Bounty (Page 137)

I’d feel better about that too.

“I, well, if I go over there, honey, they’ll want pictures and other people might notice and it might get around that I’m, well…me.”

“You are you,” he pointed out. “So be you, give ’em you, and get back here before our steaks get here because you won’t want to eat yours cold.”

My mouth didn’t drop open then.

I just stared.

“Is everything okay?” Nina asked.

Deke looked her way and did it sliding out of the booth. “Jussy’s got some fans here. She’s gonna go see to ’em.”

I cast an uneasy glance at Nina and Max as I slid out behind Deke, wondering if they’d be annoyed at possibly having their dinner delayed, our night interrupted.

But Max was just looking at me benevolently and Nina was looking over her shoulder. She’d clearly caught the table where the patrons knew me because she was waving.

They were waving back.

Okay, not annoyed.

I took my feet next to Deke and looked up at him.

“I’ll try to be fast,” I assured.

“Do what you gotta do,” he muttered, his head coming down to do what he often had to do.

Touch his lips to mine.

They were almost to their destination when I whispered, “Baby, they could be taking pictures.”

His head halted its descent and his gaze lifted from my lips to my eyes before he whispered back, “You mine?”

Oh yes.

I was.

Abso-fucking-lutely.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Then who gives a shit?”

He asked that and didn’t allow me to respond. He went in for the lip brush, hand on my hip giving me a squeeze.

When he pulled away, I wanted to grab him on either side of his head and yank him back. When I’d accomplished that, I wanted to kiss him hard.

In absence of that, I wanted to smile at him huge to tell him how much his reaction to this scenario meant to me.

And last, I wanted to tell him I loved him.

I didn’t do any of these things.

Instead, I gave him a look that I hoped shared all of that, a small smile curving my mouth, lifting my hand to trail my fingers along his at my hip.

He caught them, twisted them in his for a beat before he gave them an affectionate tug and let them go.

I looked to Max and Nina. “Be back.”

“We’ll be here,” Nina replied brightly.

My smile to her was grateful, I turned it on Max and then I moved on my high-heeled boots through the restaurant to the table.

The women were nearly bouncing in their chairs.

Both men were standing by the time I made it to their table.

I spoke with them. I signed two cocktail napkins, personalizing them. And I stood and scrunched together for four pictures, one taken by a waitress.

Other patrons watched, none gawked (fortunately) and no others approached or cast certain kinds of glances that would mean I’d be taking a tour of the restaurant that would last an hour before I went back to my dinner with Deke and our friends.

We were undisturbed through steaks, more beverages (for Nina and me) and desserts.

But when it came time to pay the bill, it was the manager who showed, looking at me and saying, “It’s our pleasure you joined us, Ms. Lonesome. So much so, The Rooster is covering your meal.” He slightly bowed to me, Deke and then to Max and Nina before he looked again to me. “Please come again.”

He then glided away.

“Um…” I mumbled to the table at large. “Weirdly, that comes with the territory, the people most likely to be able to afford steak dinners in nice restaurants get them for free.”

“Free food at The Rooster. Never wanted to be famous, suddenly I want to be famous,” Nina remarked, again smiling at me. “Do you get designers sending you free clothes?”

Her manner made it easy not to be embarrassed by an embarrassment of riches.

“When I was touring, yeah.”

“Okay, now I definitely want to be famous,” Nina decreed.

I smiled back.

“This means I get nothin’ but the tip which means we didn’t take you two out for dinner at all which means,” Max was speaking to Deke and me but he turned to Nina and said his last, “your fish pie at our place and you and Jus can dress up all you want to sit at our table with our kids. But I’m not puttin’ on boots.”

“No. Next time our turn,” I butted in, thrilled by the possibility that I could actually take that turn. “At my soon-to-be-done house, that being soon thanks to Deke and Max.”

“We accept,” Nina said instantly.

“Can she cook?” Max asked Deke.

“Yup,” Deke answered Max, again curling his arm that was behind me on the booth around my shoulders and pulling me in close.

“Then we accept,” Max confirmed to me.

“Awesome,” I replied.

And it was awesome.

An embarrassment of riches.

But this time, the important kind.

* * * * *

“Grace.”

We were halfway home from the restaurant, this journey made in silence.

Content after a nice night with good food in our bellies, the silence was about that.

But it was more.

It was just the way of Deke and me.

“Sorry?” I asked, turning to look at his profile lit by the dashboard lights.

“Your dad see that?” he asked the road.

“See what?” I asked back.

He didn’t glance at me when he explained, “Way you were tonight with those folks. That grace you got in you.”

I felt my breath catch in my throat.