Made in Heaven

by McGoldrick, May

“Meg, why don’t you let me buy you lunch? I probably owe you that, at least.”

  She turned and looked at him over her shoulder. Jeez, he knew how to turn on the charm when he wanted to. With that killer smile and those incredible eyes, it was almost too easy to give in. Almost, she reminded herself.

  “Wouldn’t I be crazy to accept lunch from you, even if it were a peace offering? I mean, when you consider all the abuse you’ve been giving me--”

  “No! I think it would show good taste on your part. Not to mention, it would give you a great opportunity to use me for polishing up your flirting skills.”

  She gave an unladylike snort.

  “Hey, you’ll love it.” Taking her silence for consent, he threw a friendly arm around her shoulder and steered her across the busy street between the oncoming cars.

  She didn’t stop him. As much as her sensible mind cried to put a halt to all of it, Meg couldn’t. Jeez, maybe she was becoming a flirt after all, but he smelled wonderful. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Dressed in his navy blue polo shirt and khaki pants, he was also not like any of the cab drivers she was used to seeing in Boston.

  When they reached the other side of Broad Way, she noticed that he didn’t drop his hand. Resigned to the squadrons of butterflies dogfighting in her stomach, she didn’t complain.

  They only went another hundred yards before he directed her toward the door of a small restaurant on the side of the street. From the outside, the faded half-curtains in the windows hid any hint of what the inside might be like, but with her stomach ready to devour her liver, Meg wasn’t about to be picky, so long as they served edible food fast.

  “Like clams?”

  “Love them!” Meg responded over the noise of the lunch crowd. “Necks, bellies, shells, the whole bit!”

  She peered into the dimly lit restaurant. It had to be about the homeliest dining room she’d ever seen, and that was saying something, considering some of the diners and hole in the wall places she’d eaten in over the years. Waitresses in gold, polyester uniforms hustled to and fro, exchanging insults with a burly, unshaven cook. Ugly, rusted metal stools with cracked, green leather seats sat screwed to the floor in front of a formica-topped counter that had probably been old when Howard Johnson was a baby. But there wasn’t an empty table in the joint, and the wonderful smell of a grill smoking steadily behind the crowded counter made Meg’s stomach growl for food.

  “Lobster?”

  “Sure.” Meg looked at a passing waitress. “Nobody seems to even see us here.”

  “They don’t stand on ceremony around here. We’ll just grab the first table that opens up.”

  She nodded and looked keenly at the heaping plates of food before the boisterous and somewhat rough-looking clientele. Before they’d stepped into this place and smell of food had reached her stomach, she hadn’t even given much thought to her missed meals. But her hunger struck her now, and she realized it had been yesterday since she’d eaten, at the train station in Boston.

  “Are you going to make it?”

  She turned in Evan’s direction and found him leaning casually against the wall close to the door and watching her. “I don’t know. It’s going to be close!”

  “You didn’t eat today, did you?”

  She moved to stand next to him. “Don’t ask me about my last meal! In fact, let’s not talk about food.”

  “Fine, we can talk about something else.” He moved aside so that she too could lean against the wall. “So what is it that you do? I mean other than vacationing in expensive resort towns like this, and flirting with the cab drivers that give you rides!”

  She scowled at him and moved her bag from one shoulder to the other. “And I thought we’d established a truce!”

  “Sorry, I just can’t help it. I enjoy teasing you.”

  “Sure, but I’m the tease, remember?”

  “Oh, that’s right. But you didn’t tell me. What is it that you do?”

  Meg tore her gaze away from his amused eyes and glanced at the direction of the bustling tables and old linoleum floors. She’d be damned if she’d give him a straight answer. Not after all the irritation he’d given her earlier. “I’m a janitor!”

  “Get out!” His burst of laughter drew a few eyes in their direction. “And I suppose the Inn at Castle Hill is the hotel of choice among the janitorial set?”

