ONE
Six Months Later
Janey stood in front of the hostess station, her expression carefully bland, her body controlled. She’d learned a lot about control in the past five months. And it had prepared her for this night, she was certain.
Alex Jansen.
It took more strength than she’d ever imagined she could have to look him in the eye, to smile.
“Alex, your table is waiting.” She smiled her bland smile, deliberately met his gaze, then nodded to his companion. Some slinky blond thing dressed as though she were in New York City rather than Kentucky. A black calf-length silk gown? Give her a break. Where did he find this one?
It was anger. She knew it was. Facing Alex again, after the events that happened six months before, wasn’t easy. It was damned hard.
“Janey, you’re looking well.” His sensual, wide lips quirked at one side. Full lips. Did he even remember touching those lips to hers when she all but begged?
“And you’re looking like you’re healing well.” She collected two menus.
“I’m taking very good care of him,” the Marilyn Monroe wannabe cooed with pouty red lips.
“Good.” She shot them another cool, polite smile. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to your table.”
“You did reserve us one of the private tables, didn’t you, Alex, honey?” If the blonde’s purr got any better, then she would be lapping up cream.
“They were already reserved, Catherine,” Alex murmured. “I believe I mentioned that.”
The sound of his voice stroked down Janey’s spine. And it shouldn’t have. She shouldn’t have any reaction at all to a man she couldn’t have.
“All it takes is the right tip.” Catherine laughed, a silky, smug sound, as Janey turned at the small table marked for Alex and his date.
“Your server’s name is Tina. I hope you enjoy your meal.” She smiled at them, let the curve freeze in place, and tensed as Catherine’s finger touched her wrist.
“This table won’t do,” Catherine murmured as she slid a fifty against the back of Janey’s hand. “Could you fix that for us?”
Janey glanced at the fifty, to the woman, then to Alex as he watched the scene silently, his brows darkening.
“I’m sorry.” She drew back from the other woman’s touch, stifling a shudder. “This is the best we have.
Enjoy your meal.”
“Perhaps we should find another place to eat, Alex.” Catherine’s smile was cold.
“You’re welcome to that option.” Janey nodded at Alex. “I’ll even waive the cancellation fee, Alex.”
“Catherine can do as she pleases.” He shrugged his wide shoulders. “I’ll be staying.”
Catherine pouted, but as he pulled her chair out, she huffed and took her seat before casting Janey a glare from beneath her lashes. Her blue eyes spat anger.
“I’ll send Tina over.” Janey nodded. “Enjoy your dinner.”
“She’s uppity for the daughter of a traitor,” Janey heard Catherine murmur.
Janey kept going. Shaking inside, feeling something crawl into her chest and rake at it with ragged claws.
“Tina, I need you to—”
“We won’t be staying.”
Janey swung around at the touch of Alex’s hand on her arm. He looked furious. His gray eyes were darker than normal, his brows lowered and nostrils flared. Janey’s gaze moved behind him. Catherine was flushed, furious.
“If she means so much to you, then perhaps you should stay, Alex,” the blonde sneered. “Though I’d have chosen better for a man of your rank. Patriotism is to be applauded.”
Alex’s jaw clenched. His hand snapped out, encased Catherine’s wrist in firm fingers.
“I’m sorry, Janey,” he said softly. “It won’t happen again.”
“Of course it will.” Janey smiled stiffly. “It happens several times a night, Alex. But I’m sure I can fill the table.” She nodded to Catherine. “Have a good night.”
She turned away from them, marked their name from the list, and kept her head down as Alex pulled Catherine toward the door.
She did lift her lashes just enough to sneak a peak at that gorgeous male ass, though. She was all for being cool, composed, and all the good stuff that kept the restaurant running, but some sights a woman didn’t miss out on. No matter how uncomfortable she felt at the sight of this man with another woman.
Well, perhaps more than uncomfortable. She was damned mad and she didn’t have a right to be. She was hurt, and again, she didn’t have a right to be.
It was one kiss, because she had begged. Because he felt sorry for her. And the last thing she wanted was Alex Jansen’s pity.
“Ms. Mackay, there’s a couple waiting in the reception area that was requesting a table a few moments ago.” Her manager, Hoyt Napier, stepped from the register.
Hoyt was just a few inches taller than Janey in her heels. At five-eleven, he was slender, dark-haired.
Twenty-four years old and sometimes, she swore, her lifesaver, despite his sometimes melancholic intensity. Deep brown eyes were surrounded with thick brown lashes, and tobacco brown hair was brushed neatly back from his broad forehead. Between him and her brother’s adopted son, Faisal, she managed to keep her sanity.
Everything about Hoyt was neat. His hair, his clothes, the way he helped her run the restaurant, and how he often tried to shield her from the snide comments directed at her. Even Hoyt’s mother, Augusta, it seemed, wasn’t pleased that Janey had come home.
“Let them know we have a table ready, then.” Janey nodded, turning back to the reservation book and staring at Alex’s crossed-out name pensively.
There was no time to dwell on the event, or the woman Alex had with him. But that didn’t keep her from doing it. From imagining him with the curvy blonde. Janey knew he was angry, but Catherine would purr her way out of trouble. Janey was certain.
