At Your Service

by Amy Jo Cousins

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  AMY JO COUSINS

  loves words of all kinds, and her love of reading naturally led to a love of writing. Amy also has a passion for languages and there's nothing she likes better than learning a new language and using it to explore the history of a foreign country, whether standing on the beaches of D Day in Normandy or outside the Olympic Stadium in Munich.

  Her collection of books is slowly crowding her out of her home, although her cat seems more than willing to fall asleep upon the various piles. Other than that, Amy loves learning how to do anything that takes her outdoors and away from her computer, including kayaking, sculling, rock climbing and landscape water painting.

  For all the women in my life, but most of all for the

  number-one diva-queen-goddess, my mother.

  Not many people would know that in her heart of hearts,

  what an eleven-year-old girl dreamed of was an

  electric typewriter, new or used. Thank you for

  always managing to give me everything I

  needed to pursue everything I wanted.

  One

  "Trust me, buddy. You want me. You need me. I know it, and you know it. Just give in to the inevitable."

  Grace crossed the fingers of one hand behind her back and stuck her other hand across the bar to shake on it. The man behind the recently varnished oak counter, with the hooded, skeptical eyes and the sculpted mouth pressed closed, just stared at her. She hoped he didn't notice that her hand was shaking.

  The man—Tyler, she assumed, since the banners outside read Tyler's Bar & Grill, Grand Opening Tonight—kept his unreadable, unnerving eyes on her. She was certain that a less welcoming face had never frowned on a more desperate, out-of-work woman in the world. She tugged on her newly blond hair and considered walking back out the front door before she made a complete fool of herself.

  Then she remembered her original reason for walking in the bar. She'd needed change for the bus, because the only thing filling out her wallet was a single twenty-dollar bill. A job started to sound pretty good when a girl was down to her last twenty.

  She kept her hand hanging out there over the bar and prepared to outwait this Tyler. After two weeks in hiding, she was out of options. When she heard her grandmother's voice echoing in her head, Grace wasn't surprised. She blinked back the reflexive tears and stretched her smile a little wider.

  You're a Haley, girl, and do not forget that. You have a genetic history of ancestors who defined the word tenacious.

  Grace knew that in all likelihood she still wouldn't have had the nerve to face off against the ridiculously handsome man behind the bar, except for one thing. As she'd entered the bar, she'd had to squeeze past what looked like an entire Mexican family, all ripping off long white aprons and shouting in gleeful excitement. If her Spanish was good enough, she thought they were calling out apologies to Señor Tyler because they were leaving for Acapulco immediately, their cousin having won the state lottery.

  Tough break for this Tyler on his opening night.

  She'd feel sympathetic after she talked herself into a job, thank you very much. The muscles in her shoulder were starting to tremble from the effort of keeping her hand hanging in midair, but she'd be damned if she'd let Mr. "I'm So Sexy" behind the bar see that.

  Not even 10:00 a.m., Tyler thought to himself, and his day had already been flushed down the toilet. He was happy for the Garcias—it wasn't often that good people got such a lucky break—but having no staff did put a bit of a crimp in his Grand Opening plans.

  He'd work it out, make some phone calls, call in some favors. But all that would take time, something he was rapidly running out of. Meanwhile, he had enough to do without dealing with the runaway teen staring determinedly across the bar at him.

  She practically had desperate tattooed across her forehead. The shadows under her lake-blue eyes gave her an almost pain- ful look of fragility. And although her hair was gloriously, deeply blond, with just enough of a hint of wave to make it slide around her cheekbones and chin and shoulders like a caress, he'd seen her tug on the ends sharply after making her ridiculous proposition. This girl was nervous enough for three ex-cons on the lam.

  He felt bad about it, and took that as some consolation that he wasn't an irredeemable jerk on the sliding scale of morality, but he just didn't have time for that much trouble today. He'd been working toward this day for almost ten years, and if he wanted it to go smoothly, he didn't have time to baby-sit.

  "Sorry, darlin'," he said gently, and waited to see her face fall into tears from the bold front she was putting on now. Maybe he could make it seem less personal. "You have to be over twenty-one to serve drinks in Chicago."

  To his complete surprise, she laughed. Out loud and with real humor, the laughs rolling up from her belly and out past her lips in a ringing music that made him wonder what it would take to see her laugh again.

  "Thank you, darlin'," she said, still smiling. And damned if he could stop himself from smiling back. "But if you're trying to make my day better, I'd rather have the job than the compliment."

  "The compliment?" he asked.

  "Tyler—you are Tyler, aren't you?" At his nod, she continued, still grinning sassily. "Well, Tyler, I could hit thirty with a short stick. So if you were trying to be tender with my feminine sensibilities, don't bother. I can't afford 'em."

  It was as if she'd flipped a switch. Tyler wasn't sure what had happened, but suddenly his runaway teenager had transformed herself into the image of the smart-aleck, funny, tough woman that was his favorite kind of waitress. When she'd walked in the door of the tavern as the Garcias walked out and told him that he was going to hire her because he needed her, she was rolling on bravado alone. He'd read it in bold print across her face.