  “As a matter of fact, I was just checking it out for the annual conference.”

  “Conference?”

  “Yes, for the National Organization of Maintenance Engineers. Good organization.”

  “Yeah, okay!”

  She put on her best insulted expression. “Mr. Knight, you’re incredibly rude on top of being a jerk. Have I even once made fun of or criticized what you do for living? Why can’t you do the same of me? A job is a job--you make what you will of it.”

  He reached down unexpectedly and took hold of her hand. Wordlessly, he brought it up. She followed his line of vision and stared at her short, no-nonsense, unmanicured nails.

  “You don’t pamper yourself,” he announced with a bit of surprise in his voice. He ran his thumb over the skin. “But you have very soft hands.”

  She held her breath at the tingling sensation that was racing up her arm.

  “No janitor has a hand like this.”

  “Have you heard of latex gloves? Our union frowns on us using strong chemicals without them. Not to mention OSHA regulations.”

  From the twinkle in his eyes, she knew he didn’t believe a word of what she’d said.

  “And no calluses,” he continued, turning her hand over and running a slow finger down the middle of her palm.

  She bit her bottom lip. “Work gloves,” she managed to croak.

  He brought her unresisting hand to his face. The roughness of the shave and then the mere touch of his lips against her skin made her shiver with excitement.

  “Really. You know, I can’t smell even a hint of Lysol!”

  “Well, I just changed the baby’s diaper.” He lifted his head an inch or two. “And I...I’ve been away...away from my job. You know, cleaning the bathrooms?”

  Two people brushed past them on their way out the door, and Meg stole her hand out of his grasp. Peering into the dining room, she spotted the vacant table. A pile of dirty dishes sat on the glass-covered checkered table cloth. A heavyset waitress turned her back on the mess and continued chatting with the customer at the next table.

  “Do we wait for her to clean it up, or should we jump for it?”

  With a nod, he gently pushed her in the direction of the table, following close behind.

  “If she thinks we’re going to pocket her tip, she’ll have that table cleared in no time.”

  As they approached the small table, Meg again found herself too aware of Evan. Quickly, he moved around her, holding her chair until she was settled, and then seating himself. He was a mass of contradictions, but there was something so graceful about certain things that he did. Meg eyed the few coins and the dollar bill sitting beside a plate.

  She nodded at the money. “Looks like a fortune.”

  A meaty hand scooped up the tip.

  “What can I get for you, honey?”

  Meg looked up and found the waitress’s eyes riveted on Evan. As far as the woman was concerned, Meg clearly didn’t even exist.

  “We’ll have two lobster rolls.” He gave their waitress one of his knockout smiles. “And I’ve heard you guys make the best clam chowder in town.”

  “We sure do, hon.”

  Meg couldn’t believe her eyes, but the woman actually plunked a hand on his shoulder and leaned her large bosom toward his face. He glanced down with a devilish grin.

  “Beautiful. Then bring us two cups of that, will you?”

  “I’ll have mine in a bowl...hon!” Meg cut in brightly, addressing Evan and entwining her fingers in his. It took him only a moment to pick his jaw up off the table. “And I’ll have iced tea to drink.”

&nbs
p; “Got it,” the waitress remarked indifferently before cooing at Evan again. “And you, pumpkin?”

  “Coke.”

  Meg watched through slitted eyes as the waitress took her time to clean the table. As the well-endowed woman bent over the table to brush off a non-existent crumb, Meg caught her again directing her deep cleavage in Evan’s direction. And he had to be the oldest living adolescent, because he looked down and he looked deep.

  When she was gone, Meg quickly tried to withdraw her hand, but he held on tight. “Jealous?”

  “Not in this life!”

  “You could have fooled me.”

  “I...I was just too hungry,” Meg stared at their entwined fingers. At the way his hand locked and unlocked around hers. She couldn’t stop the steady flutter in her stomach--the strange sense of excitement that he brought out in her. She looked up and found his blue-green eyes studying her face. “So...you aren’t a regular here!”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Well, she didn’t drag you to the back room for a quickie as soon as we walked in.”

