King of Hearts Read online

  She darned near spilled her lemonade.

  His glance fell to their hands. He jumped. One moment he was gazing into her eyes, making her shiver, and the next he was on his feet.

  “Shit, I gotta get to work. Uh, sorry,” he said.

  Her insides shrank up cold.

  He dug into the cook’s spare white pants and threw a five-dollar bill on the table. Then he ran for the door.

  “Don’t you want change?” she called after him.

  “It’s for Hannah, for taking her table!” he called. “I’ll send that ticket over to Liz Otter’s tonight!” Then he was gone.

  The rat.

  “He’s very thoughtful,” said a voice behind Nadine. She turned. A young waitress in a black skirt and low-cut white tee-shirt was pocketing King Dave’s five, eyeing Nadine.

  “Beg pardon?” Nadine said.

  “I said, King Dave’s very thoughtful. You’ll have fun.” The waitress stuck her hand out. “I’m Hannah. Where you working? Corbett’s?” she said, naming a stagehand bar.

  “Liz Otter’s,” Nadine said faintly. She shook hands. “Pleased to meet you, Hannah.” Hannah was pretty and petite. And from the look of her, a city girl through and through.

  “His attention span’s kinda short. But he’s a good guy while it lasts.” Hannah bent closer. “Have you tried the thing with the butter and the grape popsicles? Don’t be put off by the sound of it. It’s amazing.”

  Nadine stiffened. “I—I have to go to work now.”

  Hannah laughed. “Relax, Tex. You couldn’t ask for a nicer guy to get your cherry.”

  It shows, Nadine thought, horrified. Can everybody tell I’m a virgin?

  Chapter Five

  Up onstage, the Dixie Chicks sang their Texan hearts out. Nadine sang along. “She needs wide open spaces.”

  Tears filled her eyes. The girl in the song was sent off by loving parents. Nadine had buried her mother eight years ago, and her father thought the worst of her. I can never go home.

  Nadine broke down and bawled. The music was so loud, people nearby would never hear her. She was all alone in this crazy Yankee city. No one to confide in. No one to say—

  “What’s the matter, your highness?”

  She shrieked. King Dave Flaherty crouched in the aisle beside her. He took her hand, breathing onto her neck, sizzling every nerve on that side of her body. She slapped a hand to her tear-streaked face. It came away black with mascara.

  He put a folded paper towel into her hand.

  “What are you doing here?” she shouted.

  King Dave rolled his eyes. He still wore the cook’s spare whites, but he’d changed the white Liz Otter’s tee-shirt for a black tee-shirt that read I did the Chicks. Duh. He was working.

  She dabbed at her face. Now King Dave’s paper towel was black. “Lordy, I need to go to the little girls’ room.”

  “C’mon, then.” He towed her out to the lobby restroom.

  In the bathroom she redid her mascara and added pink lipstick to match her gingham blouse. There was a mascara smudge on her lapel. No amount of dabbing erased it. Maybe if she fixed her hair up, he wouldn’t look at the spot.

  She took down the mess and brushed it hard, all two feet of it. His abs were awesome in a black tee-shirt. Would she look good enough for the King?

  She looked in the mirror and saw a six-foot hick in a pink- checked, size forty-four blouse, pink cheeks, pink lips, and long, straight blonde hair. Like some kind of giant milkmaid.

  She bit her cheek. Maybe if she put her hair up.

  With a few swift movements she wound it into a double knot and pinned it in place. Now it was as high as a beehive.

  I know the fifties are back, but are they this far back?

  Oh, shoot. She pointed at herself in the mirror. “You are a waitress. You don’t take poo from anyone.”

  She went out to see if King Dave had stuck around.

  He leaned against a fancy pillar, his head tilted back, his eyes shut, and his hands behind him, looking like a painting she once saw of a guy who got his innards et by a vulture every day. Beautiful and dog-tired and resigned.

  “King Dave, are you okay?”

  He opened his eyes. “There you are.” He ran his eye over her. Sure enough, he noticed the smudge. His gaze lingered on it.

  “Uh, I think I’ll go back to my seat.”

  “Wait a second, will you? Criminy. I want to talk to you.”

