Riding the Thunder - Deborah MacGillivray [9]
“Sexy Lips?” he repeated. His black brows lifted at the nickname. “I can live with that.”
Damn Netta! Go ahead, feed the man’s ego, Asha thought. Sexy Lips? Hell, every inch of the man, head to toe, was drop-dead sexy.
If he was sticking around, that spelled trouble for her.
Suddenly, the jukebox came on. Asha closed her eyes and groaned as the song started playing.
“Laura and Tommy were lovers. He wanted to give her everything . . .”
Asha sighed in resignation. It was a great song, one that seemed to last through the ages. “It certainly lasts around this place,” she muttered, glowering at the Wurlitzer 2700.
The jukebox had been new in 1963, and now was worth a small chunk of change, a collector’s item from the silver era. This one would go for ten times the market price of others, since each booth still had its original wallette table changer. But the bloody thing had a mind of its own. Oh, did it have a mind of its own!
Netta came back with her tray empty, catching Asha’s questioning glare. She shrugged.
“I thought Colin took that song off the jukebox,” Asha said.
Netta laughed. “You try taking it off.”
Asha scowled at the shiny chrome Wurlitzer that looked brand new instead of decades old, as Ray Peterson soulfully crooned on, “Tell Laura not to cry. My love for her will never die . . .”
CHAPTER THREE
Jago’s request took Asha by surprise. “Supper rush seems over, and business has slowed. Why don’t you keep me company while I eat, Asha Montgomerie?” Netta had just informed him it would only be a couple minutes until his steak was ready. “I hate dining alone.”
Asha looked up from scribbling notes for next week’s food order. Instinct was to brush Jago Fitzgerald off the way she did all males who tried to push past her ‘no trespass sign’, but as she stared into those dark green eyes everything faded to a blur. She could only focus on him.
The crazed jukebox with a mind all its own had stopped its tizzy fit, spinning “Tell Laura I Love Her” endlessly, and now behaved, playing “Against The Wind.” As Asha stared at Jago, she felt close to him in some fey way, as if there were some connection between them, a bond.
Maybe it was Bob Seger’s ballad evoking emotions, but she believed he hated eating alone, and he was right; business had slowed. A couple shared a banana split in the back booth, and one of the motel customers was finishing up his meal with a slice of pecan pie. Derek bussed the tables that needed cleaning, and Netta was already changing the menus to show tomorrow’s specials. Just another typically slow Thursday night.
Giving in to temptation, Asha put down the pencil and closed the order book. “All right, I’ll take a break and eat a piece of pie.”
Pleasure lit Jago’s eyes. “Where shall I sit? Anyplace special?”
“Anywhere is fine. It’s always slow Thursday evenings.”
Jago started to slide into the first booth on the left. A big one, almost C-shaped, it was large enough to seat eight people. Asha panicked, her command coming out in a yelp.
“Not there!”
“Anywhere,—just not here?” He waited for an explanation.
Asha grasped for a reason to offer. How did one elucidate that there were unspoken rules about The Windmill—and not just The Windmill Restaurant, but also the drive-in and the swim club? There existed certain boundaries everyone around the three places quickly learned not to cross or else. Like the last time Colin removed “Tell Laura I Love Her” from the jukebox, the following morning they had found every plate in the restaurant shattered and in a big heap on the middle of the dining room floor. If you parked in slot H-13 at the drive-in or sat in that particular booth, you were courting trouble. People refused to discuss these ‘peculiarities’ with Asha since she’d returned to take over the businesses; ask them a direct question about the odd occurrences and they practically ran. Still, Asha was Scot and thus respected things outside the norm. She embraced these quirks as