Free Distinguished Service & Every Move You Make (Uniformly Hot!) by Tori Carrington

the time she’d worked there, Trudy had proven to be just as much of a second mother as she was an employer to Geneva. She had her own family, but everyone who worked the diner was an extended family of sorts…unconditional until someone violated the terms.
    Like Cindy, whom Trudy had fired the next time the blind-date opting brunette had showed up for her next shift and had forgotten to feign the illness from which she’d claimed to be suffering that had kept her from work. Unfortunately, that left them short another pair of hands every day until Trudy found a suitable replacement. Something experience told Geneva could be weeks.
    “So, does he know?” Trudy asked.
    Geneva pretended that adding sugar and creamer to her cup required her undivided attention. “Who?”
    Another over-the-glasses look.
    “About the baby? Yes. Yes, he does know.”
    Trudy made a quiet sound. “And do you think he might stick around for a while?”
    Geneva nearly choked on her coffee.
    Trudy sighed. “That’s what I thought.”
    Geneva felt inexplicably irritated. “I know you’re concerned about me, Trudy. Really…I do. But this…Mace…” Merely saying his name made the butterflies that had taken up residence in her stomach flutter faster. “He makes me feel good. The way he looks at me…makes me feel not like a waitress, or a friend, or an expectant mother, but like a…well, woman…I like it. What’s wrong with enjoying it while I can?”
    “The problem is your hormones are running in circles…and it’s important you not forget you are an expectant mother.”
    “Trust me, that’s not something I can exactly forget.”
    “Oh? Because the way I see it, you’re trying pretty hard.”
    Talk about pins and balloons.
    Of course, what Geneva was leaving out of the equation was that despite last night’s unexpected turn of events, she and Mace weren’t truly dating, they were only pretending to date.
    Not that she’d tell Trudy that. Aside from agreeing with Mace that they couldn’t tell anyone in order for this to fly, she knew the instant she breathed word one to the talkative diner owner, everyone would know. Then what value would their agreement have?
    She shivered for reasons having nothing to do with the temperature.
    “Uh-huh,” Trudy said, rustling her paper.
    Geneva took a sip of her coffee. “We’re dating. Nothing more, nothing less.”
    “Pregnant women don’t date.”
    “Why not? Last time I checked, we’re still human.”
    “No, you’re not. You’re hormonal.”
    “I’ll give you the hormonal part. At any rate, what does it matter? In a week he’ll be gone and everything will return to normal.”
    “Depends on how you define normal.”
    How did she define normal? What happened last night?
    The mere thought…
    She couldn’t help smiling.
    Which earned her another Trudy frown.
    She pushed her cup to the other side of the counter where she could collect it when she walked around.
    “Are we done?” she asked.
    “I am,” Trudy said. “I think I’ve made my point.”
    With a fine-honed carving knife, Geneva wanted to add, “And I hope I’ve made mine.”
    She rounded the counter, dumped the contents of her cup into the sink and put it in the bussing bin. She caught Trudy watching her and could have sworn she was hiding a grin behind the paper she pretended to read.
    Geneva shook her head and grinned back, then hurried off into the kitchen.

10
    M ACE RODE in the trailing car in the passenger’s seat, keeping an eye out and listening to route reports as Norman’s limo drove under the speed limit ahead of them. That sense of wariness remained with him, even though everything was going like clockwork.
    So far…
    Ahead of the limo, Jonathon Reece rode in the lead sedan, and in the limo itself were two more security personnel, in addition to Norman’s personal assistant and event organizer, who had met him at the hotel.
    He resisted rubbing the back of his neck to smooth the prickling