“I named myself,” he said. “Edgar and I are both masters of horror. If you want, I’ll write a poem for you.”
From the corner of her eye, Peyton noticed Mitch listening to their exchange with his arms crossed over his chest and a smile playing about his lips. The boy looked so hopeful she searched for a way to let him down easy. “Thanks, but I’m not into scary things.”
“Too bad,” the boy said. “Horror’s the bomb.”
Mitch had the audacity to catch her eye and smile, as though they were on good enough terms to share a private moment. She’d straighten him out, but good.
The trio of boys rushed back, announcing that Field Four was empty. Things happened quickly after that. Peyton assigned the Death to play the Heads and instructed the Moons and the Eyes to stay where they were. The players went off to start their games and quite suddenly she and Mitch were alone on the sidelines.
She hazarded a look at him. The last vestiges of the sun had disappeared from the sky, and the overhead lights were flickering to life. His mouth kicked up in that half-grin that made her stomach do crazy things.
“Thank you,” he said. “That’s about the nicest thing anybody ever did for me.”
Peyton’s stomach flipped so hard that for an insane moment she was tempted to grin back at him. But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t.“Don’t you dare accuse me of being nice to you!”
The space between his eyebrows knotted. “But you were.”
“I wasn’t being nice. I was being. . . humane. That crowd was about to turn on you.”
“Then thanks for being humane to me.”
“Oh.” She let out an angry sound and balled her hands into fists. “Can’t I do anything without it being about you?”
“What?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m angry.”
“I had noticed.” He ran his hands through his hair, lending it a tousled, just-out-of-bed quality. Peyton could have flogged herself for letting her thoughts run to Mitch and bed. “This is about the ball, isn’t it? I tried calling you a bunch of times to apologize, but couldn’t reach you.”
Peyton didn’t have any missed calls on her cell but supposed it was possible he’d phoned her at home. “Then why didn’t you leave a message?”
“I wanted to apologize to you, not to an answering machine.”
“Give it up, Mitch.” She let her sarcasm show. “You and I are through.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
She needed to think about that for a moment. “Telling you we’re through.”
“Why the personal visit? Why didn’t you just call and say we were through?”
“Because you didn’t answer your cell.”
“I didn’t?” he asked, as though that came as a surprise to him. He focused on her, squinting his eyes and shaking his head. “That’s not it. I think you wanted to see me in person.”
“Why would I want that?”
“So I could talk you out of breaking up with me.”
“That’s ridiculous.” She noticed a lock of his dark hair swirling across his forehead. That was strange. Didn’t it usually swirl in the opposite direction? She stopped herself from brushing it back from his face. “You can’t change my mind about dumping you.”
He cocked his head. “You don’t want to hear why I had to leave the ball early?”
“No!” Peyton refuted. Except she was already here. What would it hurt to listen to his explanation? “Why?”
“Because—”
“You better not say anything about Ho Hos or dead rock stars,” she interrupted.
“Will you let me explain?”
She put her hands on her hips, giving him some attitude. “Go ahead. Talk.”
“I have a second job tending bar.” He looked her straight in the eyes. “If I hadn’t showed up for work, I would’ve been fired.”
Of all the things she’d expected him to say, that wasn’t one of them. Then again, it explained so much. Since they’d started dating, he’d been about as reliable as the tour-guide business in the dead of winter.
“How long has this been going on?” she asked.
He seemed to be mentally adding up days. “About a month.”
A month. All of a sudden, the broken dates and early exits made sense. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Because he hadn’t told her, that’s why. He’d merely let her think he was either irresponsible, heedless of her feelings or fooling around with another woman.
“You’re such a jerk, Mitch,” she said.
“For having a second job?”
“For not telling me about it.” She glared at him.
“I didn’t want you to know.”
“Why not?”
He sighed. “It’s not easy for a guy to admit to his girl that he’s having money trouble.”
