From Boss to Bridegroom Read Online Free PDF Page B

another hour.
    â€œWhat do you say?” Rand urged when she hadn’t answered immediately.
    â€œNothing fancy?” she heard herself ask right in the middle of giving herself reasons why it wasn’t a good idea to fraternize with the boss.
    â€œIt’s a diner. Definitely nothing fancy. And if you think I can protect you out on the mean streets of Washington, we can walk there, eat and then call for the car so we don’t interrupt whatever sporting event Frank’s watching while he waits for us to page him.”
    Frank was Rand’s driver and was apparently on-call. Lucy thought it was yet another surprise to find Rand considerate of the other man. And as for trusting that Rand could protect her on a late-night walk anywhere, it only took one look at the size of him, at the confidence in his comportment, to judge the notion of not being safe with him a joke.
    â€œA walk would be good,” she agreed. “I could use the fresh air.”
    â€œLet’s do it, then.”
    Within minutes they were down the elevator and out in the cold, crisp evening.
    â€œThis way,” Rand said with a nod to his right as he pulled on leather gloves the same charcoal color as the knee-length camel hair overcoat he wore.
    Lucy had buttoned up her own black wool overcoat and also took gloves from her pockets as they headed off down the street that was still alive with people and traffic.
    Neither Lucy nor Rand said much along the way. Lucy could only assume that he was doing the same thing she was doing—winding down.
    The diner around the corner was just a hole-in-the-wall on the bottom floor of the office building abutting Rand’s. It had booths around the perimeter and counter-seating behind which was a cut-out in the wall that opened to the kitchen where orders and plates were exchanged.
    The restaurant was about half-full and Rand led the way to a vacant booth.
    â€œWorkin’ late tonight are ya, counselor?” the waitress called to them from behind the cash register a split second after they sat down.
    She was an older woman with her hair cut in a man’s crew cut and a large black mole below her left eye. Lucy noticed as she approached their table that she was dressed in the classic Liberty-green waitress dress, white apron and white nurse’s shoes that might have come right out of a diner from the 1950s.
    Rand answered her greeting as if they were well-acquainted and ordered two Blue Plate Specials before so much as consulting Lucy.
    When the waitress left he said, “The Blue Plate is pot roast, potatoes, salad and rolls. At this time of night you don’t want anything off the grill. It hasn’t been cleaned since dawn and the food that comes off it is pretty bad. I should have warned you before we got here but since I didn’t I couldn’t do it in front of Gail. She’s part-owner and would have been insulted.”
    The offense Lucy had taken at not being asked what she wanted to eat abated with that explanation. She could hardly fault him for looking out for both her palate and the waitress’s feelings. So she decided to just go with the flow rather than make an issue of Rand Colton’s high-handedness.
    Gail returned with water and asked if they wanted coffee.
    This time Rand raised his eyebrows at Lucy, waiting for her to answer for herself.
    â€œI’ll have herbal tea.”
    â€œI’ll have iced tea,” Rand added.
    They’d settled their coats and gloves on the booth seats beside them and so there they were, face-to-face, with nothing to distract them. And although the view was grand since Rand looked every bit as terrific as he had to start the day, it was unnerving to have those penetrating eyes of his studying her as if she were a painting on a museum wall.
    â€œHow did you get from California to Washington D.C.?” Lucy asked just to get the conversational ball rolling.
    â€œI was here a couple of times as a kid. To