“It’s only legal when I’m working there. Hey, wait. If you hired her, what name did she put on the W-2 form?”

“Fiona Smith.”

Camry snorted. “She had to give you a Social Security number. What is it?”

“Now, Cam, you know I can’t give that out to anyone.”

Camry looked around to make sure Fiona was still in the spare bedroom getting dressed, and turned her back and lowered her voice. “But she’s a runaway, Dave. I called the police Friday, but they don’t have any missing teens fitting her description. I need that number to find out who she really is so I can call her parents.”

A heavy sigh came over the phone. “I know. But you’re putting me between a rock and a hard place here. I promise, first thing tomorrow morning I’ll turn Fiona’s W-2 over to my accountant and ask him look into it. But it’s probably a bogus number, just like Smith is obviously fake.”

“Yet you hired her anyway.”

“Because I’m desperate to find bus staff. Kids today don’t want to work for an honest wage; they want Mommy and Daddy to just hand them money. And besides,” he said, lowering his own voice. “I didn’t dare say no when she asked me for a job, because like you, I want her hanging around long enough for us to find her parents.”

Cam sighed in defeat. “At least it’ll buy us time. But how am I supposed to keep an eye on her when I’m not scheduled to work? She’ll be running around your bar, being watched by every single and married male in the joint.”

“It’s Sunday night, and I have nearly every table reserved up until nine,” Dave countered. “And you know why? Because all the flyers I’ve been passing out have let everyone know that I’ve classed the place up and hired new staff.”

“Then I want to come to work tonight, too.”

“Betty’s covering the bar tonight.”

“Then I’ll wait tables.”

“I’m still recovering from the last time you waited tables. You’re a good bartender, MacKeage, but you suck as a waitress.”

“I promise, I won’t dump anything on anyone.”

A pained sigh came over the phone. “I’ll keep an eye on your kid. She’s just busing tables.”

“She can bus on Fridays and Saturdays.”

“But I’ve never had more than two reservations on a Sunday night.”

“Which must mean you need extra staff.”

He sighed again. “You promise you won’t get smart-mouthed with my patrons, or dump any food on them?”

“Scout’s honor.”

“And you’ll wear one of my new waitress uniforms?”

“Those . . . things hanging in the back room are uniforms?” She snorted. “I thought you wanted to turn the place into a family pub, not some pseudo-colonial bar with waitresses dressed like wenches. “

“Go Back Cove was supposed to have been a hideout for pirates back in the 1800s, and I’m simply playing up the old legend. I spent all last night and this morning redecorating the place.”

“Fiona is not wearing a low-cut blouse and one of those leather bustier thingies. I swear I’ll call Child Services myself if you put her in one of those sexist costumes.”

“I have mostly bus boys, Cam. Fiona can wear jeans and a T-shirt, just like they do. But,” he said before she could say anything, “you can wait tables tonight if you’re willing to wear the new uniform.”

Dammit, dammit, dammit. She didn’t want to dress up like a wench!

Then again, she didn’t want Fiona going to work without her, either.

But if she tried to talk the girl out of going to her new job, that made her no better than Fiona’s parents. And she’d be damned if she was going to mother the child.

“What’ll it be, Cam? You coming to work or not?”

“I’ll be there,” she snapped, hitting the End button when she heard Dave chuckle and slinging the phone at the couch.

“Are you going to stay and have supper when you drive me in?” Fiona asked, walking into the room. “Because there’s still nothing in the fridge.”

Camry closed her eyes and counted to ten, suddenly having a whole new appreciation for her own mother, who had managed to raise seven girls without losing her sanity. She opened her eyes, and, yup, her roommate was still dressed like a prostitute. “Um . . . is that one of the outfits your father objected to?”

Fiona looked down at herself, then smiled at Cam. “Yeah. He asked me if I’d stolen it off some hooker the last time he took me to New York City.”

“Well . . . at the risk of sounding like your father,” Camry said with a crooked grin, choosing her words carefully, “is there any chance I could get you to wear an oversize T-shirt and a pair of my jeans tonight?”

Camry held up her hand to forestall the objection forming on Fiona’s lips, took a deep breath, and jumped right into the quagmire. “It’s not that I don’t think that’s a fabulous outfit, but you’re working in a bar, Fiona. And you’re certainly old enough to realize that some men, when they’ve had a little more beer than they should, forget this is the twenty-first century and that women were not put on this Earth merely for their entertainment.” She shrugged. “I know it’s archaic, but I also know that you’re bright enough to realize that sometimes we women are better off downplaying our assets instead of . . . accentuating them.”

Oh God, those words could have come straight out of her mother’s mouth!

Fiona stared at her for the longest time, saying nothing, then suddenly smiled. “Okay,” she said, spinning around and heading back into the bedroom. “Can I wear your black jeans?”

“Yeah, go ahead,” Cam said, closing her eyes in relief, suddenly remembering why the mere thought of having kids scared the hell out of her.

Chapter Four

Luke slid into the booth at the Go Back Grill, the smell of greasy food all but making him salivate. Though he was still trying to recover from two months of living on nothing but trail mix and rehydrated soup, he had to admit the results felt pretty damn good.

When he’d seen himself naked in the bathroom mirror at Gù Brath that first night, he’d been stunned to realize that he’d lost over twenty-five pounds of fat. But he’d probably added ten pounds of lean, hard muscle, and for the first time in years, Luke was more than casually aware of the six-foot-two, broad-shouldered body that housed his brain. He really had been spending too much time in the lab, and once he got back to work, he’d have to remind himself to get more exercise.

“Beer?” the waitress asked just as he opened the menu.

“What do you have for imported wine?” he asked absently, scanning the various food offerings that were thoughtfully accompanied by pictures.

“Red, white, or blush.”

“What do you have for imported red?”

“That’s it. Red house wine, white house wine, or blush,” she said dryly. “You want anything fancier, you have to drive to Portland. We serve forty-two different beers, mixed drinks, and house wines.”

Luke finally looked up with a frown, only to come face to . . . chest with a set of creamy white breasts being pushed out of an indecently lowcut blouse by an impossibly tight black leather corset.

The woman belonging to the breasts lifted his chin with the end of her pencil, forcing his gaze up to her scowling face. “Red, white, or blush,” she repeated through gritted teeth.

“I’ll have a Guinness,” he said, carefully lifting his chin off her pencil and looking back at his menu. “And your largest steak, a baked potato—loaded—and coleslaw. And,” he said a bit more forcefully when she started to leave, “a large salad, no onions, with blue cheese dressing.”