She digested that. Surprisingly, it made sense. Men were odd creatures who constantly got their priorities mixed up. She valued character over riches and honesty over pride, but that didn’t mean Mitch felt the same way.
“You could have told me,” she muttered.
He leaned his head closer to hers. “I am telling you.”
She cut her eyes at him. A mistake. He looked convincingly contrite. “I thought you knew that money doesn’t matter much to me,” she said.
“Good,” he said, “because I don’t have a whole lot of it.”
She chewed on her bottom lip, hardly believing what she was about to say. “If I dump you now, I guess I’d seem pretty cold-blooded.”
“Ice water would run through your veins.”
Peyton scuffed the toe of her tennis shoe in the dirt. “I suppose I could give you another chance.”
“Sounds like the only humane thing to do.”
She waited for him to say I told you so. That by convincing her not to break up with him, he’d accomplished exactly what she wanted him to. He stood there, grinning at her, saying nothing.
What was a girl to do but give in?
“You’re getting off work soon, right?” she asked.
He checked his watch. “In about a half hour.”
“So where are you taking me for dinner?”
Mitch felt his grin grow wider. Every minute he stopped Peyton from walking away from him was a minute longer he had her in his life.
“Anywhere you want to go,” he said.
She rattled off a list of suggestions, all of which sounded fine to him. Out of necessity, he’d spent Sunday gathering information on G. Gaston Gibbs III instead of making amends to Peyton, but he had a real shot at salvaging the relationship.
He wouldn’t have to rush off like he had Saturday night, because Gibbs had given him the night off. Sort of. Mitch was supposed to go to North Charleston tonight to break some bones.
He rubbed his jaw. How could he romance Peyton and terrorize Cooper Barnes, delinquent debtor, at the same time?
“I haven’t been there in ages,” she said, in the middle of talking about some downtown restaurant or other, “and the she-crab soup is to die for. So is the pan-seared—”
“Peyton, stop,” he said. “I need to—”
“You’re backing out, aren’t you?” She shook her head back and forth so that her blonde hair swayed. Resignation fell over her face, and she seemed disgusted at herself. “I should have known not to trust you. You’ve given me ample reason.”
“I’m not backing out,” Mitch refuted, his mind working as hard as it had when he’d taken college calculus.
She ignored him. “But did I listen to my common sense? No. You start spouting your pretty words and I listened to them instead. All because you’re easy on the eyes.”
He grabbed her gently by the shoulders. Cooper Barnes worked as a waiter at a North Charleston restaurant. If Mitch took Peyton to that establishment, he might be able to satisfy both her and Gaston Gibbs. “Peyton, I’m not backing out.”
The eyes that slowly raised to his were full of hope. “You’re not?”
“No,�
� he said. “I’d like nothing better than to spend the evening with you.”
He hadn’t yet figured out how to eat dinner and terrorize at the same time, but he’d lose Peyton if he didn’t take her out tonight. He frowned. He meant Cary would lose Peyton.
“I interrupted you because I remember this special place I wanted to take you.” The name of the restaurant where Cooper worked was The Carriage House, which conjured up a picture of elegant Old Charleston charm. “It’s very romantic.”
“Okay,” she said, smiling at him. “I can live with that.”
CHAPTER NINE
With Peyton in the passenger seat, Mitch drove Cary’s jazzy little red Miata down Rivers Avenue later that evening past used car lots, strip shopping malls and tattoo parlors.
He silently cursed himself for not thinking to case out the area. He was a cop who was used to doing his homework. The North Charleston landscape shouldn’t have come as a surprise.
Neither should the Carriage House restaurant, which had all the old-world elegance of a stable. It had a clapboard face with gray, weathered wood and windows so grimy a Peeping Tom wouldn’t bother. Inwardly cringing, Mitch pulled into the gravel parking lot and shut off the car engine.
