The Hookup (Moonlight and Motor Oil #1)(36)

She was in her sixties, maybe seventies. Hair dyed a light, becoming red and set in a lovely, soft style that suited her immensely. She had makeup on even though the battle against wrinkles the rest of her put-together-self told me she’d valiantly fought was the inevitable loss it was meant to be. Regardless, her makeup was subtle and attractive. She was wearing a pretty shirtwaist dress with a full skirt in a green and white pattern with a fabulous rectangular bag with a short strap on her forearm.

And she was wearing pearls, real ones it seemed to my inexpert eye. A string of them at her throat and one at her wrist with plain but large and magnificent pearl studs in her ears.

Her eyes were locked on me.

“Leave it to you to find the prettiest lady in the place.”

This came from a man who materialized at the woman’s back. He was bald on top, his gray hair cut very short on the sides. He was wearing a shiny blue golf shirt and nice trousers. He was also in his sixties or seventies, very tall and quite good-looking. Sharing that, shave a decade or two off him, he’d been exceptionally handsome.

And speaking of exceptionally handsome, Johnny was wearing clothes I didn’t even imagine he could own. Black on black—a delectably tailored black shirt over deliciously tailored slim-fit black trousers that made my mouth water more than anything I saw on the menu (way more).

“Johnathon, darlin’, who is this fetching creature?” the woman asked.

“Margot, Dave, this is Eliza,” Johnny rumbled.

“Iz or Izzy, my friends call me,” I whispered, sounding like someone was choking me.

Johnny’s gentle gaze came back to rest on me.

First Bonnie Raitt and now this?

Bonnie was hard enough but Johnny in that shirt (and those trousers) might be the end of me.

All right.

I was never leaving my acres again.

“Izzy. Now isn’t that sweet? Unusual. But sweet,” Margot declared.

“You know this gal?” Dave asked Johnny.

“Yeah, we—” Johnny started.

“We’re friends,” I put in firmly, straightening my spine and finding my inner Daphne, the piece of my mother she left me that could make it through anything. “I’m kind of new to town. We met at On the Way Home a few weeks back and Johnny kept me company helping me break in the local tavern.”

Both Margot and Dave turned speculative eyes to Johnny.

Unfortunately, Margot got over her speculation way too quickly and looked back at me.

And when she did, she declared, “No girl as cute as a button as you are wearing a dress that pretty eats alone. You’re joining us for dinner.”

Oh God.

No!

“I’ve already ordered,” I told her.

She turned directly to the tall man behind her. “David. Find someone and tell them to hold this pretty girl’s dinner and serve it with ours.” She turned back to me. “If you’re hungry, darlin’, we’ll order you an appetizer.”

“I—” I started.

But Margot now had her attention on the hostess who was hovering with them, holding their menus. “You can take us to our booth now.” Her attention came back to me. “We always get a booth. They’re roomy.”

“You can also ask the chef to hold making this lady’s dinner, if you would,” David said under his breath to the hostess as Margot spoke.

“Of course,” the hostess muttered.

Was this happening?

“Help Eliza out of her seat, Johnathon,” Margot ordered, turned her head, tipped up her nose and flounced after the hostess.

This was happening.

I had a feeling Margot got what she wanted, but it was a definite it would be tremendously rude if I didn’t join them even if the very last thing on earth I wanted was to join them for dinner.

More aptly, to sit at dinner with a Johnny with gentle eyes wearing that shirt and those trousers.

Seeing as I had no choice, I closed my journal, dropped my pens in my clutch and slid out of my chair only to run right into Johnny.

“You don’t have to do this, Izzy,” he whispered, his lips at my ear sending that damnable tingle down my spine.

And it got worse.

He was wearing cologne, and it was amazing cologne so he even smelled fantastic.

I turned my head and caught his gaze.

“It’s okay, honey.”

His eyes melted with warmth and regret and compassion and all that looked good on him before he reached out and grabbed my journal off the table.

He handed it to me, reached again and nabbed my wine, then put his free hand to my elbow and guided me after Margot and David.

“She seems like she’s a firebrand,” I muttered to Johnny.

“David and Margot, my dad’s best friends. Dave started working for my granddad when he was about seventeen. That’s how him and Dad met. Dave’s about a decade older than Dad and he took him under his wing back then. And whatever grew between them meant they were inseparable until they had no choice but not to be. Dad was fifteen when he was best man at Dave’s wedding. Dave said the eulogy at Dad’s funeral.”

How beautiful.

And how sad.

“Right,” I said softly.

“Margot’s a pistol and I don’t remember a time when she wasn’t. She’s the only mom I ever really knew. She was a tough one but the best a kid could have.”