The cook snorted. “When I bought it thirty years ago, it was a dive. It would still be a dive if Sabrina Jensen hadn’t waltzed in one afternoon and told me she was going to be my new waitress. Don’t know where she keeps digging up those old posters and all this...this stuff.”
“This is her doing?”
“All of it.” Hank’s gray brows tipped into a scowl under his shiny bald pate. “The tiles on the floor, these stools, even the dang-blasted music. That’s one managing female.”
“So I noticed.”
She’d certainly put Jack and Ali to work fast enough.
“Next thing you know, she’ll be tellin’ me to water down my chili just ’cause it gave a couple of pansyassed tourists the trots.”
For all his grumbling, Hank’s eyes turned sharp with worry when his employee arched her back and swiped a wrist across her brow.
“Fool woman’s determined to work herself to death. I told her I’d sell her the place cheap, but she keeps insistin’ I need a hefty down payment for my retirement fund.” He huffed. “Hell, my wife’ll probably kill me within a week of havin’ me underfoot, so what do I need with a retirement fund?”
“Beats me,” Jack agreed companionably.
Still grumbling, Hank crossed his arms on the gray Formica counter. His right forearm sported a tattooed anchor and chain. The left, a heart entwined with either vines or snakes. Given the way his skin wrinkled and sagged, it was hard to tell which.
Smiling, Jack took in the decorations. “What ship did you serve on?”
“The Jefferson. Leakingest coal bucket in the U.S. Navy.”
“True, but she did us proud at Midway.”
Hank sat up straighter. “That she did. I was chief cook’s mate during that little skirmish in the Pacific.” He gave Jack a keen look. “What about you? When did you serve?”
“I pulled a hitch as a SEABEE after college.”
“That so?” The cook rolled his fat black cigar to the other side of his mouth and stuck out a hairy paw. “I’m Hank. Hank Donovan. Always glad to have another sailor drop anchor at the diner.”
“I’m Jack. This is my friend Al.”
While Ali shook hands with the stubby restaurateur, Jack thought back to his navy career. It seemed like a lifetime ago. It was, he reflected with a rueful grimace.
The grandson of crusty old Joseph Wentworth, one of Oklahoma’s original oil barons, Jack had spent his boyhood summers as a roustabout in the oil fields and eighteen long months following high school graduation as a tool pusher on an offshore rig in the frigid North Sea. After finishing a degree in petroleum engineering at the University of Oklahoma, he’d decided to try his hand at something other than the family business.
To his disappointment, the navy had jumped on his offshore drilling expertise. They’d put him in command of an elite underwater construction and demolition unit. As it turned out, Jack had thrived on the excitement and danger inherent in the underwater operations, but he’d left the navy after his grandfather’s first stroke and joined Wentworth Oil. In the years since, he’d worked his way up the corporate ladder to CEO.
He was good at what he did. Very good. Wentworth Oil Works was now a multinational conglomerate with interests in every corner of the world. Still, Jack had been feeling restless and caged when a friend in the State Department asked him to use his far-flung contacts in the oil world to conduct a “special” negotiation for the U.S.
That request had led to another, even more secret mission, then another. Now, the intermittent undercover operations provided Jack with the risk and excitement he missed in the corporate world. The dangerous missions and extended travel also demanded that he keep his relationships with women light and unentangling...as he’d learned the hard way with Heather.
Which didn’t keep his pulse from kicking into overdrive when Sabrina Jensen pushed through the swinging door from the kitchen with what looked like a quart-size glass of iced tea in each hand.
“It’s already sweetened,” she warned, plunking the tea down.
Smiling his thanks, Jack lifted the glass just as Sabrina turned and bent to retrieve napkins and silverware from a shelf under the pass-through window. He almost choked on his tea.
Had he considered her rear view merely exceptional? He must have been blind. She had the sexiest tush and sweetest, curving thighs he’d ever seen!
Evidently Ali thought so, too. The prince’s fork had frozen halfway to his mouth. Bits of cream decorated his mustache. His black eyes gleamed with an avaricious light. One that Jack had seen too many times in the past.
