Free Marrying the Wrong Man by Elley Arden Page A

that question enough to dream about quitting.
    “Yes, it is,” she said, smiling at the woman who looked familiar, but not familiar enough to prompt a name.
    “You’ve gained weight,” the woman said. “Don’t you think?” she asked the man across the table from her.
    The man offered Morgan a weak smile. “I don’t notice those things.”
    “Oh, sure you do. Morgan Parrish used to look like a supermodel. Men notice
those
things.”
    She wanted to crawl in a hole, but there were no tips in a hole, and she needed tips to make this nightmare worthwhile.
    Miraculously, the couple managed to order without any more insults, and Morgan moved on to fill the water glasses at table eight.
    Bruce Carter, the local logging baron, lifted a stainless steel cup of whipped butter from the bread basket. “This is real butter. Could I get some margarine? I’ve got to take care of the ticker.”
    “Of course.”
    Instead of a “thank you” when Morgan filled her water glass, Karena Carter offered the same patronizing sneer she’d been wearing since she sat down.
    What was the advice Corbin had given her last night while they’d been cleaning up?
You’re here temporarily. They’re mean permanently. Pity them, not the other way around.
Yeah, that.
    When she reached the kitchen, Charlie stood with his back to the door, shaking a frying pan over the stove. Dressed in a white t-shirt and jeans with his tattoos on display and a skullcap covering his head, he looked more like a renegade biker than a chef. She’d always been drawn to that lack of propriety.
Yum.
What was it about those bad guys?
    But Charlie wasn’t a bad guy—even though he’d been giving her some serious cold shoulder. No, he was a good guy, who ran to the pharmacy for a child he’d just met, and while he’d been there, he’d purchased a KitKat bar for a woman who’d lied to him. And now, he’d acquiesced to giving that woman a job, under his feet.
    Hell, he wasn’t just a good guy; he was a saint.
    He reached above him for a bowl, and his bicep flexed.
    She pressed a hand to her chest, because saints didn’t look like that. And then she stuck her head in one side of the mammoth refrigerator, hoping to cool herself down.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Table eight wants margarine.”
    “I don’t have margarine.”
    She glanced at him. He was hunched over lamb chops like a culinary mad scientist. “Really? Well, you should have margarine for people who are worried about their arteries.”
    “No, I shouldn’t. Margarine is one fucking molecule away from crude oil. How’s that good for anyone’s arteries?”
    Was he serious? She shut the fridge and stared at him. “You don’t have to eat it or cook with it, but it would be nice to have it for people who do.”
    He glared at her. “Don’t tell me how to run my kitchen. Get your ass back out there and tell table eight we don’t do margarine here.”
    Her jaw dropped. Was this display just for her, or was this the man who’d been chasing everyone away? “Charlie, I know you’re mad at me, and on some level I deserve the attitude, but please tell me you don’t talk to other people like that.”
    “If you don’t like it, sweetheart, then leave.”
    Eww.
Her father had been patronizing, too. “I’d love to leave. I really would, but that wouldn’t do either of us any good. You’d be down one waitress, and I’d be struggling to find a way out of this God forsaken town … again.”
    Charlie frowned. “I just want to be left alone so I can cook.”
    “Then cook at home, Charlie, because cooking here means you have to learn to compromise or you’re not going to be cooking here long.”
    He turned his back on her.
    So much for sainthood. She glanced at the clock on the wall above the door as she left the kitchen. Four more hours and she was out of here—at least for tonight.
    After she told Bruce Carter they were out of margarine, she delivered table seven’s orders, and then cleared table