Winning Sara's Heart

“Absolutely, sir. My name is Bernard Hughes and I’m the manager of this establishment. We will make this right, and do accept our profound apology.”

The man and his tablemate made to leave. Almost tripping over the waitress’s foot, the tall, angry businessman yelled, “Get out of my way, you idiot!” and pushed past her while she crouched down, attending to the mess at her feet.

E. J. wasn’t sure when he started to walk toward the disaster, or why he was going in that direction at all. But he was, and the men rushed past him without a glance, muttering something about a meeting.

E. J. approached the manager and the waitress. The polite facade and deference the manager had exuded seconds ago was gone. He reached down, grabbed the waitress by her arm and jerked her unceremoniously to her feet. It was then that he knew why he was heading in their direction.

He’d had enough of everything. The bad deal because of some leak at LynTech, and men who treated this woman as if she was in servitude to the lot of them; they all left a bad taste in his mouth. The taste got even worse when he heard the manager saying, “This is all your fault, you idiot! This is coming out of your pay. And if it happens again, that’s it! You are out of here.”

He saw the woman’s eyes, that incredible shade of aquamarine, the way they widened, and the fear in them. “I…I said I’m sorry,” she breathed. “He stood up right when I got here and the tray hit him, and—”

“You threw food all over him,” Hughes muttered. “And if he goes out of here and ruins our reputation when we’re just getting off the ground, well…” He let the words trail off, but the threat in them was very clear. “The suit cleaning or replacement will be your responsibility completely.”

She bit her lip but didn’t fight his hold on her or protest anymore. She just stood there, taking it, and that made E. J. all the more angry. He was right by them now, close enough to see a name tag on the woman’s dress that read Sara, and close enough to see the pressure the man was putting on her arm. High color dotted her cheeks and she swallowed hard before she whispered, “I am so sorry, sir.”

“You will be if you do anything like this again.”

“Hey, take it easy,” E. J. said, laying his hand on the man’s forearm.

Hughes jerked at the contact, looked at E. J., then seemed to relax when he saw a customer. “Excuse me, sir?”

“Let her go,” E. J. said, not raising his voice but holding the man’s gaze without wavering. “Whatever happened here, it was an accident. I saw that idiot stand up right in front of her, and as far as I could tell, he caused all of this.”

Hughes stared at E. J., mentally trying to figure out what in the hell was going on. He flicked his gaze over the casual clothes, the roughness on his unshaven jaw, then looked right at him. The deference he’d shown to the other men was there, but in a measured portion. He wasn’t going to offend a prospective customer by telling him to get lost, but he wasn’t about to just let E. J. run roughshod over him, either.

“Sir, this has nothing to do with you, no matter whose fault it was,” he said tightly. “We at the Lennox Cafе expect excellence from our employees, and if that is no longer the case, they are no longer employees.” He inclined his head to E. J. “I can assure you that your service will be impeccable.”

“Great, but let go of her,” E. J. said.

Red flushed through the man’s skin again all the way up to his bald head, but he let the waitress go. “Get this cleaned up, then come to my office,” he said to her before he looked back at E. J., clasping his hands in front of his chest to partially hide the red stain there. The man was furious about everything, but he was controlled. “Now, sir, the bar or the restaurant?” he asked tightly.

“The bar.”

“Yes, sir, this way,” Hughes said, and swept his hand in the direction of the bar.

E. J. glanced at the waitress. She had dropped to her haunches again and was busily scooping the ruined food back onto the tray. He leaned toward her. “Are you okay?”

She looked up, her hair tangling around her shoulders, and he was facing eyes that held jarring anger. Her mouth was tightly set, her skin flushed, and her hands, holding a broken soup bowl, were shaking. “Fine, just fine,” she muttered.

“Sir?” Hughes called to him.

E. J. had no idea why she was furious with him. It didn’t make sense. He killed the impulse to ask her why in the hell she was looking at him like that, and when she turned to get back to the mess at her feet, he walked away. He followed Hughes to the bar area, sat on one of the leather-covered stools and ordered a black coffee. While the bartender got it, E. J. looked in the mirrors that backed the bar. He spotted the waitress coming across the space with the trayful of broken china and ruined food.

