All or Nothing (13 page)

It was the doldrums between the dinner crowd and the evening crowd, and Jen's section was empty. It would be a good time to find out what Zach wanted. The only problem was that Jen had been trying to think of something clever to say ever since he'd come in and had failed completely.

She didn't want to sound desperate, after all.

Or pushy.

“What's going on?” Kathy asked. She followed Jen's glance and smiled. “So, you know the hunk at the bar?”

“Not in the Biblical sense.” Jen said.

Lucy clicked her tongue. “I should hope not.”

“Is there any other sense that counts?” Kathy demanded. “Cause if you're not calling dibs, then I am. We've got half an hour before things start to hop again and I'm ready to put that time to good use.”

“He came to see Jen,” Lucy said, affronted on Jen's behalf.

“You don't know that,” Kathy argued. “He hasn't talked to her yet...”

“She's been working!” Lucy argued.

“Where there's a will, there's a way,” Kathy insisted. “I think he's just hanging out, and that puts him in the clear.”

“You can't do that to Jen...”

“Do you know my sister?” Jen asked, then waved off Kathy's confusion. “Don't answer that. Just give me five minutes.” Jen marched across the floor with purpose. She reached the bar just as Murray put a second pint of lager in front of Zach. The head was perfect, a trick Murray only performed for his favorites.

“That's some kind of antique you're toting around,” Murray said, gesturing to the camera.

“I guess it is.” Zach seemed to be unaware of Jen standing just behind him and to one side, and Murray didn't give her away. “Just because it's old, though, doesn't mean it isn't any good.”

“Why don't you get one of those digital ones?”

“I don't want one.”

Jen stopped to listen. She'd assumed that someone like Zach would want all of the newest expensive toys as soon as possible. She expected him to be the kind of person who spent a lot of money on consumer goods and found little satisfaction in any of them—which would just drive him to spend more.

She expected him to be shallow.

That he might not be was news.

“Why not?” Murray asked. “It's easy. Point and shoot. And you can see what you've got right away.” He gestured to the 35 mm. “Those babies are way too much hassle.”

“Depends what you want,” Zach said. “If you want mostly okay pictures that are mostly in focus, then digital is the way to go.”

“You make that sound like a bad thing.”

Zach shrugged. “Maybe I think the lowest common denominator isn't that appealing of an objective. In photography or anything else.”

Jen listened avidly, shocked to hear her own perspectives echoed by Trust Fund Boy.

Murray braced a hand on the bar. “What do you want then?”

“Control.” Zach picked up the camera, cradling it in his hands. “With this, I can control what is recorded on film with the aperture setting and the exposure.”

“Say what?”

“I can manipulate what is front of me to make it look the way I want it to look.” Zach glanced over his shoulder and gave Jen a smile, his surety of her presence surprising her. He spun the lens and the shutter clicked, his shot taken so quickly that she couldn't respond.

“Hey!” Jen protested. “I don't like having my picture taken.”

“Then, get over it,” he retorted. “Beauty should be captured on film whenever possible.”

Jen blinked at the unexpected compliment, but Zach had already turned back to Murray.

He was indicating the settings on the camera, which was again resting on the bar. “See? I set the aperture wide because it's comparatively dark in here and I didn't want to use a flash.”

Jen found herself drawn closer, interested by what he was saying.

“I like the way the light softens appearances,” Zach continued. “Kind of like chiaroscuro in the paintings of Da Vinci.”

“Chiaro? Wasn't she a singer? That blonde with the guitar, you know?”

Zach gave Murray the kind of hard look that his joke deserved. Jen bit back a smile. “Chiaroscuro's a technique of using shadow and in this kind of light, you can get a similar effect with film. Also having the aperture wide shortens the depth of field. Jen's face will be in focus and what's behind her will be blurred, like a painting. And having the aperture as wide as possible makes the exposure time as short as possible—still a fifteenth of a second, but not half a second which would show blurring. I'll show you the results when I develop the film.”

