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Dan was smiling when Teresa walked away. “I think she just zinged you, pal.”
“Trust me, it’s not the first time she’s done so.”
“She seems nice.”
Riley nodded and dug into his cooling breakfast.
“Pretty, too,” Dan added, glancing across the room.
“I noticed.”
“Have you asked her out?”
“Yep.”
“And…”
“Crashed and burned. Every time.”
Dan chuckled. “Pretty and intelligent.”
Teresa returned to set a mug of coffee in front of Dan. “Your breakfast will be ready soon.”
“Hey, Teresa, there’s a symphony concert in Little Rock next weekend. Want to go with me?” Riley asked.
“Sorry. I’m washing my hair that night,” she answered pleasantly.
“I didn’t tell you which night the concert’s being held,” he reminded her.
She didn’t miss a beat. “I didn’t say which night I’m washing my hair.”
“Oh, man.” Dan shook his head as Teresa moved away. “You went down in flames, buddy.”
“Yeah, but did you see her eyes? She said no, but what she wanted to say was—”
“Hell, no.”
Riley snorted in response to Dan’s droll interruption. “Scoff if you like—but I’m getting to her. She won’t be able to resist my charms much longer.”
“Is that right?” Dan glanced up when Teresa set his breakfast on the table. “Riley thinks he’s getting to you,” he said gravely.
“He’s right,” she murmured, refilling their coffee cups. “He’s definitely getting on my nerves.”
“You know, we should talk about that. How about over dinner tonight?” Riley suggested.
“Sorry. I’m going to be ill tonight. Excuse me, I have orders to serve.”
“I think I like her,” Dan murmured appreciatively.
“Just help me pull this knife out of my chest, will you?” Riley pantomimed the motion as he spoke.
“A knife?” Dan asked blandly. “Or is that one of Cupid’s arrows?”
“Very funny. Eat your breakfast.”
Dan obligingly picked up his fork, though his brown eyes still gleamed with amusement that was most definitely at Riley’s expense.
Okay, so the guy was amusing. Teresa had found herself looking forward to the days when Riley O’Neal had breakfast in the diner.
She wasn’t particularly flattered by his frequent invitations for dates. She suspected that he was the type who’d make a play for any reasonably attractive new woman who entered his life. But it was still nice to see a look of appreciation in an attractive man’s eyes. It gave her a glimmer of hope that someday…maybe…she’d meet someone to share her life with again. Someday far in the future.
“I think he’s got a thing for you.” Marjorie Schaffer winked at Teresa as she whispered her revelation.
Looking up from the table she was wiping with a damp cloth, Teresa wrinkled her nose. “Old Ernie? I think he proposes to every woman who crosses his path.”
“Of course he does. Ernie even proposes to me at least twice a week. But I was talking about Riley O’Neal. Everyone has noticed the way he’s been coming in here almost every day to flirt with you.”
“Riley’s as much of a habitual flirt as old Ernie. I don’t take either of them seriously.”
“He sure has been coming around a lot since you started working here. Used to be he’d only eat here once or twice a month, tops. Now it’s three or four times a week.”
“Really?” Teresa was a bit surprised by that. She’d assumed Riley had always been a regular. She found it hard to believe he’d changed his daily schedule just because she was serving coffee here.
Maybe it was a little flattering….
She hefted a tray of dishes and moved toward the doorway. “I’ll leave you to your romantic fantasizing,” she teased her friend and employer lightly. “I have customers waiting.”
Teresa was still thinking about Marjorie’s words as she approached Riley’s table with the coffee carafe a few minutes later. Maybe he really was interested in taking her out. Not that she was in a position to get involved with anyone, but it gave her something to daydream about.
She stopped at the table next to the one where Riley and his friend were conversing as they finished their breakfasts. As she refilled the cups of the middle-aged couple sitting there, she couldn’t help overhearing a snatch of Riley’s conversation.
“I hope your wife’s enjoying the middle school program,” Riley was saying to the police chief. “I’d rather eat mud pies myself than listen to that bunch of kids mangling Disney movie songs.”
Dan chuckled. “You know you don’t really dislike kids as much as you pretend.”
“Nah, they’re okay. As long as I don’t actually have to listen to them sing, or watch them dance or act in school plays. Or share a plane ride with them. Or a movie theater. Or a restaurant. Or—”
Dan was laughing quietly when he cut in. “Okay, I get the picture.”
So did Teresa.
She wasn’t really disappointed, she assured herself. She hadn’t seriously considered accepting a date with him. She wasn’t interested in dating anyone right now. Especially a man who’d just made it crystal clear how entirely wrong he was for her.
She filled the police chief’s cup first, and then Riley’s. “Is there anything else I can get for you gentlemen?”
“I’ll take the check,” Riley said. “I like to stay on the chief’s good side—just in case I ever need a ticket fixed or anything.”
“I wish you’d stop saying things like that,” Dan said, sounding rather exasperated. “People who don’t know better might think there’s some truth in what you’ve implied.”
Teresa smiled faintly. “Don’t worry, Chief. I take very little of what he says seriously.”
“I said she was intelligent,” Dan said to Riley, who was giving Teresa an exaggeratedly aggrieved look.
“If there’s nothing else you need, I’ll get your check,” she said, taking a step back from the table.
“You’re sure you won’t reconsider my dinner invitation for tonight?” Riley asked enticingly.
“I’m quite sure,” she said in a tone cool enough to freeze the smile from his face. No teasing this time—no humorous rejoinders or implied maybes. This was a flat-out no, and she wanted him to recognize it as such.
There was no need for either of them to harbor the delusion that there would ever be a date—or anything else—between them.