Lowering his glass, he thumped Ali on the back. Hard. “Guess you’ll be glad to see Hatmir and the kids, buddy. What’s it been, two weeks?”
No fool, Ali knew exactly what Jack was up to.
“Two weeks,” he concurred with a bland smile. “It is good that I am Muslim and so rich from the oil fields, no? I have but one wife, but the Koran allows me to take more if I can support them.”
On Jack’s other side, Hank puffed out his cheeks. “It don’t matter how much money a man’s got in the bank, he can’t afford more’n one wife. She’ll drain him dry, one way or another!”
“What about you?” Amused, Sabrina laid napkins and silverware on the counter in front of Jack. “How many wives do you have?”
“None.” At her skeptical look, he held up a palm. “Not one, I swear.”
“He is too slippery, this one.” With a gleeful grin, Ali returned Jack’s hearty thump on the back. “I have known him for many years. He chases the women most diligently, but he does not let them catch him. He has left many broken hearts behind him.”
The prince’s banter sent another barb of guilt through Jack. Ali didn’t know about Heather. Few did, outside of Trey McGill.
“Somehow,” Sabrina drawled, “I’m not surprised.”
She sailed back into the kitchen, leaving the oilman to scowl at the prince. “Thanks a lot, buddy.”
“You are most welcome...buddy.”
Their semigood-natured rivalry heated up when Sabrina returned with a heaping platter. A huge hamburger lapped the edges of the plate. A mountain of onions sat atop the meat patty. Ripe red tomatoes, crisp lettuce, a long wedge of dill and mounds of crisp, greasy french fries filled the rest of the platter.
Having finished his pie, Ali waited until Jack had wrapped both hands around his burger and taken a man-size bite before proceeding to tell Sabrina about the fabulous riches that would be hers if she left her apron behind and flew off to Qatar with him.
“I shall drape you in silks,” he promised. “Cover you with pearls. No, no, it must be emeralds, to match your so beauteous eyes.”
“Right,” she laughed. “Emeralds.”
“You shall have your own house, and a yacht. We no longer keep the harem, you understand.” Real regret seemed to pass across his face. He shook it off. “Although you must wear the chador in public, you will be free to come and go as you please.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Jack warned between great, satisfying bites. “He keeps Hatmir on an even shorter leash than she keeps him.”
“You wound me, my friend. Sabrina must know that if she comes away with me, I shall lay all the treasures of the East at her feet.”
“All I know is that you two make even more noise than that rig did.”
Folding her arms, she rested her hips against the back counter. Laughter gleamed in her eyes. Her full mouth curved in a smile. She had no idea that Ali was serious, Jack thought wryly. With all the truckers frequenting this place, she probably received even more extravagant offers every day. If she only knew it, this one could change her life forever.
For a moment, he toyed with the idea of introducing himself and the prince. As quickly as the thought occurred, he quashed it. If Ali couldn’t woo Sabrina with his promises of richcs, that was his friend’s tough luck. Jack, on the other hand, operated better without an audience watching his every move. He wolfed down the rest of his hamburg
er with the same gusto as the other patrons, then tried to hustle his friend away.
Ali wouldn’t budge.
“No, no. I must have another piece of this so delicious pie.” His playboy’s smile flashed. “And more conversation with the beauteous Sabrina.”
Shaking her head at his flattery, she slid another generous wedge onto his plate.
“The pie will cost you a buck-fifty. The conversation will have to wait. There’s a bushel of okra waiting to be cleaned for tonight’s special.”
With a glance at the antique Coca-Cola clock above the counter, she pushed through the door to the kitchen once more.
“What is this okra?” Ali asked the room at large.
Hank slid off his stool. “After I get done stewin‘ it in Tabasco and red peppers, it’s heaven and hell in one bowl.”
Rolling his fat, unlit stogie around in his mouth, he followed Sabrina into the kitchen.
The prince’s mustache twitched. “We must stay to try this heavenly, hellish dish.”
“We can’t. Your crew is waiting for you, remember? So is McGill.”