  But now the confidence was real, the humor was genuine. This blond angel was still just as easy to read, only now her face said, I've been there, done that, and you can't even imagine what you'll be missing if you let me get away from you now.

  Still, maybe confidence that appeared so quickly would disappear just as fast. So he watched her, again, as he spoke.

  "I was trying to find a nice way to tell you to get lost. I don't have a job for you."

  "Nice try, buddy." She retracted the arm she'd held out over the bar, waiting for a handshake, and shook out her muscles. Her eyes pierced him like a pin through a bug on a collector's mat. "Since you're being stubborn... you just let me know when you're ready to shake on it."

  She pulled out one of the narrow-backed bar stools, turned it around and stepped up to straddle it in a move that had him choking on his tongue, so suddenly did the image flow into his head of her naked and swinging a leg over him in the samel arrogant way.

  Get a grip, Tyler, she's looking for a job, not a bedmate, he thought. Then he watched her brace her elbows on the seatback, lace her fingers together and rest her chin on them. She licked her lips slowly, slowly enough that he could imagine what it would feel like to have her tongue gently tracing his own mouth before opening to him. The gleam in her eyes should have warned him.

  "I want two bucks over minimum wage."

  "What?" The outrage was genuine enough to take his mind off of her mouth. "Waitstaff get two bucks less than minimum, with tips to make up the difference, and you're crazy if you think you're getting any different."

  "Yeah, well it looks to me like you got a problem here, Tyler. You got no staff, period. And since I'm t
he only one banging down your door looking for a job..."

  She stared across the bar at him. He stared back. Somehow he'd gone from shooing her out the door to negotiating her hourly wage, and he hadn't even said he'd hire her yet.

  Damn, she was good.

  "Look, it's really a bargain, if you think about it. I'll be playing host, waiter, busboy and most likely dishwasher, too. At least at first. You're getting four employees for the price of one."

  "Sounds like I'm getting four employees for two bucks over minimum. That's a lot higher than one measly server."

  "Like I said, darlin'—" She shook back her hair and sat up straight. "You need me. You want me. You know it and I know it."

  The trouble was, she was right. He did need her, and he did want her. And if he needed and wanted for two different reasons, then that was his problem. The boss sleeping with the help was the fastest way to lose good workers. And he'd already learned how quickly a woman tired of a man who spent more time with his business than he did with her. He wouldn't be walking down that road again.

  He listened to his own thoughts and gave up the battle. He'd already decided to hire her, assuming her references panned out. He didn't really have much of a choice.

  "Just give in to the inevitable, hmm?"

  "You got it," she said, and winked at him. And Tyler was sold. She was perfect.

  "Where have you worked before here?"

  The question was a casual one, meant more to be social than as a background check. Anyone who'd waited tables for a month or two would be able to handle his straightforward menu and small seating area. So he was a little curious when she paused before answering him.

  "At a diner." He watched her tug nervously on her hair again before shrugging at him from across the bar. "We were open twenty-four-seven. Heavy late-night and breakfast crowds. But you could do your nails and the New York Times's crossword between noon and midnight."

  Something indefinable, something suddenly not quite right, kept him asking questions.

  "What was the name of the place?"

  Again the hesitation. And when she answered him, he knew he had her.

  "Mel's Diner."

  Grace saw Tyler's eyes widen, in disbelief, she assumed, and cursed herself for a fool. She should never have walked in here without laying out her story beforehand. When he'd asked her that stupid question, her mind had blanked and she'd blurted out the first thing that had popped into her head.

  If she didn't think fast, she'd lose this job before she had a chance to tie on an apron.

  "Mel's Diner? Oh, darlin', that's rich." For the first time since she walked in the door, he, turned his back on her and went back to stocking glasses on the shelves behind the bar. "You had me believing you, too. But watching a bunch of wise-talking, butt-shaking waitresses on a 70's TV sitcom does not make you one. Nice try, sweets, but no cigar."

  Grace rolled her eyes in frustration and tried to think fast, something that was definitely easier without his eyes on her. Did the man have to be gorgeous enough to make it difficult for her to think straight? She knew that in her old life she would have handled someone like Tyler without flinching, secure in her job, her family, her position in the world.

  But now she had no job and no family to help her define herself. And she couldn't very well tell the man that up until two weeks ago she'd been in charge of eleven of the top-grossing restaurants in Chicago. She was stuck with lying, and knowing she wasn't very good at it made her nervous. Looking at Tyler made her even more nervous.

  Get a grip, girl, she told herself. You have no backup here, no money and no choice. She'd managed to talk herself most of the way into a job by imagining what her grandmother would have said if she were stuck in this bizarre situation and pretending to be her. So she'd just keep doing that until she convinced this Tyler to hire her.

  "You think that's funny, huh?" She made her voice sound loud and confident and just a little bit annoyed. "It's not so amusing when the guy who hires you hands you a pink dress and a frilly white apron as a uniform and tells you that you get a bonus if you say 'Kiss my grits!' once an hour."

