Fugitive Heart - By Bonnie Dee Page 0,18

side of the house, which had obviously once been a single-family dwelling, now converted into a duplex.

“I love the customers, really. But slinging hash is hard work.” She sounded almost unnaturally perky, and he wondered if she was still wearing her dealing-with-the-public front.

Nick glanced sideways at her. “So you’re starting up the web-design business you told me about?” He took a moment to appreciate her figure under the dark-blue skirt and flowered top with a neckline that he wished dipped a little deeper and showed more of that creamy skin.

“Yeah. It’s doing well but not quite well enough that I can quit the restaurant yet.”

“Starting a business isn’t easy.” They walked out to the crappy Volvo he’d bought for cash the morning after the shit hit the fan. He opened the passenger door for her and watched Ames climb inside. His gaze lingered on her legs when her skirt hiked higher.

“You mentioned being between jobs right now,” Ames said after he slid behind the steering wheel. “What business were you in before?”

“I’m a… I was a curator at a museum. I lost my job due to budget cuts.” That and your crazy brother incriminating me in his scheme so the Espositos are on my ass.

Ames’s head swiveled toward him so fast her curls bounced. Her already wide eyes turned into saucers. “Really? I never would have guessed that. You don’t seem…”

“What? Artsy enough? It was a history museum. My degree was in archeology, but I only went on one dig as a kid, going through a midden pile near the East River. Really cool to find traces of the everyday lives of average people. There’s a tenement museum in New York that’s great.”

“Goodness,” Ames exclaimed and sounded remarkably like Shirley Temple. “What in the world are you doing here, then? You’re not going to find a job like that around Arnesdale.”

“No. Like I said, I’m taking a break, regrouping, so to speak.”

“Must be nice to be able to take time off work. You have a trust fund or something?” She grimaced but didn’t seem actually embarrassed. “Sorry. That was rude.”

“It’s all right. Actually, my family was once pretty well-to-do; then circumstances changed. But since then, I’ve made some good investments.”

“Interesting.” Ames cocked her head and studied him. “You’re unexpected, Sam Allen.”

Nick felt his cheeks burn at the name. He didn’t like lying, especially to a sweet, uncomplicated woman like Ames Jensen. But it couldn’t be helped. Best to change the subject, since she was asking too many personal questions, and he didn’t want to slip up. He wasn’t a world-class prevaricator, and anyway, she disconcerted him.

“So where am I driving?”

“Shandy’s on the River. Just go out past the lumber yard. They have pretty good seafood. Although I bet you’re used to great, since you come from a state right on the ocean. Did you get to visit the beach a lot back home?”

All the way to the restaurant, Ames continued to pick at him with questions about his past, his family, his work and his life in New York. He answered truthfully when he could and skirted around the edges of stickier questions. But the longer they were on the road, the more he sensed tension and nervousness radiating from Ames. Her tone seemed increasingly short, and she fidgeted in her seat.

Nick glanced at her, noting the tight lines at the corners of her mouth, and finally he asked point-blank, “Is there something wrong?”

“Turn here.” Ames pointed out the sign for Shandy’s, which was indeed on a small river, more like a creek.

Nick obeyed, pulling the car to a stop in the parking lot before turning to her. “Have I said or done something to upset you?” He thought of the previous night, his hands gripping her ass and his tongue plunging into her mouth. Yeah, that probably had something to do with her mood. She may have brushed it off as no big deal, but encounters like that had a way of coloring a “friendship”.

Ames frowned, her brows knitted together in a way that was ridiculously adorable. What the hell was the matter with him that he kept getting distracted by little details like that?

She looked as though she would answer but instead got out of the car and walked quickly toward the restaurant, across the gravel lot.

Yup. Pissed off. He’d met drama queens and entitled women, and he would have bet Ames wasn’t one of their ranks, but he’d been wrong about character before. Exhibit A, her goddamned