  “What about?”

  The angel-blue eyes bored into her. “You know what about,” he said in a low voice. Last time he’d looked at her like this was in the alley behind Liz Otter’s. Over a Day-Glo orange inseam.

  She tittered. “I would have thought you forgot that by now. Seems like it happened a week ago!”

  “Yeah. I’ve spent three days in these fucking pants.”

  Her gaze flew to the cook’s spare whites. “I meant to warn you. Be careful how you clean up. The only chemicals that work on spray paint are toxic.” She met his eyes. “M-maybe l-lard.”

  His eyes were hotter than ever. Suspicious, angry, anxious, dangerous. He said tightly, “How much?”

  “How much lard?” She blinked. “I don’t know, half a cup?” She glanced down at his zipper. “Not to belittle the size of your—uh—” She met his glare again and gulped.

  “No,” he pronounced, like someone measuring nitroglycerine. “How much money? What’ll it take to keep your mouth shut?”

  She gasped. He actually thought she would— “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t play dumb, your highness,” he rapped out. “If you’re reasonable, I’ll pay. If you get greedy—” He paused and stepped forward with his fists clenched at his sides. The muscles bulged out on his shoulders and arms. Lord, he was gorgeous. Her mouth went dry. He said, “You’ll be sorry.”

  All the preacher’s daughter rose up in Nadine. “Is this how you talk to Tammy when she asks for money?”

  His face darkened. Of course he didn’t like being preached to. Well, he was going to be.

  She sniffed. “No wonder she played such a trick on you.”

  “How much?” He was really scared under the bluster.

  Her heart pinched in secret sympathy.

  She would never betray him.

  But if she admitted that, she’d lose her leverage. “You ought to give your ex-wife what’s due her. No matter what she’s done to you, it’s the only right thing to do.”

  Nadine heard the prig in her voice and cringed inside.

  But show a moment of weakness to King Dave Flaherty and you were doomed. He was gorgeous and sometimes kind of nice—really nice—but this side of him must get no encouragement. He needed leading. Moral guidance. The gentle voice of authority. She’d done it a million times back in Goreville.

  She said gently, “I’ll bet if you give the money to your mother, she’ll find a way to tell Tammy it’s been paid. And then Tammy’ll give you the film for those pictures.”

  Her homily was received in the proper spirit. Not.

  “I knew it! You’re in this with her! God dammit!” A whole flock of cusswords flew out of him, beating on her ears like fists. “You women!” he raged. “You want to destroy me in this Local for the rest of my life? Do you have any idea—”

  A door opened in a corner of the lobby and a head stuck out. “Yo, King Dave! Git your butt back on spot three!”

  King Dave looked around guiltily. “Be right there!” He swung around on her, looking dark and powerful, making her innards leap, and it was all she could do to keep from stepping straight up in his face and kissing him. “Last chance, your highness,” he grated. “Name your price. Or face the consequences.”

  She narrowed her eyes right back at him. “Consequences is your ex-wife going hungry, King Dave.” Her heart went wild in her chest. Her whole body trembled.

  He looked disgusted. “My ex is not going hungry,” he began, and then broke off, cocking his head to the music coming through the closed lobby doors.
“Shit. I’ve got to get back to work.” He turned toward the door, sending her a look over his shoulder. “This isn’t over.”

  “Certainly not.”

  He flung the door open. “And don’t think you get the last word, because you don’t!”

  She swiveled, triumph shaking her from head to toe, thankful he was leaving while she still had control of herself. “Do too.”

  With a glare, he disappeared. The door slammed.

  Nadine went back to her seat to hear the rest of the concert—a seat that King Dave had got her.

  No wonder he thought she could be bought off. She was already taking favors from him. A nice girl did not take favors from a man she didn’t respect. He would think she wasn’t nice.

  Chapter Six

  King Dave wiped sweat off his forehead and hefted one corner of a crate.

  “Sheesh, what’s in these things? Concrete?” Bobbyjay said.

  “I hate these put-ins at the Auditorium,” King Dave said. “You always gotta load and unload from the side. Let’s go next door at the break.”

  “Speaking of next door, how’s it going with your new waitress?” Bobbyjay said as they rolled their load onstage.

