The Drifter Read Free

that had been her divorce, Eve wasn’t sure she ever wanted to allow a man into her life again.
    “Just take a look,” Lily said, pulling Eve away from the prep table. “You’ve been living in my guest room for three years. I see your social life first hand and it’s pathetic. Last week you alphabetized the spices on my spice rack. The week before, you cleaned the grease trap on the kitchen sink. You need to get a life, Eve.”
    “I have a life. Here. In this restaurant.”
    “This isn’t life. It’s work.” Lily gently took the knife from her hand and set it next to the red peppers Eve had been chopping. Then she reached up and snatched the colorful bandanna off Eve’s head. “Go ahead,” she said, ruffling Eve’s short-cropped auburn hair. “Just wander on out there, smile at the customers, and ask him how his soup is.” Lily shoved a basket of quick breads into her hand. “Offer him some three-grain nut loaf.”
    Eve knew she ought to spend more time in the dining room. All the best chefs interacted with theirclientele. But life inside the confines of the kitchen was so much easier than life in the outside world. She peeked though the window of the swinging door, searching for the object of Lily’s attention.
    When her gaze finally found the lonely guy at table seven, her breath caught in her throat. “Oh, God,” she muttered, turning away from the door.
    “You don’t think he’s cute?” Lily asked. “Oh, good grief, Eve, if you’re that picky you’re never going to have sex again for the rest of your life.”
    “Yes, he’s cute,” Eve snapped. “But I’m not going out there.”
    “Why?” Lily asked, taking a peek through the window. “Too cute?”
    “Too…everything,” Eve said, shoving the basket back into Lily’s hands. “Been there, done that.”
    Lily gasped. “You know him?”
    Eve nodded. “Unfortunately, yes. In every sense of the word. I have seen him naked and trust me, the body matches the face. Utterly and unbelievably gorgeous.” A shiver skittered down her spine at the memory. There’d been a time when she’d had that body in her bed, lying on her sofa, standing in front of his refrigerator looking for something to eat at three in the morning.
    “But…I don’t understand.”
    Eve took Lily’s arm and led her over to the walk-in fridge, then pulled open the door. “Go ahead. I’m not going to spill my secrets unless we have completeprivacy.” They stepped inside and Eve closed the door behind her.
    Lily rubbed her bare arms. “If this is going to be a long story, I’m going to need a jacket.”
    “Remember that night, after we got the good review in Food and Wine, and we drank those two bottles of Mendocino Monastery Reserve Cabernet? And I told you about that guy, the one right before I married Matt?”
    “The ‘one last fling’ guy?” Lily asked. “That’s him?”
    Eve nodded. “Charlie Templeton.”
    “You dumped him for Matt?” Lily stared at her as if she’d just admitted to serving puppy fritters with kitten aioli to the customers. “Dweeby, whiny, needy Matt?”
    “I didn’t know he was like that when I married him. He seemed—dependable. It was only after the wedding I realized he was looking for a mother, not a wife. And Charlie was everything a girl is supposed to be afraid of. After a month of nonstop sex, he told me he was going to be gone for six months. At the time, I needed a man who’d be there for more than a bi-annual sexfest.”
    “Semi-annual,” Lily corrected. “And now he’s back.”
    “Five years later. Five years and not a word. No phone call, no postcard. Now can you understand my decision?”
    “Why do you think he came back?” Eve had a niggling suspicion. In truth, she wasn’t proud of what she’d done. And it had come after an other very expensive bottle of wine and an evening of feeling sorry for herself. She’d happened upon a Web site called SmoothOperators.com, a place where women could off-load all