So why did that thought hurt so damned bad that it made the rest of the night more difficult to endure than normal? As she had told Alex, that wasn’t the first snipe of the night that she had heard, and it wouldn’t be the last. Being the daughter of a traitor, a man who had fooled almost everyone he knew into believing he was patriotic, kind, and to be respected, wasn’t going to be easy.
The fact that she had taken over his thriving business, and the sensationalism of the arrests and events that had occurred six months before, grated on people’s pride. It was a damned wonder someone hadn’t
killed her.
Sometimes she thought the only reason they hadn’t tried was because of her brother, Natches, and their cousins, Rowdy and Dawg. And Uncle Ray. Who had stayed at her side in the hospital for more than a week. His wife, Maria, had babied her as though she had raised her. And Natches’s twenty-one-year-old adopted son—and that one still amazed the hell out of her—was normally at her back like a guard dog. Thankfully, her chef had taken him into the kitchen this week. Faisal took his duties seriously while he was at the restaurant, and he considered her family. Evidently, he saw the family the same way Natches did. Worth killing for. It was scary how much alike her brother and his adopted son were.
Too bad Faisal hadn’t been around the night Dayle Mackay had literally kidnapped her.
She barely remembered her uncle Ray shedding tears three days after she was admitted into the hospital.
Where the doctors had confirmed that the rape kit had shown none of the signs of rape that were consistent with the bite marks on her breasts.
No, she hadn’t been raped, but what Nadine had done to her had scarred her in other ways.
She didn’t sleep well. Not that she ever had, but the insomnia was sometimes worse now. The nightmares could be brutal.
Natches knew. When she looked in his eyes at that hospital, she’d seen the grief there, the fury. He knew, and there had been no one left to strike out at.
She’d had the restaurant for three months now, ever since the Department of Homeland Security turned it over to her and her brother, and it was thriving. Because she let the customers snipe. Because she played the perfect little robot. Just as she had before her father’s death.
“Another full night,” Hoyt murmured as they cashed the last customer out at nearly midnight and locked the doors behind them. “The kitchen staff is nearly ready to leave unless you require anything.”
Janey shook her head as she rubbed her lower back and turned to stare at the huge dining room. There were several private screened areas that could be enlarged or made smaller. There was a banquet room that was normally closed except to large parties and would have to be reserved well in advance.
“I don’t require anything, Hoyt.” She finally shook her head. “You can go ahead and leave. Has Faisal left yet?”
Hoyt nodded. “Your cousin picked him up a few minutes ago.” He paused. “I heard what some of the customers said tonight.” He frowned lightly. “You act like it doesn’t bother you.”
It tore a strip from her every time it happened.
“What can I do?” She sighed. “Dayle was what he was. Nothing is going to change that.”
“Does that mean you’re to blame?” Hoyt asked her heatedly. “You didn’t do it.”
“But I’m here to blame.” Janey shrugged. “Grab something from the kitchen to take home to your mother. There’s plenty in there. I’ll see you tomorrow evening.”
He shook his head and moved to the kitchen. When he left by way of the back doors, Janey locked up behind him, then checked the front doors again as well.
Augusta Hoyt had been ill lately; Janey hoped some of the food that the chef put back in the refrigerator for their lunches the next day would cheer her up. She never came to the restaurant, refused to associate with “the traitor’s daughter.” Janey was damned lucky everyone else was too nosy and gossipy to feel that way.
But that was a small town for you. Somerset was a tight-knit community. Most everyone knew everyone else, and the controversy only made them more curious. They loved their hometown heroes, and her brother was one of those heroes. As were her cousins. That meant she was “almost” part of the community, therefore not “completely” to blame. She was the one they could snipe at, because Dayle Mackay was no longer there to punish and Natches had captured him, seen him arrested, imprisoned. He was their hero. Janey was their scapegoat.
Small towns were amazingly supportive in some ways. Amazingly cruel in others. And it was home. A home she loved, one she had missed in the years she had been forced to live away from it.
Sighing at the thought, she moved through the dining room and headed to her office.
The restaurant was eerie, too silent. She turned in the middle of the dimly lit room and stared around her.
It had not been as busy as it was ever since she had taken over, but she expected the rush to slacken once the sensationalism wore off. Once the newspapers stopped reporting and the tabloids stopped gossiping. Or would that never happen?
She moved to the hall on the far side of the room and then into her office. Janey closed the door behind her. Pulling the hem of her shirt from the narrow skirt she wore, she kicked off her heels and moved to the small refrigerator that sat in the back corner.
She poured a glass of wine and sat down in the heavy leather chair behind the old scarred desk she had moved into the room.
She pulled out the bottom drawer, slapped a pillow on top of it, and propped up her feet before closing her eyes and sinking into the chair.
She meant to relax; she didn’t mean to feel the ghostly touch of male lips against hers. A dazed memory of a kiss, butterfly soft, probably so he wouldn’t have to touch her too much.
“No.” She shook her head, lifting herself, her feet thumping to the floor as she rested her elbows on her knees and pushed her fingers through her hair.