Ali dismissed a crew of six, another half-dozen security and communications personnel, an augmentee team from the State Department, and Trey McGill with a shrug of one muscled shoulder.
“So, they wait.”
Damn! Jack hadn’t intended to spin this little interlude out for more than an hour or so. Certainly not for the length of time it would take Hank to stew up a fresh batch of okra. Trey’s ulcer would be spitting fire if they delayed that long.
Despite his best efforts, however, he couldn’t convince the prince to abandon the field. While Jack looked on in mingled exasperation and amusement, Ali downed yet a third piece of pie and more coffee, dished up by an equally amused Sabrina.
Finally the stubborn Middle Easterner got his first taste of Hank’s stewed okra. Ignoring Jack’s suggestion that he crumble a chunk of corn bread in the bowl to absorb some of the fiery liquid, Ali scooped up a brimming spoonful and downed it with a jaunty flourish.
A second later, his cheeks hollowed. His eyes bugged. Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead. Dropping the spoon with a clatter, he snatched up the glass of water Sabrina had ready.
“That,” he gasped, “is hotter even than the Great Desert of Qatar.”
Downing the rest of the water in great, noisy gulps, he dragged his forearm across his soggy mustache. Jack gave him only enough time to douse the fires before grabbing the man’s arm and pulling him off the stool.
“The Great Desert is where your father will send you if you don’t haul your carcass out of here.”
“But...”
Ali caught himself. As much as he enjoyed living up to his well-deserved reputation as jet-setting playboy, he’d inherited a burden of heavy responsibility upon the death of his older brother. Now Crown Prince and heir apparent, Ali Fashor Kaisal had learned to put his country’s needs before his own.
“Yes,” he said with a long, melodramatic sigh. “I must go.”
Sabrina listened to the exchange with mounting amusement. What a couple of characters! Granted, they were handsome enough, each in his own way. The black-haired Al undoubtedly stopped more than one woman in her tracks with that flashing smile. She wondered how many gullible females took him up on his effusive offers to drape them in emeralds and pearls.
Yet it was the other one she couldn’t quite seem to catch her breath around. Okay, that glimpse she’d caught of Jack stripped to the waist and bathed in bright sunlight had done serious damage to her respiratory system. And, yes, she felt a distinct flutter somewhere around the vicinity of her midsection whenever he turned those baby blues in her direction. But Sabrina had been around enough in her twenty-four years, first with her dad and sister, then on her own. She knew better than to go all gooey over a broad-shouldered, lean-hipped rigger who was here today and off to the next field tomorrow.
Particularly, she noted with a twist of her lips, broad-shouldered, lean-hipped riggers who didn’t have enough cash to pay for their meals.
Frowning, Jack dug in his back pockets and came up empty-handed. He patted his front pockets, then tried the back again.
“I must have left my wallet in the truck.”
Sure he did, Sabrina thought wryly as he turned to his friend.
“Do you have any cash on you?”
“Not U.S. dollars.” Al’s mustache lifted in a flashing smile. “Will you take Qatarian dinars, most beauteous Sabrina?”
Right. As if the local bank would exchange Qatarian dinars! For reasons she couldn’t quite define, though, Sabrina didn’t want Jack and his friend to lose face in front of Hank and the other patrons.
“Forget it,” she told them with a cheerful smile. “That screeching oil rig’s been driving us all nuts. Your meal’s on the house.”
Red tinged Jack’s cheeks. “My wallet’s in the truck,” he said a little stiffly. “Hang on a second, I’ll go get it.”
He didn’t like accepting a handout, Sabrina saw. Few of the down-and-outers who drifted into the diner did. Still, no one ever left the Route 66 Diner hungry. For all his grumbling and griping, Hank insisted on that. Her boss hid a serious soft streak under his gruff exterior, which was only one of the reasons Sabrina had stayed to work for him so long.
The blue-eyed rigger was back a few moments later. One glance at his crestfallen face told her he hadn’t located his “missing” billfold.