“This is the romantic restaurant you were talking about?” Peyton slanted him a dubious glance. She was dressed in a form-hugging blouse and slinky dark pants suitable for an elegant night on the town.
“This is the one,” Mitch said cheerfully, determined to make the best of the situation. He got out of the car, circled to the passenger side to open her door and prayed she wouldn’t refuse to budge.
She placed her hand in his, chuckling softly as she let him help her out of the car. “I’ll say one thing for you, Mitch. You’re full of surprises.”
“It’s supposed to be nicer inside,” he mumbled.
It wasn’t. The lighting was dim, probably to camouflage the shabbiness of the tables and chairs. The carpet was so worn it felt like they were walking on cement.
Every eye in the place turned toward them, which wasn’t so many considering only four of the twenty or so tables were occupied. Mitch shifted, acutely aware of how overdressed they were. He had on another of Cary’s elegant suits, this one a deep shade of chocolate. Cary’s silk tie alone probably cost more than any one of the other customers made in a day’s work.
“What do you want to bet they don’t have a hostess?” Peyton whispered, amusement in her voice.
As if on cue, a tall, barrel-chested waiter caught their attention from across the room. “Seat yourself,” he called.
Peyton lifted an I-told-you-so eyebrow and sauntered to a vacant table. Mitch held out the chair for her. He wouldn’t have blamed her had she dusted off the chair before sitting.
“Somebody at work recommended this place,” he said when they were settled. “I expected something different.”
“You never know about recommendations.” Her eyes twinkled. “Maybe the person who suggested it has a thing for carriage houses. This place obviously used to be one.”
The massive waiter ambled over to their table on what must have been size sixteen feet. At least six foot five, he had wide shoulders, thick forearms and harsh features. He threw down laminated menus marred with fingerprints.
“I’m Cooper,” he said in a voice deeper than the Atlantic ocean. “Give me a holler when you’re ready.”
That was Cooper Barnes? With a build like that, he could be playing football Sunday afternoons on national television. It’d probably take a crowbar to break one of his bones.
“Did your friend tell you the food here was good?” Peyton asked.
Mitch pulled his gaze from the departing waiter. “What friend?”
Peyton glanced up from her open menu. “The one who recommended the restaurant.”
“Why would one of my friends recommend this restaurant?”
“You said somebody at work recommended this place. I don’t know why. That’s why I was asking.”
“Oh, yeah.” Mitch needed to do better at this. He cracked the menu and perused it. Ordering fish or chicken, which could be easily undercooked, seemed dicey at best. “He said the meatloaf was good. Why don’t we get that?”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Well, yeah,” he said even though he hadn’t been.
“Because I’m an ovo-lacto vegetarian, remember?”
“Of course I remember,” he bluffed. “I was checking to see if you were paying attention.”
Her pretty, wide mouth frowned as she gazed at him over the menu. “You’ve been acting sort of strange the past couple days. Everything all right?”
As right as things could be while he was dining in a dive with his brother’s very tempting girlfriend while the man he was supposed to maim waited on them. He thought about how Cary would answer her. “What could be wrong when I’m with you?”
Her frown deepened. “Is it work? You seemed a little frazzled the other day at the park.”
A little? He was as hopeless at park management as Cary was at gambling. Too bad he couldn’t confide in Peyton his worries about the bird watch he was supposed to lead tomorrow morning. Unlike Cary, Mitch couldn’t tell a pine warbler from a tree swallow.
“I’ve got it under control,” Mitch said.
She blew out a breath through her nose, set her lips and went back to studying the menu. “Fine. Don’t tell me about it if you don’t want to.”
Smooth, Mitchell, real smooth, he thought to himself in disgust and spent the next forty-five minutes trying to make up for his gaffe.
He wanted to tell her stories about being a cop in Atlanta but settled for talking about growing up in Richmond. Halfway through her plate of spaghetti, the only thing on the menu that wasn’t fish, meat or poultry, she was smiling at him again.