  “What new waitress?” King Dave said, his heart sinking. The word was out already.

  “The big blonde at Liz Otter’s.”

  “Oh.” King Dave had spent all his waking hours since the Chicks opened, trying to figure the woman out.

  His thinker didn’t work so well. He’d run the Chicks. He’d put the Chicks out the door. He’d taken exactly thirty minutes’ nap in the piston room at the Opera House before night gang, and then he shoved big heavy stair units around the Opera House stage for eight hours of double time. Another three-hour nap in his car, a change of tee-shirts out of the vast collection in his trunk, a stop at Marshall Field’s for some new jeans, and he was back on the job at the Auditorium, putting in eight straight for the installation of a sit-down run of Les Miz. Thank God they weren’t hoping to open this one for a few weeks. He’d be able to sleep tonight.

  And sooner or later he’d have to try to soak off all this orange spray paint. Her highness Miss Nadine was right, there. Lighter fluid would work, but it would make him sick as a dog. Lacquer thinner or trisodium phosphate might kill him.

  He might be stuck with an orange dick until it wore off.

  Maybe a really long soak. He could sleep in the tub.

  “Tough nut, is she?” Bobbyjay said sympathetically.

  “Huh? What?”

  “Bro, you need some sleep.”

  “Shut up, will you?” King Dave shoved the wig crate a little and Bobbyjay staggered. “Push the fuckin’ box.”

  They maneuvered the crate into position, lifted it, stacked it on top of the other twelve wheelless crates, and headed back to the loading dock for another load.

  “Yeah, she’s too stuck up for you, I guess,” Bobbyjay said.

  King Dave shot him a look. Bobbyjay was his best friend, but that was no protection from a ribbing in this man’s Local. “Preacher’s kid,” he said shortly. “I’ll get her eventually.”

  Maybe that was the answer. He’d considered it as his brain wobbled down from high speed to a crawl over the past few days of work, work, work. Get in her pants. Of the women he’d slept with, all but a bare half-dozen were still speaking to him. “I can get her any time I want.”

  Bobbyjay grinned. “Sure you will.” He grabbed a new crate.

  “Gimme a break.” King Dave took the other end of the crate and hoisted. “I been working four days straight. You know the priorities.”

  “Work. Eat. Sleep. Fuck,” Bobbyjay said, shoving the crate to King Dave. “No wonder we’re a bunch of serial monogamists.”

  King Dave raised his eyebrows. “Nice name for something nasty.”

  “You’ll come to it. You already married once.”

  “And divorced once. Ugh. One, two, up. Once was enough. And where’s your wife, Bobbyjay?”

  “That dumb I’m not,” Bobbyjay said. “I think I know why these crates don’t have wheels.”

  “To torture us?”

  “Because the company that supplies these guys with shoes or wigs or whatever is different from the company that supplies the cable. Cable companies know about wheels.”

  “Either that or they took the wheels off because the crates wouldn’t fit in the truck,” King Dave said. “Push.” They shoved a wheeled cable box double-stacked with wig crates on stage.

  “If you have trouble with the waitress, let me know,” Bobbyjay said. “I’m not in your league, but I can always stand next to you and make you look better.”

  “Fuck you,” King Dave said more amiably.

  “Break time!” the steward yelled.

  Everybody stashed his load where it belonged, then beat it for the alley.

  King Dave and Bobbyjay were first out the door. They settled into a booth at Liz Otter’s before the other guys had finished tucking their shirts in.

  King Dave spotted Nadine in the back of the restaurant. She was talking to some customers, three high school girls with studs in their lips. Next to them she looked adult, with only one pair of big discs in her earlobes instead of their rows of earrings, and her big womanly bust. She stood straight as they slouched, she smiled calmly as they chattered, and her hair swooped up in that Greek goddess thingy-do. He zeroed in on the bust part. Zow. Definitely goddess class. Adult? The woman was X-rated.

  She swiveled to pour coffee for the girls and he saw that she wore a necklace of big huge beads. Day-Glo orange. To match the earrings, he realized.

  His knees pinched together involuntarily. Did she actually have the crust to get in his face like this?