  After a moment Tyler turned slowly back around to face her and she saw him fight to keep the smile under wraps. She'd really put her heart into the imitation of the TV waitress, Alice, and knew the voice sounded funny coming out of her mouth.

  "Did you chew gum?"

  She drew a cross over her heart with one finger. "It was part of my job description." She paused. "My manager had a cardboard cutout of Alice standing by the front door. He kissed it every night when he left. I couldn't make this up if I tried."

  And then he did laugh, and she knew she was safe. She'd pulled it off. The relief was strong enough to make her glad she was sitting down.

  "What's your name?"

  "Grace," she said. The feeling of having escaped from danger was overwhelming, but she still remembered to use her mother's maiden name. "Grace Desmond."

  The danger returned with Tyler's next words.

  "Okay, Grace Desmond. Consider yourself hired. Grand Opening is at 5:00 p.m. tonight, so show up back here at three and we'll fill out your paperwork. Bring your license and some other kind of ID, and an apron if you have one. If not, I'll give you one."

  Grace was shaking her head yes, in agreement, even as her mind started to panic. There was no way she could show this man her driver's license. Even if he didn't recognize her family name as one of the most prominent in Chicago, the address on her identification was not one a diner waitress could possibly have. Not unless she had a wealthy benefactor.

  Tyler stretched a hand across the bar, ready to shake on it at last. For a moment Grace just stared at his hand, wide-palmed and strong, showing scars around the knuckles that spoke of hard work and harder play. Then she reached out and fit her own, smaller hand into his and shook on her new job.

  When she tried to pull her hand away, he didn't let go. She glanced up sharply at him, concerned. His dark eyes seemed to swallow all the light in the room as he leaned forward, gaze locked on her face, and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. She could feel the shape of his mouth on her fingers, the dampness of the inner edge of his lips catching on her skin. All over her body, muscles froze tightly in place to keep from shivering as Tyler slowly dragged his lips from side to side just once.

  "And I'll need a reference. Before you leave."

  She waited until she turned the corner and was sure he couldn't see her from the bar windows before breaking into a run. She'd gone at least two blocks without seeing a pay phone anywhere when she remembered the cellular phone in her purse.

  Surely they couldn't be tracing her cell phone. Wasn't that impossible? Grace decided to keep the conversation short.

  She dug the phone out, flipped it open and dialed the number from heart. While she listened to the electronic rings chirping in her ear and prayed that Paul would be home, she remembered the look in Tyler's eyes as he'd folded up the napkin on which she'd written the name and telephone number of her reference. She didn't know if he was trying to intimidate her into the truth or to seduce her, but she was afraid that he might do both.

  "Hello?" a grumpy, hoarse voice finally answered.

  "Paul? Thank God, you're home."

  "Where the damn else would I be at this ridiculous hour of the morning? And who is this calling me?"

  "It's going on eleven in the morning, Paul. Are you sure Louis can handle the lunch crowd at Nice without you?" she teased. The little stab of pain at the thought of her favorite restaurant was ignored.

  "Gracie?" She could hear him coming out of sleep, her mentor, her good friend, and today, hopefully, her savior. "Is this my little Gracie?"

  "Bien sûr, Paul," she reassured him in his native French. "Have you missed me?"

  "Missed you? You little brat, I am crazy with worry about you. I can't cook. Where are you? Are you well?"

  Grace felt her breath catch and the tears start to collect at the corner of her eyes. For the firs
t time in weeks she was talking to someone who really cared about her, and the warmth in Paul's voice was nearly enough to break her. As she took a deep breath, trying for control, she realized that Paul was still speaking to her.

  "—absolument crazy around here without you. Your family talk of hiring an investigator. And your fiancé, that crétin, trying to take over my restaurant. Listen, chérie, tell me where you are and I send a taxi to get you and bring you here. And then we straighten this whole mess out."

  Investigator.

  That one word was enough to snap her back to reality, which was that she was standing on a street corner in full view of the world, talking on her cell phone, and meanwhile her family, not to mention Charles, might have already hired someone to try to track her down. To bring her back.

  "Paul," she broke into his stream of words. "Paul, listen to me. First of all, Charles and I are not engaged, no matter what the family says. I never said yes. And I'll discuss everything else with you later, but right now I need you to do me a favor. Please."

  "You know you have only to ask," he answered immediately, the solid strength of his voice reassurance in itself.

  "This is going to sound crazy, Paul, but I need you to be a reference for me so I can get a job waiting tables." She repeated the description of the diner that she'd given to Tyler, although since Paul wasn't familiar with the 70's sitcom she'd based her story on, there was some confusion as to why he would ever let one of his employees chew gum. Not to mention the famous quote.

  "I have eaten these grits, yes? And that was bad enough. But why would anyone want to kiss them, chérie?"

  By the time she explained to Paul what he would need to say, and described what might show up on his caller ID to alert him to answer the phone "Mel's Diner," she was frantic to get off the phone.

  "Thank you, Paul. You are saving my life."

  "I still don't understand why you want to wait tables when you should be running all of your family's restaurants. You know that's what your grandmother wanted. But if it will help you, and if you promise to call me soon..."