“Nobody processes that stuff anymore,” Murray complained.

“That's why I do it myself.”

“You develop your film yourself?” Jen asked, intrigued that he might do anything of the kind. She was standing beside him without any recollection of having moved there. It was as if a magnetic force had pulled her closer without her being aware of it. She decided not to think about that.

“Well, yes.”

Jen nodded in understanding. “Because you want to control the result.”

“Exactly.” He smiled at her and her heart went thump.

At close range, she saw the vestige of purple and yellow bruising around his eye. “What happened to you?”

He shook his head and smiled. “My past jumped me from behind when I left here last week. Happens sometimes.”

“Hazard of having a past,” Murray opined.

Both Zach and Jen ignored him.

“I thought maybe Murray had improved his right hook,” Jen said. Zach laughed and Murray glowered, getting busy with his glasses behind the bar.

“Nope, Murray can't take credit for this one.” Zach shrugged. “Maybe he still punches like a girl. Do I really have to find out?”

“Hey!” Murray protested to general disinterest.

“Presumably you're fast enough to duck.” Jen considered Zach's eye. “But then, maybe that's an unfair assumption.”

“Surprise, he got me by surprise,” Zach insisted. “If I'd guessed he was going to get violent, he wouldn't have touched me.”

“That's what they all say,” Jen teased, enjoying herself more than she knew she should. “Believe what you need to.”

“You need me to pop this guy, Jen?” Murray asked. “Maybe I need to defend my honor, if he's going to be saying such things about me.”

“Except she said it first,” Zach said and Jen strove to look innocent. Zach chuckled and she liked having made him laugh.

Murray scoffed. “My girl Jen? I don't think so. You know, it's not very chivalrous to blame a lady for your own shortcomings.”

“Chivalry, is it then,” Lucy said as she put her tray on the counter. “Aren't we going up market? You should have warned me, Murray. I'd have painted my nails, brought a thesaurus.”

The pair commenced their usual bickering, and Zach turned a shoulder to them. He winked at Jen and she reminded herself to not be charmed. “I didn't want to frighten you. It was pretty spectacular.”

“I'll bet.” Jen wiped the bar counter a bit, feeling immeasurably better. He'd stayed away for a reason. Or at least he cared enough about what she thought to make up a reason. Either way, Jen was reassured. “So, how was the steak special?”

Zach blinked. “I didn't have it.”

“What did you have, then?”

His expression was skeptical. “You're that interested in what I ate?”

“Diet says a lot about a person.” Jen shrugged, well aware that he must be thinking she was nuts.

Or maybe that insanity did run in her family.

“I had the pasta, the one with the chicken in pesto cream sauce. It was pretty good.”

”Oh.” Jen wasn't sure whether she was pleased that he was eating chicken—and thus a perfect candidate for the Plan—or disappointed.

Murray was watching the exchange, his gaze dancing between the two of them, even as he talked to Lucy. It was kind of cute that he'd threatened Zach on her behalf.

But if he was worrying about people using other people, maybe he should have warned Zach against her.

Zach cleared his throat. “So, do you think I'll pass inspection tomorrow, or will your grandmother think you're bringing home a troublemaker?”

Jen stared at him, not understanding. Her grandmother had no issues with people eating meat. “Because you ate chicken?”

“Because of the shiner.”

“Excuse me?”

“I wouldn't want your grandmother to disapprove of me, or think I was a certain kind of person because of this.” He grimaced. “It might nix the whole dating prospects thing.”

This time Jen blinked. Zach actually was afraid that her family would think poorly of him because he had a black eye.

He had a lot to learn about Jen's family.

She wondered briefly about his own family. Did they judge by appearances alone?

But what difference did it make? She had no business thinking about it. She'd never meet them and shouldn't speculate on the kind of people they were. Curiosity was just another step closer to being involved.

And she wasn't going there.

So, Jen shrugged as if indifferent. “So long as you lay off the lawyer jokes, you should be fine.”

