“You have a long memory, Mrs. Hawkins.” He leaned in closer. “Don’t tell anyone, but that touchdown was a fluke. I knew there wasn’t a chance on earth I’d ever make a run like that again, so I decided to quit while I was ahead.”
“You quit because you couldn’t keep your hands off Dana Sue,” she corrected knowingly. “Once you set eyes on that girl, marrying her was the only thing on your mind. And just so you know you didn’t get away with anything, I know all about the two of you sneaking over here from time to time after the night clerk took over for me.” She shook her head sorrowfully. “Why you’d go and mess up a thing like that is beyond me.”
“It’s beyond me, too,” he admitted. “But it’s never too late to correct a mistake, isn’t that right?”
“It’s never too late to try,” she agreed. But there was enough doubt in her tone to warn him that she didn’t think Dana Sue was going to be open to his attempts. “Here’s your key. We don’t allow wild partying on the premises, so behave yourself.”
“Wild parties would hardly help me prove to Dana Sue that I’m walking the straight and narrow now, would they?” he said, winking at her. “I’ll be so quiet you won’t even know I’m here.”
In fact, he was so thoroughly beat, he doubted there would be a sound louder than the occasional snore from his room for at least twenty-four hours.
* * *
After her disconcerting run-in with Ronnie and her draining visit with Annie, Dana Sue was too restless to sit in the hospital waiting room between her visits to Annie in ICU. She needed to stay busy, to do something that would drive the memory of that kiss right out of her head.
Glancing at her watch, she realized it was four o’clock, the height of the dinner prep commotion at the restaurant. Stopping at the nurses’ station, she told them how to reach her if Annie needed her, then headed to work. A couple of hours chopping vegetables with a sharp knife might relieve some of her stress. She could envision Ronnie’s neck beneath the blade.
At Sullivan’s she stopped by her office long enough to glance at the pile of messages, grabbed a pristine white chef’s jacket that would be splashed with food in minutes, and headed to the kitchen, where the noise level was comfortingly familiar.
Erik spotted her first. “Hey, darlin’, what are you doing here? Come to make sure we aren’t ruining your business?”
“No chance of that,” she told him. “I just need to do something normal for a couple of hours. I know you and Karen have probably divvied up the workload, but there must be something left for me to tackle.”
Karen glanced up from the salad greens she was distributing on plates and grinned. “I will gladly volunteer salad setup. It may just be the most boring job ever.”
Dana Sue eyed the plates. “Plain old house salads?”
Karen nodded. “No time to do anything fancier.”
“Do we have pears? Walnuts? Blue cheese?” Dana Sue asked.
“Of course,” Erik said. “I’ve been making up the orders from the lists in your office. You’re so organized this place could run for a year without you setting foot in it.”
“I’m not sure I like that idea,” Dana Sue said.
“Well, it’s been a godsend the past few days,” he assured her. “Doesn’t mean we don’t need you, so if you want to make fancy salads, go right ahead. I’ll go make a note on the specials board and tell the waitstaff.”
As Dana Sue settled in to slice the pears paper thin and arrange them on the greens, she sniffed the air. There was the distinctive scent of cinnamon in it. It smelled heavenly.
“What’s tonight’s dessert special?” she asked Erik when he returned.
“Deep-dish apple pie.”
“Any of it ready yet?” she asked, her mouth watering.
“There are a couple of pies cooling on the rack now,” he said. “You want a sample?”
“I want a whole slice,” she said at once. “Vanilla ice cream on top.”
He cast a worried look at her. “Dana Sue...” he began.
She held up her hand. “Not your job to lecture me about what I eat. I’m starved and I want apple pie and ice cream. Do I need to pull rank?”
Instead of immediately going for the pie, he pulled a stool up beside her and sat on it. “What’s this about?”
“It’s pie, for heaven’s sake. What’s the big deal?”
“You know what the big deal is,” he said quietly. “Your daughter’s in the hospital because of an eating disorder. Do you want to wind up in the bed beside her because you’re not paying attention to your blood sugar?”
Temper stirring, Dana Sue turned on him angrily, but when all she saw in his eyes was genuine concern, she wilted. “Okay, I know you’re right. I just need comfort food right now.”
“There’s meat loaf on tonight’s menu. How about a slice of that with some mushroom gravy?” he suggested.
She finally relaxed and grinned. “May I at least have a bite of that pie afterward?”
“You may,” he said, then went to fix a plate for her. When he brought it back, he regarded her with curiosity. “Anything happen this afternoon you want to talk about?”
She took a bite of meat loaf to delay responding. “My God, this is better than mine. What have you done to it?”
He gestured across the room. “Ask Karen. She made it.”
Dana Sue stared at her assistant. “You made this? It’s amazing.”
“I just tweaked your recipe a little bit,” Karen said, her cheeks flushed. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind? Are you kidding me? I predict this will be tonight’s sellout, and our customers will insist it be on the regular menu.”
“You mean it?” Karen asked.
“Of course I mean it,” Dana Sue said. “If you have ideas for any other dishes, talk them over with Erik or me, if I’m around, and feel free