  The low rumble of his laugh was hypnotic. “She usually does that after desert.”

  She gave him her best imitation of a frown, which he repaid with a killer smile in return. Pulling her hand out of his grasp, she hid it on her lap. She looked around, searching for something to say.

  “So, have you lived in this town for all of your life?”

  “No!”

  “Then what brought you here?”

  She watched him as he took a long pause.

  “Work. I’ve been here off and on before, but this time I came to Newport to work.”

  Before she could ask her next question, though, he turned the tables on her.

  “And how about you? Have you always lived in Boston?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “And as for being a janitor. Was cleaning toilets a dream since childhood, or something you picked up as a major in college?”

  She sat up straight in her chair. “I don’t just clean toilets. There are sinks...and floors...and windows...”

  “Oh, you do windows?”

  “Are you making fun of me again?”

  “No, I’m not,” he answered quickly, looking up and smiling at the waitress as she put their chowder and drinks on the table.

  “Enjoy it, hon!”

  “Thanks, Grace.”

  Meg’s eyes rounded in surprise as the woman swung her hips around and gave him a wink before moving off.

  “You know her name?”

  “What’s so strange about that?”

  “So you do come here often!”

  He didn’t answer and instead started pouring oyster crackers into his chowder.

  “And the joke about the back room?” she pressed.

  “You don’t have to worry about that. Not until desert, anyway!”

  He was pulling her leg, but feeling her stomach churn with hunger at the sight of the food, she turned her attention to the thick, creamy chowder.

  “So back to your job,” he asked again a few minutes later, when she’d had a chance to devour some. “Does your job pretty much fill up your life, or do you have hobbies?”

  “Hobbies?”

  “Yeah! Like watching professional wrestling or tying flies for fishing! Things like that.”

  “I guess--” Meg paused to consider her answer. “I guess when it comes to hobbies, you could call me a reader!”

  His eyes fixed on her face. “You mean books?”

  “Of course I mean books! I didn’t get all the way through first grade for nothing, you know! I can even sound out the big words.”

  His gaze flitted away, and he was trying to look casual, but Meg could see there was something going on.

  “And what kind of stuff do you read?”

  “Everything, pretty much.” She shrugged her shoulders, thinking of all the manuscripts of aspiring authors sitting on the floor beside her bed. “I try not to focus on big names,” she added. “I like to discover new voices!”

  “New voices?” he asked with raised eyebrows.

  Wrong word for a janitor to use, she reminded herself.

  “Well, I mean...I think that most bestselling authors tend to get themselves into a rut--telling the same type of story again and again. That’s fine for most readers, I guess.” She stirred vacantly at the remnants of her chowder. “But for me, I want something different. I like to feel like I’m discovering new stuff. Something with bite to it! Not a rehash of so many other books that are out there. And I don’t like snoozers. Once they hit the top lists, writers sometimes lose their quick starts. I think, very often they know they sell their books just based on their names. So why rush into the story? On the other hand, you get a new author. Someone fresh and eager. I just love it when I get a chance to read a book when someone’s new on the scene. Then I watch them grow big and famous.”

  “So you can dump them and find some other author to read.”

  She looked up into his eyes and smiled. “I guess you can say that. But at that point in their careers, the big guns don’t need poor little me, anymore. They have the masses to drool after them.”

  Evan pushed his cup of chowder to the side and leaned forward on his elbows.

  “Do you really think that’s the way those writers are? The ones at the top? Grisham? Nora Roberts? You don’t think that those types--no matter how big they are--that they’re still vulnerable to the opinion of poor little you?”

