“What were we talking about?”

“I believe you had just implied I’m a snob.”

“Oh, come on, MacKeage,” he said with a sudden smile. “You need to lighten up. It doesn’t look good in front of the staff when you give the boss grief. And I don’t want to have to fire you, because”—he leaned closer—”I actually like you,” he whispered, his smile widening as he straightened back up. “You sort of remind me of a Jack Russell terrier I used to have that was always growling at me, as if she needed a good fight to keep herself entertained.”

“I remind you of your dog?”

“I loved that dog, God rest Pip’s soul,” he said with a laugh. He arched his bushy eyebrows at her. “You want to know what finally settled her down?”

“Not really.”

“I got her a boyfriend, which in turn got her a litter of babies. Mellowed my little darling right out, those pups did.”

Cam just gaped at him.

“So the moral of this little story,” he had the audacity to continue, “is that instead of scowling at your customers, maybe you should trying smiling at them.”

She snapped her mouth shut and scowled at him.

He sighed. “You’ve been living in Go Back Cove and eating here for what . . . seven or eight months? And working for me for two? And in all that time, I have never once seen you with a date.”

“Maybe I’m gay,” she snapped.

Dave chuckled. “Nope. It’s not the girls I see you watching, it’s the men. Oh, you’re interested, all right. You’re just too scared to actually play with the big boys.”

Camry made a point of visually searching the wall behind the counter, even going on tiptoe to look down the length of the back wall of the bar.

“What are you looking for?”

“Your degree in psychology.”

His laughter came straight from the belly as he took the slip and money from a customer who’d walked up to pay his bill. “My degree is from the school of hard knocks, kiddo, and it took me thirty years of tending bar to earn it.” He hit some buttons on the register, then shot her a wink. “You watch Fiona working the room tonight, Cam, and maybe you’ll learn something. That girl’s got a gift for making people smile. How was your dining experience?” he asked the man, handing him his change.

“Delightful,” the customer said, glancing over at Camry—specifically at her chest. “I’ve heard the food here is good, but I especially like the uniforms.” He cleared his throat. “Except maybe they don’t work so well on all your waitresses.” He leaned closer to Dave and lowered his voice so Camry wouldn’t hear.

But of course she did.

“That older waitress,” he continued in a whisper. “I kept expecting the laces on her corset to pop and maim someone, and she tripped and nearly spilled beer on me.”

“We’re rethinking the uniforms.”

“Or you could just hire younger waitresses,” the lech suggested.

“Doris is the prettiest woman here,” Camry growled at him. “And the best damn waitress we have!”

The man stepped away in alarm, and all but ran for the door.

Dave sighed again. “Will you lighten up?”

“Will you get real?” she said, spinning away and heading for the kitchen.

Honest to God, she really didn’t know why she worked here.

Other than that it might be entertaining.

And she was not like some stupid old Jack Russell terrier!

She was a happy person, dammit, right down to her blistered toes.

Chapter Five

“Good Lord, what’s wrong?” Fiona asked, pushing her busing cart into the kitchen and stopping beside Camry.

“What? Nothing. Why?”

“Because you look like you want to punch someone.”

Camry took a deep breath—at least as deep as her stupid corset would allow—and forcibly shook off her foul mood. “Sorry. I was just wondering why I work here.”

“Because you love people.”

“I do?”

“Of course you do, silly,” Fiona said with a laugh, giving her a playful punch on the arm. “You spend all week with a bunch of dogs, so you need to work here on the weekends to remind yourself that you’re human.”

“My dogs are better behaved than some of the customers.”

“You’d be bored to tears if you spent all your time around well-behaved people. That’s what I like best about you, Cam. You say what you think, and you back up what you say with action.”

“I do?”

“Sure. Take me, for instance. I know you’ve been wanting to browbeat my name out of me so you can call my parents, but you’ve been treating me like an adult even though I’m not one. That’s why you can’t bring yourself to go through my backpack to find my ID.”

“How do you know I haven’t?”

“Because I’m still here, aren’t I? And you know why? Because I remind you of yourself when you were my age, and that’s why you’re so determined that I’ll call my parents on my own.”

Camry shot her a lopsided grin. “Did you say you were sixteen, or sixty?”

“MacKeage! Your order for table ten is getting cold,” the cook shouted from the serving station. “Where in hell’s your pager? I’ve been beeping you for ten minutes.”

Cam felt at the back of her waist. “Damn, it must have fallen off. It’s probably kicking around under some table,” she muttered, heading to the heat lamps to pick up her order. “Or more likely in some four-year-old’s pocket.”

“I’ll help you look for it,” Fiona said, abandoning her cart to follow her into the dining room. “I’ll start searching the floor while you take Luke his food.”

“Luke?” Cam repeated, weaving her way through the crowded pub.

“The big dreamy guy at table ten,” Fiona explained, stepping around her to run interference when a young child bolted past them, waving a plastic sword and wearing an eye patch. She redirected the toddler back to his parents, then looked at Cam. “You don’t think he’s dreamy? His eyes are a really deep navy blue, and his hair’s almost long enough to tie back. I love long hair on a man, don’t you?”

Cam glanced toward table ten. “He’s old enough to be your father.”

The girl made an exasperated sound. “I don’t think he’s dreamy for me, silly, I think he’s perfect for you. But he’s only going to be in town a short while because he’s on sabbatical, so you need to work fast. You should give him your phone number when you bring him his bill.”

Camry nearly dropped the heavy tray she was holding. “What?”

Apparently thinking that was a rhetorical question, Fiona started running interference again, occasionally bending over to search under the tables. Deciding she better have a talk with her roommate on their ride home from work, Cam followed her toward the sidewall of booths. But just as Fiona walked past table ten, a hand suddenly snaked out from table nine, grabbed the young girl’s arm, and pulled her into the booth of drunken men.

Fiona’s yelp of surprise was also laced with pain when she hit the corner of the table. Without skipping a beat, Cam rushed forward with every intention of cleaning the jerk’s clock. Only it was at that exact moment that table ten’s Dream Guy shot out of his own booth and also launched himself at the jerk—his shoulder knocking the tray full of food out of Camry’s hands and sending it crashing to the floor.

Pandemonium ensued when two of the jerk’s drunken buddies scrambled out to go after Dream Guy at the same time that Camry also headed into the fray. Only her damn heels got tangled up in the broken dishes and food, and she ended up falling into the fight instead.

Her head exploded in pain when her cheek slammed into one man’s elbow, which was cocked back to take a swing at Dream Guy. The force of the backward punch threw her into a nearby table, scattering dishes and food over people trying to scramble out of the way.