He assumed she’d go right past him and into the kitchen area, but he was wrong about that, too. She came right toward him, and as he turned, she faced him with just two feet separating them. He could almost feel her heat as he inhaled a combination of scents, from coffee to flowers.

Then she uttered in a low, tight voice, “What do you think you were doing back there?”

It was then he realized how attractive she was—her full bottom lip and her silky blond hair. The high color in her complexion only emphasized a delicate beauty that owed nothing to makeup. “Trying to help,” he said truthfully, and found himself making an offer that shocked him. “Do you want me to have a talk with your boss about it?”

Now the color drained from her face. “Don’t you dare! You’ve done enough.” She looked back over her shoulder, then at him again. “Stay out of this. Please.”

He remembered her flinching when the man had grabbed her arm, but he knew when to give up. “Hey, it’s none of my business what you do or what that guy does to you.”

The color was coming back into her face. “Damn straight it isn’t,” she muttered, then turned and left him. He watched as the kitchen doors swung silently shut behind her. She was gone, and E. J. didn’t have a clue as to why he’d gotten involved at all.

Life was crazy, and a waitress with aquamarine eyes was obviously part of that craziness today. He lifted his coffee and took a drink of the rich brew. He didn’t need any more complications in his life, and if he was any judge of women, the waitress could be one huge complication.

Chapter Two

Sara Flynn stopped just inside the kitchen doors and was shaking so hard she had to put the tray down on the stainless steel counter before she dropped it. She tried to get her hair back in the knot, twisting it and pushing the pins to hold it, but she had a terrible time fastening it. As she pushed in the last pin, she took several deep breaths to try to steady herself.

“What’s going on out there?”

She turned to the chef, Marv, who was doing prep work on a side table, chopping carrots and celery so quickly that the actions were almost a blur. “An accident,” she said, and took the tray over to the sinks to dispose of the food and the broken dishes.

“Sounded like a bomb went off,” he said.

“A bomb would have been preferable,” she said, dropping the tray into the soapy water in the large sink, then turning to Marv.

The chef was fifty or so, a stocky man with dark eyes and a ruddy complexion. She’d never seen him out of his whites. He’d been kind to her, explaining things she didn’t know about the business, and covering for her when she’d needed it. He stopped chopping for a minute and frowned at her. “What was it?”

She shrugged. “I dropped that last order right on the customer,” she said, trying to make her mouth smile, but it was impossible.

Marv smiled for both of them. “Oh, boy, I wish I’d seen it, although I hate to see my work ruined.”

“You wouldn’t have wanted to see it,” she said. “Hughes is furious.”

“Threatened to fire you, didn’t he?”

She exhaled. “He sure did, and then some customer butted in, and…” She bit her lip, still remembering when she’d heard that deep voice and looked up to see the man standing over her. The way he’d reached out, taken Hughes by the arm—and the anger behind his action. Dark hazel eyes hadn’t backed down from Hughes and his fury, and she’d known if the stranger had said or done one more thing, Hughes would have fired her then and there to prove he could.

“A customer?” Marv said, cutting into her thoughts.

She looked through the small oval pane of glass in the kitchen door and saw the man. He was still at the bar, leaning forward, his elbows on the polished wood top, and staring into his coffee mug. “He’s still at the bar. He said something about talking to Hughes about what happened, but I hope he’s forgotten all about that.” She watched the stranger sit back, turn and look at a man coming into the restaurant.

She recognized the security man from next door. He crossed to the man at the bar, said something, then left. The stranger turned back to the bar, tossed off the rest of his drink, then stood. He was tall and lean, and had an edge to him. A dangerous edge, she thought, then rationalized she was feeling that because he’d darn near gotten her fired.

“A real knight in shining armor?” Marv asked.

She turned as the man put a bill on the bar. “No. He almost got me fired.” She ducked back when Hughes came toward the doors and stepped into the kitchen.

“Sara?” he said. “The tables aren’t ready for the lunch rush. Get them set, then come into my office.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, her heart sinking. Quickly she went past him and out into the restaurant. Her luck was holding and all of it was bad. She barely missed walking right into the stranger, and she had the horrifying thought that he was following Hughes to have that talk with him.

“You,” she muttered, stepping back to look up at him.

His eyes were a rich hazel, framed by fine lines and set under dark brows. Direct, cutting eyes that made her uncomfortable and angered Hughes. “Me,” he murmured.