"You're a champ, Ross," she said, giving him a good-bye smile as she headed back to work.
Ross rose, his back to the new waitress, and then he turned just as she arrived at the booth, turned so that he was blocking her path and she had to stare up into his face.
"You!" she cried, jerking back. "You." Her face went white and she began to crumple.
"Hey." Ross reached out and caught her, then looked for help from behind the counter. "Mickey, your girl here is passing out." He turned, half carrying her and laid her on the red seat of an empty booth.
People rushed forward. Mickey brought water and begged everyone to stand back and give the poor woman air. Amity opened her eyes and looked around until she found Ross's face. She gasped again, then shook her head slowly.
"No," she said as though just to herself. "No, it's not him."
The color began to come back into her face, leaving two bright red spots on her cheeks, and she struggled to sit up.
"I'm so sorry," she said, looking embarrassed. "I just…I thought…" She gave Ross another furtive look, then seemed to relax. "I'm so sorry. I mistook you for someone else."
"I'm sorry, too," he told her kindly. "What was the fellow's name?"
She hesitated. "I…no, you see, it's no one I know, it's just…" She tried to laugh. "You're a Carrington, aren't you? Every time I turn around, there's another Carrington man."
He grinned. "You say that as though it was a bad thing."
Everyone laughed and Amity stood up and went back to work, even though Mickey tried to get her to go to the break room and lie down for awhile.
She'd noticed what Amity had reached out to protect as she began to fall. Her hands had very obviously gone to guard her tummy. Mickey sighed sadly. Dollars to doughnuts, the girl was pregnant. And for just a moment, she'd thought Ross was the man she was looking for.
Mickey shook her head. There was trouble coming. She could almost taste it.
Meanwhile, Ross left, walking past the yachts in their slips, heading for his car. He remembered the last time he'd done that here. Charity had been with him.
Just thinking about her drove a knife through his heart. He thought about how he was supposed to argue Grant into dialing back his need to work so that he could nurture his family. He was a pretty weird spokesman for that point of view. He couldn't even dial back work enough to give himself time to find out where Charity had gone. Maybe he should be giving that talk to himself.