Love in a Nutshell - Janet Evanovich [14]
“I find it hard to believe he would date an employee,” Kate said.
Steve shrugged. “You never know in the restaurant business. Late nights. Lots of beer and parties. And, he’s got one or two women hanging around here who are borderline stalkers.”
Kate thought it sounded a little like jealousy on Steve’s part, but Matt was a pretty hot ticket. “Are you saying Amber might have sabotaged the cooler because she’s obsessed with Matt?”
Steve looked shocked. “No way! She just has a huge crush on the guy. But who doesn’t? I mean, every female in a hundred-mile radius drools over him.”
Matt stepped forward to take a tub of blue cheese from Kate and pitch it into the Dumpster. “Talking about me?”
Kate hadn’t realized he was there. She allowed herself a glance to see if his sex appeal had diminished over the weekend. She decided it definitely hadn’t and looked back to Steve before she turned to stone or salt or whatever a woman did when staring into the face of temptation.
“We can handle this,” Matt said to Steve. “How about you head inside?” He waited a moment and grinned down at Kate. “Interesting look you’ve got going on. I didn’t know you were into tractors.”
She had no idea what he was talking about. “Tractors?”
“Your choice of headwear. It makes quite the statement.”
Kate absently touched the crown of her head. All she’d been able to find in the way of hair protection when Jerry had ordered her to the brewery had been a fluffy feathered hat of her mom’s or a green-and-yellow John Deere tractor–emblazoned bandana that she’d unearthed in the linen closet. She’d chosen the bandana.
“I was short on time, and Jerry sounded borderline hysterical. Desperate times and all that. Speaking of which, you know this wasn’t an accident, right?”
“Yes. I’m just glad it’s not the weekend. We’ve got a fighting chance to pull it together for a Monday crowd. If this had happened on a Saturday, we wouldn’t have had time to prep the volume of food we’d need.” He paused. “How’d you survive the weekend?”
“I have a new boyfriend named Hobart. He and I have become very close.”
Matt smiled. “I’m going to hate to break you two up.”
“Don’t even think about moving me away from Hobart. Everyone’s back there at one point or another, and all of them talk. You move me, I miss all of that.”
“You’ll have to tell me what you’ve heard.”
“I will, when we can find the time alone.”
“Let’s step into my office when we’re done here.”
“Your office? The one whose walls stop about six feet shy of the ceiling? Think not.”
“Then come to the market with me. I have to pick up food to cover us until the frozen stuff thaws and our replacement shipment arrives this afternoon.”
“Harborside Market?”
“Yes, why?” He hesitated. “Are you worried about the way you look?”
“No, even though maybe I should be a little. What’s worrying me is that anything I know about the locals in this town, I learned from Marcie at the market. Harborside is the place to see and be seen. If I go there with you, people will think…” She rolled her hand, sending him on to what she felt was an obvious conclusion.
“That we’re shopping?” he asked.
“No, they’ll think we’re more than employer and employee.”
His grin widened.
“What?”
“You are a summer person, aren’t you? Among the locals, you don’t have to do anything to start gossip. It’s self-seeding. The second I hired you, it started.”
“But it’s unsubstantiated.”
“I don’t think a trip to the market constitutes a marriage proposal.”
“We do need to talk, but I want it to be away from town,” she said.
“How about the public parking lot in Frankfort?”
Frankfort was a fifteen-minute drive south, but worth the effort if it kept their conversation off the record.
“What time?”
“Midnight. Hoot like an owl if you think you may have been followed.”
“You’re making fun of me!”
“Only a little.”
“Okay, we’ll compromise,” she said. “How about a ten-minute head start for me, and then we meet at the market?”
“So we’re just