Free Sleeping Alone by Barbara Bretton Page B

her head. “The kitchen’s a dangerous place.”
    “Yeah, right,” he said.
    She opened her mouth to deliver a lecture on culinary safety, but her son was saved by the telephone.
    “A little early, isn’t it, Johnny?” She cradled the phone between her shoulder and ear and whisked the batter.
    “How would you feel about one more for dinner?”
    She started to say what she always said, that one more at the table hardly made a difference, but she caught herself. “Depends on who the one more is.”
    “Alex Curry.”
    She laughed out loud. “Great,” she said, pouring batter into the sizzling-hot waffle iron. “Why don’t you ask Princess Di to come, too?”
    “Eddie asked her. I had nothing to do with it.”
    “I can’t have that woman in my house,” Dee said.
    “Why the hell not?”
    “Because I don’t have time to redecorate, that’s why.”
    “The woman bought Marge Winslow’s place, didn’t she? That isn’t exactly House Beautiful.”
    “Give her six weeks,” Dee said darkly. “She’ll turn it into a showplace.”
    She hung up the phone and glared at the waffle iron. Her house needed a paint job badly. Her sofa was covered in cat fur, dog barf, and pizza stains. She’d had to borrow folding chairs from her brother, her next-door neighbor, and Sally Whitton in order to seat everybody for dinner. She wondered if she’d be able to find a throne for Alex Curry on such short notice, then felt guilty as hell for even thinking that. You’re becoming a bitch, Dee. Just because the woman was beautiful and classy, she had her pegged as a snob. Snobs didn’t wait tables at the Starlight or move into the scuzziest house on the water. And you could be classy without being rich—at least that’s what her mother always used to tell her.
    No, it was her own insecurity rearing its ugly head. She’d seen the look on John’s face when he first saw Alex. Hell, she’d seen that same look on the face of every man in the diner the other morning. Worshipful. Awestruck. Amazed. No one had ever looked at her that way, and she had the feeling no one ever would. She didn’t inspire awe in anyone but her banker, and that was only because she managed to do so much with so damn little.
    “Finished,” Mark said.
    She pointed toward the basket of brussels sprouts next to the sink. “Wash them and cut an X in the bottom.”
    “Of each one?” He sounded horrified.
    “Life’s tough,” she said.
    Her son grumbled but got back to work. Although it wasn’t much of a victory, she’d take it.
    All in all, things could be worse. Alex Curry was coming for dinner, but Brian Gallagher wasn’t. At least she had that much to be thankful for.
    * * *
    Brian Thomas Gallagher motored down the window of his bright red Porsche and tossed a pair of coins into the toll basket. He waited, engine revved and ready, until the signal turned green, then roared back onto the Garden State Parkway. Traffic had thinned out after Toms River, and he could move at a pretty damn good clip now. Of course, he always had to keep one eye out for the fuzz. Red sports cars seemed to bring out the worst in the breed, and he’d learned a long time ago to throttle back and fake humility when necessary in order to avoid a ticket.
    A woman in a white Lexus pulled alongside and kept pace for a few miles. She was okay-looking, albeit in an obvious way. The makeup was too heavy, and the hair too overdone in a Jersey Shore kind of way, but she had enough going for her that he entertained motioning her over to the shoulder and asking her to dinner. Fortunately his brain got the better of his dick before he followed through.
    Hell, he was a married man. Married men weren’t supposed to pick up women on the Garden State. Of course, married men weren’t supposed to be alone on Thanksgiving Day either, but that hadn’t occurred to him or Margo when they’d said good-bye at the airport.
    “Are you sure you can’t join us, darling?” she’d asked just