Dream a Little Dream (Chicago Stars, #4)(208)

Tom, the projectionist, smiled as she made her way through the projection room and tucked Edward into the sleeping bag she’d placed on the floor of Gabe’s office. A boisterous man with a slew of grandchildren, he’d promised to let Rachel know if Edward woke up.

As she descended the stairs, she saw Gabe coming out of the snack shop. At the same time, a man she dimly recognized, although she couldn’t immediately recall his identity, stepped from the shadows. “Doesn’t look like you’ve got a full house tonight, Bonner.”

Gabe shrugged. “Can’t have a full house every night.”

“Especially with the Widow Snopes working for you.”

Gabe seemed to stiffen. “Why don’t you mind your own business, Scudder?”

“Whatever you say.” With a sneer, he walked away.

Russ Scudder. He’d lost a lot of hair since Rachel had last seen him and some weight, too. She remembered a more muscular man.

Gabe looked up as she came the rest of the way down the steps. “Russ used to work security at the Temple,” she said.

“I know. I hired him to help out here, but I had to fire him after a couple of weeks. He wasn’t reliable.”

“He’s right about what’s happened. We should have had a bigger crowd. You’re being punished because of me.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

She knew it didn’t, not to him, and that bothered her as much as the empty spaces. It should matter. “I wonder why he came tonight?”

“Probably needed a dark place to get drunk.”

He moved off toward a car of noisy teenagers, and she returned to the snack shop to get ready for intermission. He reappeared to help out just as the first feature came to an end.

A line formed, but not a long enough one to give them trouble. Both of Gabe’s brothers appeared to pick up food. Cal ordered two of everything, so she gathered that his wife was back in the car with their baby.

Ethan ordered double, too, but since Kayla was waiting on him, Rachel didn’t notice. If she had, she might have been tempted to slip outside and see who he’d brought with him.






Ethan passed the tray of food to Kristy through the window of his car, then opened the door and slid behind the wheel. He immediately caught a hint of her perfume. Tonight it reminded him of black lace and a rumba, which was ridiculous because he’d never done a rumba in his life and didn’t intend to.

He closed the car door. “They had those big chocolate-chip cookies, so I got a couple of them.”

“That’s fine.” She spoke in the cool, polite voice she’d been using all evening, as if he were her boss, not her friend.

The tiny rings on her fingers glimmered from the flood-lights that had been turned on for intermission. He watched anxiously as she set the food between them and unwrapped her hot dog. He’d put mustard on it because that was how he liked his hot dogs, but the truth was, he didn’t have any idea whether she liked mustard. They’d eaten a couple of thousand lunches together over the past eight years, but he couldn’t seem to remember what she’d eaten at any of them, except he thought he recalled some salads.

“They didn’t have any salad.”

She regarded him quizzically. “Of course they didn’t.”

He felt like an idiot. “I wasn’t sure whether you’d rather have regular mustard or spicy brown.” He waited. “They had both kinds.”

“This is fine.”

“Maybe you like ketchup better?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“And relish. Did you want relish?” He set his own hot dog down. “I can go back and get some.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“Really? Because I don’t mind.” He had the door half open when she stopped him.

“Ethan, I hate hot dogs!”

“Oh.” He closed the door and sank back into the seat, feeling foolish and depressed. On the drive-in screen, a clock, accompanied by marching sodas, ticked away the intermission time. He felt as if it were marking off the minutes of his life.

“I love chocolate-chip cookies, though.”

He shook his head. “I’ve proved everything you threw at me the night at the Mountaineer, haven’t I? I don’t know anything about you.”

“You know that I don’t like hot dogs,” she said gently.

She could have been bitchy, but she was being nice. It was one of so many good things about her. Why had it taken him so long to notice? He’d gone through most of his life barely thinking about Kristy Brown, and now he couldn’t think about anybody else.

She wrapped her hot dog back up, returned it to the bag, and picked up a chocolate-chip cookie. Before she took a bite, she opened a paper napkin and spread it over the lap of her jeans. The jeans, along with her plain white blouse, had disappointed him. He supposed she’d decided to save her short skirts and tight tops for Mike Reedy.

He pulled the paper off his straw and punched it through the lid covering his large Cherry Coke. “So, I hear you and Mike are seeing each other.” He tried to sound casual, as if the topic were of no more interest to him than last week’s weather.

“He’s a very nice person.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Tendrils of silky dark hair curled around her cheeks. He wanted to brush them back, and, for a moment, he imagined doing it with his lips.