Zach laughed, his eyes dancing, and her pride in having made him laugh triggered a warning alarm deep inside Jen.

It was one day.

One meal.

In front of witnesses.

She could do this.

“You're going to have to give me the address, then.”

“Right.” Under Murray's watchful and disapproving eye, Jen gave him her grandmother's address. She couldn't help feeling a bit of anticipation when their fingers brushed over the scrap of paper. “Oh, and if you get a call from a crazy woman tonight —”

Zach arched a brow. “Offering to have my love child?”

Jen nodded, liking how his eyes sparkled. “That would be my sister. She's mostly harmless.” When he grinned, Jen pivoted to return to her section, thinking the matter resolved.

But Zach surprised her one more time. “So, should I tell her we've got that all worked out already?”

Jen glanced over her shoulder and his mischievous expression made her want to laugh as much as the idea of putting one over on Cin. “Tell her I'm pregnant already,” she said impulsively. “That'll give her something to choke on.”

“Will do,” Zach said, toasting her with his beer.

He'd make it sound plausible, too.

It was almost worth ‘forgetting' to call Cin to tell her that all was arranged, but Jen couldn't do that. She returned to her section, feeling as if she'd conquered the world.

If she'd thought about it, she'd have realized that it had more to do with making Zach Coxwell grin than with the probability of Cin's plan being a success.

* * *

Zach wished he had brought a flash, because he was fascinated by Jen when she sang. On the other hand, the flash might have disconcerted her. A tripod maybe. He should bring a tripod one Wednesday so he could use a long enough exposure.

She sang like a siren, all sensuality and invitation, her range of emotional display in complete contrast to her usual deadpan manner. Her voice was lush, richer than he'd expected. The way she could hold a note gave him goose pimples. Again, the contrast with her appearance, with that tailored shirt and cropped hair, was fascinating.

How could she look so bitably sexy?

How much more sexy would she look in a sequined dress with red lipstick, turned out in full throttle femininity?

Or would she look less sexy that way?

It was a mystery worth pondering. Zach considered the question each time she took the stage and couldn't come up with a persuasive answer. He listened to Jen sing and watched her work and itched to take more pictures of her.

Here was a woman who would never be predictable. And Zach liked that. He liked it a lot.

At nine-thirty, he realized Roxie would be waiting for him and settled his tab with Murray. He was trying to figure out how to have a quick word with Jen before he left without disturbing her rhythm of serving her section when he saw that she was taking a break. She came out of the kitchen with a single plate, spoke quickly to Lucy, then headed for a back room.

Zach followed, glad they'd have a chance to talk in comparative privacy.

* * *

Jen took three bites of her salad, then dug out her knitting. She had fifteen minutes to make a difference in the progress of the avocado. The pit, where she'd begun, was a perfect little golf ball, already stuffed. She'd picked up stitches all around the pit and shaded the ‘flesh' of the fruit itself, knitting an oval shape. Then she'd changed to the dark green, and done the flesh in moss stitch, picking up stitches on the other side and working from the bottom up. There probably was a better way to have done it, but it didn't look half bad. She'd started to stuff it, and planned to make a seam between the flesh and the skin along one edge.

“What's that?” Zach spoke from behind her and Jen nearly jumped out of her own skin—which was not knitted in dark green in moss stitch.

“What's what?” she said, making an unsuccessful attempt to stuff the knitted avocado back into her bag.

Zach leaned in the doorway of the break room, so avidly interested that Jen knew his attention couldn't be easily diverted. “That thing in the top of your bag. The green thing.”

Jen immediately pushed it further into the bag. “Nothing.”

“It's not nothing. It's something green, like a ball. Do you carry tennis balls around with you?”

“No. It's not a tennis ball.”

“Then what is it?”

Jen gave him a look that should have told him to disappear, but he held his ground.

“Come on, I'm curious.” He smiled a little, making her heart go thump. The break room was a very small space, and seemed suddenly very full of a handsome confident hunk. “Is it a secret?” he teased.