“None of your business,” she said flatly.
“Just trying to get a feel for the competition,” he told her, enjoying the quick rise of color in her cheeks.
“You are so not in the race,” she claimed.
“You so do not want to challenge me like that,” he retorted with amusement. “Not unless you’re ready for the consequences.”
“What consequences?” she asked, a hint of alarm in her voice.
Below the table, he touched his knee to hers. In the booth’s close quarters, there was no place for her to flee, not without causing a scene. His gaze locked on her mouth. Then, before she could snatch her hand away, he picked it up and rubbed his thumb across her knuckles, then lifted it to his lips and skimmed a kiss across skin that had been nicked more than once by a paring knife. Though she did her best to feign indifference, he could feel her pulse scramble in her wrist, and saw her eyes darken with the first stirring of desire.
Satisfied that he’d gotten the hoped-for reaction, he lowered her hand to the table and winked. “That, for starters.”
Her hand shook as she picked up her glass of water. She took a long swallow, seemed to debate tossing the rest in his face, then murmured, “You’re a pig.”
“You’ve called me worse,” he noted.
“You’ve deserved worse.”
“No doubt about it,” he agreed. “Now that we’ve established that, let’s go back to your social life. Who’s in your bed these days, Dana Sue?”
“I am not discussing this with you,” she said heatedly. “Either we order right this second or I am out of here.”
“Let’s order,” he said at once. “I can eat and ask you questions at the same time. Maybe food will improve your mood. It used to.”
She glared at him, beckoned to the waitress and placed an order for the chocolate decadence cake and nothing else. “He’s having the catfish,” she said tersely when Brenda rushed right over, clearly eager to impress her boss. “And a side of rat poison, if Erik knows where it is.”
The girl’s pen paused in midair and her eyes widened. “What?”
Dana Sue gave her a weak smile. “Just kidding. The catfish, fries and vegetables will do.”
“Okay,” Brenda said, and hurried away.
Two seconds later, Erik came storming out of the kitchen and arrived at their table with an intimidating scowl on his face. “What the hell is going on here?” he demanded, his gaze on Ronnie.
“Your boss is in a snit,” he answered. “Not to worry. I’m used to her moods.”
“If she’s ordering the chocolate decadence cake for herself, she’s not in a snit. She’s trying to kill herself.”
“Erik!” she warned.
She spoke in a tone that even Ronnie recognized as meaning she was way past the end of her patience. Erik didn’t seem fazed, however, which Ronnie thought was something in his favor.
“Well, dammit, I am not contributing to your downfall by bringing you that cake,” Erik said. He whirled on Ronnie. “And if you gave a damn about her, you wouldn’t have let her order it.”
Ronnie knew he was missing something here, something important. He faced Dana Sue. “What’s he talking about?”
“Something that’s none of his business or yours,” she said, tossing her napkin on the table. “Men!” she muttered, as if it were a four-letter word. She rose and stalked off.
Ronnie was relieved to see that she’d headed for the kitchen, rather than out the front door.
“Maybe you should tell me what’s going on,” he told Erik.
“Yeah, I should, but I need to get back in there and stop her from doing something stupid. Your catfish will be right out.”
Ronnie stared after them and debated following. He wasn’t entirely sure if he’d just witnessed some weird sort of lovers’ tiff or something else entirely. Whatever it had been, it was clear that those two had something between them. Ronnie honestly didn’t think it was a relationship, not a sexual one, anyway, but they were clearly close enough that they confided in and protected one another.
So what secret did Dana Sue have that she didn’t want to share with him? Until a couple of years ago, Ronnie had known everything there was to know about her. He knew how she couldn’t start her day without coffee. He knew she wore socks to bed when the weather turned cool. He even knew exactly where every one of her erogenous zones were, including one that had never been on a chart in any sex manual he’d ever seen.
And though she’d never said a word about it, he knew how desperately she missed her mom and how terrified she was that one day she, too, would develop diabetes.
At that thought, a lightbulb went off in his head. Diabetes! No wonder Erik had freaked when she’d ordered the cake and nothing more. Since Ronnie had been gone, Dana Sue had apparently started having problems with her blood sugar, problems she didn’t want him to know anything about.
He could call her on it, or he could pretend that her argument with Erik had simply gone over his head. For now, maybe it would be better to do the latter. Give her time to tell him herself. In the meantime, he could keep an eye on her, see if she was taking proper care of herself. Not that he knew what that looked like, but he could find out. The internet was a godsend when it came to researching that kind of stuff. And the Serenity Library had computers he could use to do it. Old Mrs. Harrington, the most tight-fisted widow ever to walk the earth, had shocked everyone by donating them.
At the memory of Dana Sue’s mother and the diabetes complications that had led to her death, Ronnie found his appetite had fled. When his meal came, it could’ve been sawdust. He ate it, anyway. As proud as Dana Sue obviously was of the food at Sullivan’s, he didn’t want