“I bet all those girls in high school were after you,” Peyton said.
Mitch shook his head. “No way. Teenage girls pick the jock over the boy who plays in the marching band every time.”
She paused in the process of bringing a forkful of spaghetti to her mouth. “But you were the jock. Didn’t you tell me you were a star pitcher?”
Of course Cary had told her that. His brother’s sense of self worth was so tied up with the past that everyone who knew him even a little had heard the story.
“Well, yeah,” he answered, then figured he couldn’t weasel out of this one without providing an explanation. “But I played trumpet in the band, too. I was half cool, half not.”
“I think playing the trumpet is way cool.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, I do.” She smiled at him. “Maybe you’ll play for me sometime.”
Pleasure spiraled through him, far out of proportion to her offhand comment. He couldn’t practice as much as he liked because the senior citizens in his apartment building didn’t like loud noise, but he was the twin who played the trumpet. Cary couldn’t blow a single note.
“Although don’t get me wrong,” she continued, “because I like baseball, too. I’d have loved to see you pitch.”
To see Cary pitch, she meant. The pleasure evaporated like mist on a sunny day. She scrunched up her forehead, as though something had occurred to her and gestured to the piece of meatloaf on his fork.
“Why are you using that hand?” she asked.
He wondered if it were a trick question. “Because that’s what it’s there for?”
“But it’s your right hand. When we started talking about pitching, I remembered you’re a lefty.”
“I’m ambidextrous, actually.” He swiftly switched the fork to his off hand and shoveled some meatloaf into his mouth. It was so cold, he instantly wished he’d missed the mark. Glancing down at his plate, he noticed the inside of the meat was red.
“Is something wrong, Mitch?”
“It’s the meatloaf,” he said wryly. “I think it might still be alive.”
She made a horrified face. She’d probably become a vegetarian because she could
n’t bear the thought of animals being slaughtered for her culinary pleasure.
“You should have the waiter take it back.” She started to raise her arm to signal Cooper Barnes, the colossal reason Mitch was eating raw meatloaf in the first place.
“No.” He reached across the table to lay a hand on her arm, felt something like an electric charge and immediately released her out of loyalty to his brother. “Don’t call the waiter over.”
She obediently dropped her arm but her sick expression returned. “You have to let him know the kitchen’s serving raw ground beef. People could get sick.”
“I know that.” Mitch turned in his seat to watch Barnes push through the swinging kitchen door so forcefully that it bounced back like a boomerang. If he didn’t approach Barnes now, he might not get another chance. He brought his attention back to Peyton. “But I’d rather skip the waiter and go straight to the cook.”
“You can’t just walk in the kitchen!”
“Why not?” Mitch stood and picked up his plate of meatloaf. Something in her incredulous expression as she gazed up at him reminded him of Amelia, Peyton’s oh-so-proper mother.
“Because it’s simply not done.” She sounded like Amelia, too.
He winked at her. “Watch me.”
Mitch crossed the worn carpeting and swung the door open to the kitchen. He held his breath to delay breathing in the nose-curling smells given off by bad cooking. The kitchen, however, didn’t look like he’d expected. It was all stainless steel counters and freshly mopped tile. The rosy-cheeked man pulling a casserole from the industrial-sized oven was clad entirely in white. Atop his head sat a tall, flouncy chef’s hat.
The chef let loose with a string of phrases uttered in a heavy French accent. Mitch didn’t have any trouble translating his outrage even before he switched to English. “In my kitchen there should not be a customer!”
Mitch finally had to inhale, and the air didn’t smell rank at all. He breathed in the scent of sauces and spice while he located Cooper Barnes, who was beside the grill fixing himself a cheeseburger.
Mitch held up his plate. “The meatloaf’s undercooked.”
“Absurdite’!” The chef strode across the kitchen and took the plate from Mitch. “Any gourmand knows the rare ground beef makes the flavorable loaf.”
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