A Dash of Romance

Rose’s first two weeks of work flew by. She liked being busy. And the truth was, she was enjoying working in her old hometown, a stone’s throw from the nostalgic beauty of Coney Island. It was still hot for mid-October, and there were a lot of tourists who kept the place hopping.

Toward the end of her night shift one Thursday night, it occurred to her that Warren Harker hadn’t been in for days. That led to a long series of troubling thoughts about the man; mostly troubling because once she started thinking about him she couldn’t stop.

“What’s on your mind, Miss Rose?” the busboy, Stu, asked. “You look sad.”

She sat down at the counter, glad to take a load off her aching feet. “Stu, do you know Warren Harker?”

He pressed his lips together and looked up and to the left, as if trying to see something very far away. “Mmm…I don’t think so.”

“Yeah you do,” Paul said with a yawn as he passed by with some plates in his hand. “Mr. Harker.”

Realization lit Stu’s eyes. “Oh, yeah, Mr. Harker. Sure. He’s in here all the time.”

Rose tried to keep from smiling. Stu was just like a child. It was going to take a while to get used to it. “Has he been here a lot?”

“Sure,” Paul said, clattering the dishes into the sink and turning back to her. “Few times a week. Always sits in that same booth.” He pointed to where Warren had, indeed, been sitting the last time she saw him.

“Why does he come here do you think?”

“Best food in Brooklyn,” Stu said.

“Horse manure,” Dick called from his booth several yards away. “If this is the best food in Brooklyn, Brooklyn is in trouble.”

At this point the short-order cook, Hap, poked his head out of the window from the kitchen. “Then why are you in here all the time, you big lug?” he asked with a bright, red-faced smile.

Dick gave a grumpy shrug and turned his eyes back to the racing section of the newspaper. “Close to home.”

Hap chuckled. “Customer’s a customer, I guess. No matter why they come in.”

“So why do you think Warren Harker comes in here?” Rose asked him. “I mean, the guy’s as rich as Croesus. He could eat anywhere. He could hire an entire cooking staff to be on call twenty-four hours. Why come to a little place like this, no matter how good the food is?”

“You think he doesn’t like the food here?” Stu asked, frowning.

“No, I’m not saying that. I’m just wondering if there’s some other reason he comes here.” Not that she could think of one. If he hadn’t been coming all along, she’d have worried that he was so angry about what happened at his party that he came here to get her fired, but she knew no one was that petty. No one except Marta.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.