  She moved away from the gigglers and swapped her empty coffeepot for a full one. Then she turned toward King Dave.

  Their eyes met. His breath caught short suddenly.

  She lifted her chin and smiled. He had a feeling she was putting on the smile, but he knew now that it didn’t matter. When Nadine went waitress on him, he was screwed. Especially here at her work. She wasn’t allowed to sass him much, but no stagehand ever suffered from the illusion that he could piss off a waitress and live. There were ways she could pay him back. The other guys didn’t like to eat at your booth if they knew the waitress had it in for you. Spilled coffee doesn’t take sides.

  He realized his eyes were narrowed and his jaw locked.

  Weasel slid into the booth next to Bobbyjay. King Dave forced his face to relax.

  Nadine sailed up to their booth with a smile and a howdy for each man present. “Bobbyjay, nice to see you. Hey, Weasel. Afternoon, King Dave.”

  Okay. Two could play the niceness game.

  “King Dave, you feeling any better? I see you got home finally anyway,” she said, flashing a glance at his red tee-shirt and new blue jeans.

  How did she do that? Only Nadine could look a man in the crotch and make it seem like she was checking for a poopy diaper.

  He flushed. “I’m fine, thanks.” He looked up as she bent to pour coffee into Bobbyjay’s cup and looked straight into her cleavage. With those Day-Glo orange beads lying right on top of ’em. His jeans got tighter.

  He laid his napkin on his lap. He smiled what he hoped was a sardonic and not a sappy smile at that cleft between tight, shiny, sweaty, mostly-covered-up breasts. Take the initiative, he told himself, or you’re lost.

  “Did you enjoy the Chicks?” he said, as if he and Nadine hadn’t had a yelling match in the middle of the show.

  His punishment was swift. “Yes, thank you,” she said brightly. “That reminds me, King Dave, I never paid you back for that ticket.” To his horror she hauled a wad of singles out of her apron and started counting.

  “Hey!” he said.

  Weasel gaped. “You bought a ticket? What’s the matter, the manager wouldn’t give you one?”

  “King Dave’s going chivalrous,” Bobbyjay said maliciously.

  “Hey!” King Dave repeated. D
amn, the payback never stopped.

  “Twenty-five, twenty-six,” Nadine said. “That’s right, isn’t it? That was a great seat. Thanks, King Dave,” she said, looking him in the eye with a smile. “That was real nice of you.”

  “No.” He pushed the stack of wrinkled singles back at her. “C’mon. I got that ticket for free.” He knew his face was red.

  She wavered. “Is that allowed? Because I feel I’m under an obligation—” She pushed the stack back at him with one finger.

  “Really.” Roughly he grabbed the money and shoved it back in her apron. Jesus. Paying him out of her tip money. Did she want to murder him with humiliation? He stood up. “Listen, I got something to talk to you about.”

  They were chin to chin, and he was so close to those breasts that he could smell the sweat on them. His breath came short.

  She looked in his eyes. From the phony smile on her face you’d have thought she felt nothing. But she turned pink.

  Gotcha, dammit.

  She hesitated.

  “About that obligation,” he said.

  She licked her lips. “My tables—” she said, glancing over her shoulder. There were five other guys in Liz Otter’s, all of them stagehands from next door. The teenagers had left. Otherwise the place was empty.

  “The other girl’s got ’em,” he said.

  “I need to fill the napkin holders,” she said. He heard the note of desperation in her voice.

  Now turn up the sweet talk so she doesn’t do something to make me look stupid again.

  “Please?” he said. He gave her the puppy eyes. She backed up a step. He followed, making sure her warmth stayed close to his already burning chest. “Pretty please?”

  She sighed. “I’ve still got to fill my napkin holders.”

  He followed her to the booth in back where the waitresses performed such chores, throwing a look of triumph over his shoulder to Bobbyjay. Bobbyjay grinned. Damn him.

  “See, here’s the deal,” King Dave said in a low voice as he settled across the booth from her. “Do you know what the guys are liable to call me if they know—what you know?”

  She glanced up from her packet of napkins. She looked wary. Good, excellent, she wasn’t expecting him to be honest with her. King Dave laid his hands palm up on the table.