Page 17 of Trophy
She wished she knew what he was saying.
A half hour later he and the girl were leaving, and Allison tried not to feel disappointed. Rob caught her eye as he walked past a table she still needed to clear. He dropped a folded napkin onto the table with a little half smile.
She gave him a very foolish smile in response, her heart jumping up in her chest. As soon as he’d walked out, she went over to the table and picked up the napkin.
She’d thought she wasn’t going to get a note from him today, since she hadn’t served him. He’d left her a note with his tip every day this week.
She read the note quickly and then stuck it into her pocket as she piled up the dishes and carried them to the back. Once she’d dumped them in the sink, she read the note again.
I missed you this morning. You look tired today. You should sleep in tomorrow. R.
Allison was planning to sleep in tomorrow. She didn’t work weekends because Trey had regular weekend staff, and she couldn’t wait for a couple of days off. She was going to meet Vicki for lunch in the city and then they were going shopping. All Allison was planning to let herself buy was a comfortable pair of shoes, but still… she was excited about seeing Vicki, about doing something she loved again.
She tucked Rob’s note in her pocket. She would put it with his other notes in the little box on her dresser when she got home.
8
On Sunday Allisonwoke up feeling good.
She’d had a great day with Vicki yesterday, and she felt like she’d almost recovered from the week before. Today she needed to work on her yard. It was looking worse than ever, and she really didn’t want the neighbors to be secretly complaining about her.
She also didn’t want Rob thinking she wasn’t capable of taking care of things on her own.
So after drinking a cup of coffee and catching up on her emails, she put on a pair of shorts and a black tank top and braided her hair to keep it out of the way. There was an old riding mower in the shed, and she’d gotten gas for it on her way back into town yesterday. If the mower still worked, she was going to cut her grass today.
She’d never cut grass before in her life, but the mower wasn’t difficult to operate. It made some grumbling sounds when she started it, but the engine still worked. She felt very strange as she climbed on and started to ride around. She kept looking behind her to make sure the grass was actually getting cut. She had noidea how to change the settings, so she kept everything exactly as it was.
When she’d mowed a line across her front yard and she could see the difference in the grass heights, she couldn’t help but feel a little thrill of victory.
Look at her. Allison Davies, formerly Collins. Mowing the grass.
The yard was pretty large, so she was grateful for the riding mower. It would have taken her forever if she’d had to use a push mower, and she couldn’t imagine how tired she’d have been at the end of it. As it was, she wasn’t tired at all when she finished the yard an hour later. It wasn’t perfect, but it looked basically neat. Not bad for a beginner.
Since it was still just ten in the morning, she decided to tackle a few of the beds that were overgrown with weeds. She could at least do the two beds in the front of the house, which people would see when they drove by.
Pulling weeds wasn’t nearly as fun as mowing. A lot of them were prickly, so she had to go back inside and spend twenty minutes looking for gloves. She finally found a pair of leather riding gloves. They didn’t fully stop the prickles, but they helped. Some of the weeds were so big and deep that they were nearly impossible to get up, even when she tried to dig down to their roots. She’d only worked for forty minutes and gotten half of one bed done when she was drenched in sweat and breathless, her thighs and back hurting.
Mowing had been a lot more fun.
“You want some help?” a voice came from behind her, startling her so much she jumped up from where she was leaning over, tugging at a stubborn weed.
It was Rob, of course, standing behind her in worn cargo shorts and a white T-shirt, looking like he hadn’t shaved. He wassmiling, and she had the uncomfortable knowledge that her butt had been in the air, so he would have had a very good view of it.
“I’m fine,” she said with a smile. “Don’t you have your own yard work to do?”
Rob looked across the street at his perfectly manicured yard. “I think mine will do for the time being.”
Allison sighed and shook her head. She’d seen him working outside on his yard on a couple of evenings, and she couldn’t help but wonder how he had the energy. He must not be as tired as she was after a day of working.
“You did a good job mowing,” Rob said, eyeing her grass.
Allison felt a ridiculous bloom of pride at this compliment. “It was the first time I’ve ever done it.”
“Really?” He looked at her curiously.
He must think she was some kind of freak, twenty-seven years old and never having mowed a yard before. “I lived in downtown Charlotte,” she explained.
“Oh yeah, of course.” He glanced down at her hands. “You need better gloves for that.”
