicked smile curved one side of his mouth, and her stomach jittered. “Yeah, I come from a big family. I’m the fifth of eight kids.”

She dropped one hand to the mound of her belly. “Eight. That must be nice.”

“Not when I was a kid,” he admitted. “Too many people fighting over the TV and cookies.”

Daisy smiled at the mental image of a houseful of children, laughing, happy. Then, sadly, she let it go. It was something she’d never known, and now her baby, too, would grow up alone.

No. Not alone. Her baby would always have her.

Alex’s friends eased out of the booth and headed for the front of the restaurant. He watched them go, nodded, then reached into his wallet for a few bills. He handed her the money and the check and said, “Keep the change.”

“Thanks. I mean—” He was leaving. Probably just as well, she told herself. And yet she felt oddly reluctant to let him walk away.

“What are you doing in my restaurant?”

Daisy spun around to watch in amazement as Salvatore Conti, her boss, came rushing out of the kitchen, flapping a pristine white dish towel like some crazed matador looking for a bull.