Jack kept his expression sheepish with some effort. He’d found his leather wallet lying in the dust beside the truck. It had probably fallen out when he and Ali stripped down to work on the rig. He was halfway back to the diner, peeling out a fifty and planning to leave Sabrina a fat tip, when he’d realized that the unpaid bill provided him with the perfect excuse to swing back by the diner after getting rid of Ali.
His conscience nagged him a bit about letting Sabrina think he was broke. He probably wouldn’t have kept up the subterfuge if he hadn’t been thinking of Heather earlier. She hadn’t tried to disguise the fact that his wealth attracted her as much as Jack himself did. The temptation to spend a few more hours with a woman who didn’t see dollar signs every time she looked at him was too strong for Jack to resist.
“Sorry,” he told the green-eyed waitress. “I’ll have to owe you.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’ll come back, Sabrina. I promise.”
Laughing, she walked him and Ali to the door. “I know you tool pushers. I won’t hold my breath.”
Jack turned, letting the late afternoon heat waffle through the open glass door. With it came the sweet scent of the wild honeysuckle that grew over the fences all up and down Oklahoma’s backroads. Smiling, he stared down at the woman who held the door with one hand and hooked the other on the waistband of her jeans. He slid a knuckle under her chin, tilting her head back.
“I’ll be back.”
For a moment, Sabrina thought he was going to kiss her. Right there in front of Hank and the small crowd of interested diners. For the same, breathless instant, she thought she was going to do something monumentally stupid...like let him. A sudden, urgent need to feel his mouth on hers whipped along her nerve endings. Her fingers curled on the metal door frame. She started to go up on tiptoe.
Then he dropped his hand, and she had to bite her lip to keep from letting her disappointment show on her face. She felt it, though. On every square inch of her skin.
By the time Jack sauntered down the steps and joined his partner for the walk back to the rear lot, her common sense had reasserted itself. The last thing she needed was to get tangled up with a down-at-the-heels roustabout, for heaven’s sake. She didn’t have the time. Or the energy!
The dinner crowd would start showing up in the next half hour or so. The supper rush would take almost all she had, yet she still needed to put in another few hours studying for her test when she got home. With her degree so darned close and ownership of the diner almost within grasp, she had to stay
focused.
Sabrina took a deep breath, drawing in the heat and the sweet, almost overpowering scent from the vines covering the fences across the road. Despite her determined pep talk, she had to tear her gaze away from Jack’s tight, neat buns and long-legged stride.
Sighing, she turned to go back to work. The door had just started to swing shut behind her when the sound of tires squealing ripped through the stillness. Sabrina spun around just in time to see a battered black pickup peel off the road and into the lot. To her horror, it aimed straight for Jack and Al.
Chapter 3
“Jack! Al! Look out!”
Sabrina’s scream got lost in the whine of the pickup’s engine. Her heart in her throat, she watched in spiraling terror as the dust-covered black Ford careened across the parking lot toward the two men.
With a vicious curse, Jack shoved his friend aside. Al hit the ground rolling. The pickup zoomed by, missing him by mere inches.
Jack wasn’t as lucky.
Just when it seemed a collision was inevitable, he leaped up and landed on the hood with a thud that stopped Sabrina’s heart. In one of those terrifying instants that seemed to last two lifetimes, he rolled across the hood.
She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t even scream. A distant corner of her mind recorded his amazing agility, marveling at the athletic way he landed on his feet on the other side of the fast-moving truck. At that moment, though, she couldn’t appreciate anything but the fact that he’d avoided certain death.
She was almost sobbing with relief when the truck’s brakes shrieked. Throwing up a cloud of dust and small rocks, the battered pickup fishtailed to a halt. A moment later, two men spilled out. So did an almost empty Jack Daniel’s bottle. The glass shattered when it hit the ground, adding the smoky tang of Tennessee sippin‘ whiskey to the swirling dust
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the two men were as drunk as bar dogs on a Saturday night. One staggered as he walked. The other moved with the stiff, exaggerated gait of someone trying too hard to appear perfectly sober.
The Mercenary and the New Mom Page 3
