Indecent

“You’re late.”

The manager’s name was Harry, although he wasn’t the Harry on the sign, no matter how much he liked to pretend he was, especially when introducing himself to customers. “Hi, I’m Harry. Are you enjoying your meal?” he would say, leaving them to think he was the Harry of note.

He was somewhere in his mid-forties, was at least that many pounds overweight, and more often than not could do with a shower.

Lucky caught the way he stared at her breasts under the tight T-shirt and put her hand on her hip. “I told you I had an appointment.”

“You also told me you’d make it here on time,” he said to her breasts.

Since she’d landed the job four months ago, Harry had come on to her no fewer than ten times, usually when she worked closing and after all the staff had shared a wind-down beer. Now she usually opted for the earlier shifts even though the tips were better later, her patience for his unwanted attention wearing thin.

As she looked at him now, she suspected the same could be said for Harry. He looked a broken plate away from firing her and hiring another waitress that might be more open to his advances, despite the wedding ring on his left hand that he tried to hide with his class ring.

“I’m sorry. The session ran over,” Lucky said then reached around him to pick up a tray so she could bus a table in her station nearby.

He caught her arm when she tried to pass. “Consider this your second warning, Lucky.” He smiled at her in a way that made her skin crawl. “I don’t think I need to tell you there won’t be a third.”

“Understood,” she said as Connie, another waitress, came up on Harry from behind. Since Connie had been there over a year, she was apparently more open to Harry’s attentions.

She was glad when Harry moved his gaze from her breasts to Connie’s, and she left to go clear the table and take an order from a couple of guys who were sliding into a booth near one of the big-screen televisions on the back wall.

Lucky had been waitressing since she was seventeen and the job was second nature to her. She liked the noisy atmosphere, the nonstop movement, the odd hours. If every now and again her feet felt swollen a point beyond pain and her back ached, she just treated herself to a long, hot bath and a day spent reading then rushed right back into the fray. She’d never given much consideration to doing anything else. She liked her life the way it was. Uncomplicated. Routine. Familiar. With a little spice like the delectable Dr. Colin McKenna thrown in to liven things up from time to time.

Just thinking of him made her smile.

“What’ll it be?” she asked the next table as she straightened the condiment caddy and took out her order pad.

She was doing pretty much the same thing an hour later when two men walked in and took a booth in the next station. She usually gave customers only a cursory glance, but one of the two warranted a double take. Simply because he was one unmistakable Dr. Colin McKenna.

Lucky stood staring in his direction. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in the world…of course, he would have chosen Connie’s station to sit in.

“Are you going to take our order or not?” the guy in the booth next to her asked.

“Not,” she said, walking away.

COLIN ACCEPTED a menu from the girl who had seated him and his best friend, Will Sexton, then stared at the five big-screen televisions on the walls tuned in to different sporting events. He raised a brow at an archery competition then settled his gaze on Will.

“Come here a lot?” he asked.

Will and he had roomed together in college and had remained best friends ever since. While he’d gone the psychiatric route, Will was now a surgeon at St. Vincent-Mercy’s Trauma I Center.

“Don’t you?” Will asked in his thick British accent, cocking a grin at him. “Reminds me of the pubs back home.”

Colin highly doubted that, but didn’t say anything. Mirroring their choice in careers, Colin liked things quiet and subdued while Will’s motto was the more chaotic the better. At least in most things. When it came to their sex lives Colin usually liked things a little more wild, while Will had always chosen the sorority girls with the pink ribbons in their hair. Even now he was dating a sweet little resident who planned to go into pediatrics.

Of course, Colin’s preference had made turning down Lucky Clayborn in his office earlier all the more difficult.

Merely thinking of the hot, seductive woman made him tug at his collar, something he was free to do now that she was no longer in front of him.

“Welcome to Harry’s, gentlemen. Can I get you something from the bar?”

Colin looked up and nearly choked for the second time that day when he found himself staring at none other than the woman in question.

As soon as he had verified that not only wasn’t she a figment of his imagination, but that she was a waitress, he noticed that Lucky didn’t look anywhere near surprised. In fact, her predatory smile told him she’d probably spotted him the moment he’d walked in.

“Hello, Dr. McKenna,” she said with that sexy, throaty voice of hers. “Or may I call you Colin now that we’re no longer in the office?”

Will raised a brow at him. “Friends, are we? And here I thought you’d avoid a place like this like the plague.”

Colin dropped his hand from his tie. “Actually, we met elsewhere. Will, this is Lucky Clayborn.”

Will briefly offered his hand to Lucky. “Such an auspicious name. Nice. Very nice.”

Lucky stared at Will’s hand for a long moment then finally put her own into it and gave a brief shake, apparently not used to the greeting. “Nice to meet you,” she said, her gaze immediately re turning to Colin.

He tried not to notice the way her T-shirt hugged her just as tightly as her tank had earlier, the green fabric making her eyes look huge in her pale face.

“Can I bring you a draft?” she asked. “Harry brews his own.”

Colin swallowed hard and forced his gaze to his menu. “I’ll have bottled water.”

Will winked at her good-naturedly. “I’ll take a draft. Unlike the stuffed shirt here, I’m just knocking off work.”

Another waitress neared the table and stopped next to Lucky. Her whisper was none too subtle. “What are you doing? This is my table.”

Lucky shrugged her away. “Would you guys like to order now or would you like a few more minutes to go over the menu?”

Colin got the definite impression that if he so wanted, he could order her up with no problem.

His tie wasn’t the only item of clothing that suddenly felt tight.

The other waitress strode away toward the back of the restaurant. Colin looked around Lucky to watch the other woman strike up a conversation with a man he guessed was the manager or the owner.

“We’ll order now,” he said, thinking the less interaction with Lucky the better.

“Are you in some sort of trouble?” he asked after he and Will had made their choices.

Lucky glanced back to where the manager was staring at her while the waitress pointed in her direction.

She smiled as she accepted their menus. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

She walked away. As soon as she was out of earshot, Will pulled at his own collar. “Did the temperature just get a little hotter in here or is it my imagination?”

Colin grimaced as he straightened his silverware. “It’s your imagination.”

“Well, I certainly hope so because I’m guessing she’s a patient of yours. And you don’t want to be taking any chances right now. Not with everything that’s hanging in the balance.” His gaze trailed back to Lucky. “That’s one hot number, though. I don’t know what I would do if a patient of her caliber came on to me the way she’s coming on to you. A package like that has a way of making you forget about medical degrees. Pass her on to one of your colleagues quick, mate.”

Colin had considered and discarded the option earlier. To pass her on to one of his partners wouldn’t look good. And right now he couldn’t afford even a hint of impropriety. “So why did you pass Miss Clayborn onto your partner?” he could hear himself being asked during a legal deposition. What would he say? “I wanted to screw her so bad my balls ached, that’s why.”