A Doctor In Her Stocking. Elizabeth BevarlyЧитать онлайн книгу.
Reed’s suspicion compounded at the statement. “It won’t,” he told the other man.
Seth smiled, a smile that was knowing, confident and a bit sad. “Then how come you’ve never done something nice for anyone before?” he asked softly.
Reed opened his mouth to reply but realized, much to his dismay, that he had no idea what to say. He hadn’t ever done anything nice for anyone before, he thought. Had he? He tried to remember. But he honestly couldn’t come up with a single incident where he had committed an act of selfless, unprovoked, unpremeditated. niceness.
It wasn’t that he had anything against gestures of goodwill, he tried to assure himself. He just didn’t trust them. And he wasn’t a bad man. He was just a…a thoughtless man? An uncaring man? No, surely not, he told himself. He was thoughtful. He was caring. He thought and cared about…stuff. Sure, he did. It had just never occurred to him to.what was it that bumper sticker said? Commit Acts of Random Kindness and Senseless Beauty? But the reason for that was simply because he wasn’t one much for bumper-sticker philosophy, that was all.
Wasn’t it?
“I…” he began. But no more words were forthcoming.
“You what?” Seth cajoled.
“I…” Reed tried again.
“What?”
“I…I accept your wager,” he finally finished lamely. “If I lose-which I won’t,” he hastened to add, “I’ll even throw in a bottle of The MacCallan.”
Seth nodded, and Reed got the feeling the other man knew something he didn’t know himself. But all he said was, “Good. Then let’s eat.”
Mindy had never been more exhausted in her entire life than she was as the dinner rush began to wind down. Boy, the first trimester had been bad enough, she thought, had had her nodding off at the worst times, in the strangest places. She’d once fallen asleep while riding the elevator to the OB-GYN’s office. She recalled reading somewhere that women were supposed to have a burst of energy in the second trimester. They were supposed to feel strong and animated and invincible, like some kind of prenatal Wonder Woman.
Mindy, however, felt more like Washer Woman.
“Order up, Mindy!”
She sighed heavily, hoisting herself up from the chair behind the counter where she’d collapsed in the hopes of stealing a minute or two off her feet. Then, when a rush of wintry wind blasted her from the door that was opening ahead of two more diners, she hugged her sweater more tightly around herself. She was almost as cold these days as she was tired. She hadn’t felt warm for five months now.
She stood up on tiptoe to pluck the Reuben sandwich and fries from the kitchen window, settling them onto her tray before reaching up to retrieve their mate, a chicken salad on whole wheat. And as she crossed the diner to present both plates to their rightful owners, another patron lifted a hand, indicating he wanted to place an order. Mindy nodded as she took care of one table before approaching the other, tugging a stubby pencil from beneath her by-now-dismembered ponytail as she made her way to the newcomer.
She smiled as she stopped by his table, so much did he resemble Santa Claus—a really skinny Santa Claus, anyway. But where Santa’s dapper red suit looked plenty warm, this guy’s attire was neither red nor dapper, nor did it look in any way warm. His tweed jacket was threadbare, his gloves more hole than wool. A knit cap covered his ears, but she couldn’t believe the man received much warmth from it.
Poor thing, she thought. It must be in the twenties out there tonight—so far, December had been unseasonably cold—and he probably didn’t have anyplace else to go. She thanked her lucky stars again that she wasn’t out on the streets—yet—and conjured the most winning smile from her arsenal.
“What can I get for you?” she asked the man.
He smiled back at her, and although he may have been cold on the outside, he certainly radiated warmth from within. “I’m celebratin’,” he said without preamble.
Mindy chuckled, so infectious were his high spirits. “Good for you,” she told him. “What’s the occasion?”
“It’s my birthday,” he replied proudly, his voice sounding rusty from disuse but happy nonetheless.
“Hey, congratulations. Is it the big three-oh?” she teased, because, clearly, it had been decades since this man had seen thirty.
He laughed and shook his head. “I’m eighty years old today, missy. Eighty! What d’ya think about that?”
“Get out!” she exclaimed, nudging his bony shoulder playfully with her elbow. “And here I thought I was going to have to card you if you asked for a beer.”
He laughed some more. “No, ma’am. I don’t touch that stuff. But I think I might like to sample some of that chili I hear they do so good here.”
Mindy nodded as she scribbled down his order. “It’s the best,” she assured him. “Evie’s special recipe, passed down through generations. What else can I get for you?”
The man’s smile dimmed some. “Maybe just a glassa water. That oughta do me.”
She started to object, started to remind him that it was his birthday and that he was entitled to celebrate with more than just a bowl of chili, then she realized that a bowl of chili was probably all he could afford to buy. And heaven only knew how long he’d been saving to manage even that for a birthday feast.
So she smiled once more, tucking her pencil back into her hair, and said, “I’ll be right back with your water.”
Among other things, she thought. She rattled the change in her pocket as she strode toward the carousel over the kitchen window. She’d had a good night tonight, considering the fact that it was Monday. Thanks to the nearby mall and hospital, Evie’s Diner always had a nice, steady stream of patrons, both from people who worked in those places and the people visiting them. Heck, Mindy had probably cleared almost twenty bucks this shift, in addition to her—very tiny, granted—wages. Still, there was no reason she couldn’t spring for a little birthday present for someone who was marking such a major milestone.
She made a few more notations to the man’s order, then clipped it onto the carousel and spun it around to the kitchen. “Order in, Tom!” she called to the cook. Then she went to the coffeepot to fill a cup of hot birthday cheer for her customer.
“The club sandwich looks good.”
Reed mumbled something in agreement to Seth’s gourmet analysis, but his attention wasn’t on the plastic-coated menu in his hand. It was on the blond, pale, exhausted-looking—and slightly pregnant—waitress on the other side of the diner, the one who seemed to be this close to falling over if one more stiff wind from outside hit her. Involuntarily, his gaze skidded over to the main entrance as two more diners strode through. He had to force himself not to shout, “Hey! Close the damned door, will ya?” or jump up to close it himself.
Fortunately, when he looked over at her again, he saw that the little blond waitress had moved behind the counter to sit down. Reed mentally willed the newcomers to take a seat in somebody else’s section and glanced down at the menu again.
Hmm…The club sandwich did look pretty good. Of course, at this point, he was so hungry that a rubber chicken with a wax apple stuck in its mouth would look good.
“No, the French dip, I think,” Seth was saying.
But again, Reed’s attention had been diverted, because wouldn’t you know it, those two idiots who had just come in had indeed sat down at one of the exhausted-looking waitress’s tables, and she was making her way