  She shook her head. “I might be prejudiced, but I don’t think so. They’ve got all the numbers on their side! When you get to be as big a name as...say...Drew King, you don’t even care what’s in your heart. You have a certain style, maybe even a formula--one that you know sells millions of books. Put yourself in his position. Do you risk disappointing the masses who are comfortable with your work by stepping back and saying, ‘I want to write my kind of story--something different, perhaps with a little bit of heart,’ or do you just crank out the next novel in the same old style for million zillion dollars and lock up your creative drive in the attic?”

  “I don’t know,” he said seriously. “What do you think Drew King would do?”

  “Go for the gold! Jeez, his record speaks for itself.”

  Meg watched his long fingers as they organized, and reorganized the place setting before him. She looked up at his eyes which were intense with concentration. Evan Knight was one of the most fascinating men she’d met in a long time. He was also one with more sides to his personality than she would have imagined.

  “Have you read any of...of Drew King’s work?” he asked suddenly, looking up.

  Meg unconsciously bit at her lip as she felt a blush creep up her neck. Here we go again, she thought. Another Drew King fan. She’d have to spend the next hour defending herself. “I have a good friend who is probably the guy’s biggest fan!”

  “Interesting!” he said coolly. “But you still haven’t answered my question.”

  She had an impulse to just throw in the towel, apologize, and end the discussion But for heaven’s sake, he hadn’t even fed her lunch yet.

  “My husband, while he was alive, was a fan, as well. So I’ve read a lot of his work.”

  “And you didn’t like it?”

  “Oh, no!” she replied quickly. “I truly enjoyed his books...for a while. He had excitement, a freshness in his style that could leave a reader breathless for more. It’s just his recent works that put me off.” She took a sip of her iced tea. “You see, the same friend of mine that I was telling you is his biggest fan...well, anytime this guy has a new book out, Rebekah has it read within the first week. And then she spends the second week badgering me into reading it!”

  “And do you...do you read them?”

  “I used to,” she answered honestly. “But he really lost me with a book that came out about two years ago. I’m not into ongoing self-abuse, you know. Since then, I’ve found I prefer to take my friend’s harassment than open one of Drew Ki
ng’s books.”

  This time he had no smile for the waitress as she cleared away their soup dishes and replaced them with two plates with steak rolls overflowing with lobster salad. Her appetite only whetted by the chowder, Meg wasted no time diving in.

  A moment later, though, with her mouth full, she looked up and found him still gazing thoughtfully at her.

  “Something wrong?” she asked.

  “No!” he said casually, picking up his fork. “It’s just that I’ve read all of Drew King’s books, myself...”

  “That right?”

  “And I was trying to think of the book that you’re talking about. You said it came out about two years ago?”

  She nodded. “I can’t remember the name of it, but it had something to do with this journey of some refuges, coming on some wreck of a freighter from China, and the terrible things that happened to them along the way.”

  “The Long...”

  “The Long Journey!” she finished quickly. “That’s it.”

  “What didn’t you like about that book?”

  Meg put down her food. “Everything. There wasn’t a thing that I liked about that book...including the title. In fact, after reading it I was tempted to write a letter to The Boston Globe and offer a free review of it. I could imagine how I’d word it.” Posing dramatically, she waved her hand in the air. “The latest blockbuster from Drew King, The Long Journey, is hardly more than a Long, Boring Journey! Don’t spend the money on it! Save yourself the misery, and donate the money to feed the needy.”

  She dropped her gaze to his face and found his eyes lit with anger.

  “You see! You’re having the same reaction that Rebekah had.” She shook her head and looked down again at her food. “This is the story of my life. I’ve got to stop hanging out with Drew King’s loyal legions. It’s okay if you want to leave now and stick me with the bill. Really, I’m used to it.”

  She glanced up when he didn’t answer and found him still looking at her through narrowed eyes.

  “You go in big for dramatics. But you strike me as the type that wouldn’t even read the damn book, and still form an opinion. The ‘review,’ as you put it, is only based on how cleverly you can twist the title.” He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Also, I think you enjoy being ornery. Admit it, you love to play devil’s advocate just for laughs.”