Riley didn’t make a habit of talking to kids. For one thing, he never knew quite what to say to them. And parents frowned on strangers approaching their offspring—rightly so, of course. So, all in all, it seemed safer to just stay away from the tykes.
He was sitting in a city park with a book on a pleasantly cool afternoon during the first week of October when a snub-nosed urchin approached him.
“Hi,” the kid—who looked to be about ten—said.
Resting the paperback on his knee, Riley studied the boy a moment before coming to the conclusion that he’d never seen him before. “Hi.”
“Whatcha doing?”
Riley sat on a concrete picnic bench, his back to the table, facing the small, pretty lake that was the center of the park. A can of soda and the remains of a burger and fries were scattered on the table behind him. He figured it was pretty obvious that he was taking advantage of a nice, warm day to picnic, read and commune with nature for a while, but apparently the boy was simply trying to start a conversation.
“I’m just taking a break from work,” he said. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to feed the ducks.” The boy held up a clear plastic bag filled with bread cubes.
Riley looked toward the lake, where several hungry-looking ducks were starting to congregate nearby, apparently deciding the boy looked like a promising food source. “I’m sure they’ll like that. How come you aren’t in school?”
“No school today,” the kid announced with pleasure. “It’s a teacher workday.”
Glancing around at the few other people in the park, none of whom seemed to be monitoring the boy’s actions, Riley asked, “You aren’t here by yourself, are you?”
“No, my sitter’s with me. Well, she’s in the rest room with my little sister. I’m supposed to wait for them before I start feeding the ducks, because Maggie gets mad if I start without her.”
“Maggie’s your sister?”
“Yep. My name’s Mark.”
Because it seemed like the right thing to do, Riley extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mark. I’m Riley.”
The boy pumped Riley’s hand gravely. “It’s nice to meet you, too. Now you’re not a stranger, right? It’s okay for us to talk, right?”
Riley couldn’t help chuckling. “Weren’t we strangers a few minutes ago—when you first spoke to me?”
The boy gave the question only a moment’s consideration before replying airily, “I was just being polite then.”
Although amused by the kid’s logic, Riley thought it was probably time for him to offer some wise-adult advice. “Maybe you’d better not be quite so polite to strangers when your sitter isn’t around.”
“I don’t talk to bad strangers,” Mark replied confidently. “Only nice ones like you.”
“But…” Riley paused and drew a deep breath, feeling himself hovering on the verge of stammering. This kid had an answer for everything. Must keep his parents on their toes all the time.
“Uh-oh! Mark’s talking to a stranger again. I’m going to tell Mom.”
The shrill announcement from behind them brought Mark’s chin up defensively. “He’s not a stranger. His name’s Riley and he’s my friend.”
The teenager trailing after Mark’s blond, blue-eyed little sister was someone Riley recognized. “Hi, Jenny.”
Her heavily mascaraed eyes lit up. “Hey, Riley. What are you doing here?”
“You know each other?” Mark seemed pleased.
“Oh, sure, I’ve known Jenny since she was younger than you.”
“Riley used to date my older sister,” Jenny confided to Mark with a giggle. “But she stopped going out with him because he wasn’t the marrying kind and she wanted someone who was.”
Riley cleared his throat and quickly changed the subject. “So your school is out today, too, Jenny?”
“Yes. They all are. So I’m making a little extra money watching my neighbor’s kids until their mom gets off work.”
Mark and Maggie had already headed for the hopeful-looking ducks that had gathered on the grass at the edge of the lake. The moment Mark reached a hand into the bag and tossed a handful of bread cubes onto the ground, the ducks went wild, quacking and jostling for the food, making the children laugh at their eager antics.
“This is just a suggestion,” Riley murmured to Jenny, “and of course I don’t know much about kids or baby-sitting, but you might want to keep a closer eye on Mark. He’s pretty chatty with strangers.”
Jenny bit her lip. “I know. The kid’s a real talker, and he’s curious about everyone and everything. His mom says he’s probably going to be a politician or something because he wants to talk to everyone he sees. I told him to stay close to the rest rooms while I was inside with his sister, but I guess he saw you and just couldn’t resist striking up a conversation. I’ll talk to him about it on the way home.”
“Good idea. He needs to know he can’t just start talking to any strange guy sitting in a park.”
Jenny giggled again. “You’re not a strange guy.”
“Your sister might disagree with that comment,” Riley murmured, his smile wry.
“Hey, Riley,” Mark shouted. “You want to feed a duck?”
Riley reached for the portion of bun left over from his hamburger. “Feeding ducks just happens to be one of my favorite pastimes.”
It was another generally held misconception that Riley didn’t like children. It was true he didn’t go to great lengths to seek them out, so he hadn’t spent a great deal of time with them on the whole, but he didn’t actively dislike them.
He enjoyed the time he spent feeding the ducks with Mark, Maggie and Jenny. Mark chattered almost endlessly, pelting Riley with a barrage of questions and humorous comments. A bit more shy at first, Maggie soon joined in the fun, treating Riley like a longtime friend, much the same way Jenny behaved toward him.
Knowing there were several people who’d be surprised to see him in this situation, Riley still had a good time. Cute tots, he thought. If more kids were as entertaining and well-behaved as these two—or three, if one counted a teenager as a kid—Riley wouldn’t feel compelled to avoid them quite so often.
Still, it wasn’t long before he glanced at his watch and said, “I’d better be going. I have a lot to do this afternoon.”
Jenny checked the time on her own watch. “Oh, gosh, we’d better go, too. The kids’ mom will be home soon.”
It was only two-thirty in the afternoon. Apparently, Mark and Maggie’s mom worked the early shift. A part-time job, perhaps.
