“Janey, table fifteen has been overbooked.” Hoyt rushed up to her, a frown on his face, several hours later. “The customers are lingering over desserts and the next reservation has arrived.”
“Charge the table a fifteen-dollar overstay fee,” she told him in frustration. “They know the rules. The reservation is for an hour and a half only unless they reserve for more. Have Tabitha prepare the extra table in section two and seat the others there.”
She hated being forced to set up the extra tables. It added to the hostessing and waitressing duties, and once the table was there, they had to continue to fill it, otherwise word would get around that they turned away customers when there was an extra table.
She glanced to table fifteen and sighed at the couple there. They invariably kept their table longer and then protested the fee loudly. Tabitha would likely get shortchanged on her tip as well.
Shaking her head, she gathered menus for the additional table and approached the older couple, Charlene and Don Finmore. Don was on the city council and had once been a friend of Dayle Mackay’s.
At least, he had thought he was. He’d had no idea how Dayle had used him until it was over and the news of Dayle’s arrest had come out.
“Charlene. Don.” She smiled back at them as they rose from the upholstered, padded bench in the
waiting area. “You’re table’s ready if you’ll follow me.”
Don was older, in his sixties. Charlene was close to his age, and Janey knew this was their anniversary dinner.
“Happy anniversary.” She smiled over shoulder. “Forty years, isn’t it?”
Charlene’s pleased smile came and went quickly. “How did you know?” She asked suspiciously as Janey seated them and Tabitha moved forward.
“Charlene, I’ve known you two since I was a little girl,” she reminded them. “Of course I remembered your anniversary. I was allowed to attend one of the parties you gave when I was a teenager, remember?”
Charlene’s face softened for a moment. “You were fourteen,” she recalled. “Your parents weren’t going to bring you, until we insisted.”
And Janey had paid for it later in a dark, cramped closet.
“I remember the cake,” Janey told her, closing her eyes as though the memory were a good one. “It was delicious.”
Don smiled then. “I had it ordered from Louisville, just for Charlie.”
“And the icing was a family picture.” Janey smiled. “I thought it was the most gorgeous cake in the world.
Congratulations again, and please”—she leaned close to the couple—“dinner is on me tonight. Forty years together is a beautiful thing to see. I hope you enjoy your meal.”
She drew back, whispered the order to Tabitha that the meal was on the house and to make certain the Finmores had the proper care for this special night, then moved quickly back to the reception counter.
The memory of that party was a haze in Janey’s mind, but she had never forgotten that cake. A family picture. Parents and children and their infant grandchildren. To Janey at the time, it had seemed like watching a fairy tale come to life as she saw the family interact. And she had, even at that age, known her family was so different, monstrous even, compared to others.
The addition of the extra table allowed several walk-ins a chance at dinner, and allowed for a few extra reservation seatings. By the time the restaurant doors were closed and locked, Janey felt as though she had been through a war.
The waitresses and busboys were working to finish the cleanup, and in the kitchen Desmond and his staff were sanitizing surfaces and preparing to wash the last load of dishes.
“Go relax until everything’s ready to lock up for the night, Janey,” Hoyt told her. “We can handle the rest of it.”
Janey slipped her shoes off as she slid onto the stool at the reservation desk and stretched her arches.
“We need more help.” She sighed.
“We’ve been saying that for weeks,” Hoyt reminded her.
“Have another ad put in the papers,” she said. “I don’t want a sign on the restaurant. I’ve talked to our other girls; maybe word of mouth will help as well.”
Her waitresses made damned good tips for the most part, but the pace was a killer and the paperwork was getting out of hand because Janey was needed in the dining room as well.
“Okay, I’ll see if I can make a dent in the paperwork.” She rose to her feet, bent, and picked up her shoes, before heading to the office, where she knew what was waiting on her.
It wasn’t just paperwork, but Alex.
She pushed her fingers through her hair as she moved closer to the room. He’d be lying back on that couch, reading some kind of magazine. His head would turn to her, that invitation in his eyes.
The invitation to let him take her, to let him stroke and pet her, touch her. Over the past three days her desire for that touch had grown to the point that it was turning into a driving, addicting need. Alex was turning into a need.
She unlocked the office door and stepped in, and there he was, just as she had known he would be.
Stretched out on the couch, a computer magazine in his hand. His head turned, the dark shadow of a beard making his gray eyes seem more intense, more stormy.
“Things ran late.” He sat up, legs spreading as he planted his feet on the floor.
Faded jeans and a gray shirt. Boots. Too sexy to be legal, as her friend Rogue had said.
“A little.” She shrugged as she moved to the small refrigerator for a glass of wine.
She was exhausted and riding on nerves. Alex was making her crazy.
“You’re not resting enough,” he stated.
Janey almost snorted at that observation. No, she wasn’t resting at all. She was tossing and turning, imagining Alex in the bed beside her and going crazy at the thought of the ways he would touch her.
That, added to the incessant concern Natches and her cousins were showing, was exhausting her. She loved them dearly. More than they would ever know, but she just wasn’t used to this. Getting a handle on it wasn’t easy, and she didn’t feel as though she was even being given time to breathe.
“I’m fine.” She poured her wine before returning to her desk and sitting down in the large, padded chair.
She tensed as Alex stood up and moved over to her.
“Don’t harass me,” she warned him with a sigh as she stared at the paperwork. “I have too much . . .”