Read Online Fantasy Man by Barbara Meyers - Free Book Online Page A

stroll like this, never taking the same route, never frequenting the same places. But even those precautions seemed excessive. No one was going to look for her here. She was the needle in the proverbial haystack.
    She crossed the street to familiarize herself with the businesses in a couple of the strip plazas there. Nail and hair salons. Tax preparation. A vintage clothing store. A used book store.
    Set back from the street on the corner was a pizza place with its own parking lot and an old-fashioned neon sign proclaiming, “Antonia’s Pizza.”
    Quinn stopped and stared. Memories of her grandparents’ place in Miami with the same name washed over her. Her grandmother Antonia Fontana had been famous in certain circles for her secret pizza dough recipe and a variety of tomato and pesto sauces.
    Quinn’s mouth watered, the toast and coffee she’d had earlier a distant memory. The hand-lettered signs painted across the windows offering pizza by the slice and carry-out deals called to her. She pulled open the glass-paneled door to a cacophony of sound and tantalizing smells. The place was packed. Every single small table was taken, there was a line at both ends of the counter, customers waiting to order and to pick up.
    She edged her way through the crowd so that she was close to the pick-up area where she could peruse the menu behind the counter. She was jostled by both a server and a customer in a hurry, and had to move aside so that she was at the end of the counter. A harried-looking man was at the cash register, taking orders and barking over his shoulder at the kitchen staff behind him, all of whom were working at top speed assembling pie after pie.
    “Hey, sweetheart, you wanna hand me my order? It’s right there.”
    Quinn looked at the man who’d tapped her on the arm. He pointed to a box one of the kitchen staff had just slid onto the top shelf of the pickup window.
    “Large pepperoni and bread sticks,” he said, waving the receipt at her. “Number two eighty-four.”
    Obviously he thought she worked here. She was close enough to the counter to take two steps and reach it for him. The numbers on the box and receipt matched up. No one else seemed likely to do it any time soon and the guy appeared to be in a hurry. Where was the harm? She picked up his order and handed it to him.
    “Thanks a lot.” He dropped a fiver into the tip jar before another customer stepped forward brandishing his own receipt.
    “Two eight five.”
    She checked the number, turned and found his order, a small sausage pizza and a house salad, handed it to him and thanked him. None of the staff seemed to notice that she was helping or told her to stop assisting the customers. A mischievous smile crossed her face. How long could she get away with this?
    She set her small shoulder bag on a shelf below the counter and donned an apron she found there. For over an hour she smiled and said thank you, made sure the orders were correct and handed out food to unsuspecting customers.
    The lunch rush faded and the man who’d been at the register lumbered toward her. His brows knit together as he looked her over, realizing only now he’d never seen her before in his life. She handed off the last order and turned to face him.
    “You’re not Bridget.”
    “Never said I was.”
    “Where is she?”
    “Beats me.”
    “I didn’t hire you.”
    “I didn’t ask you to.”
    “You’re odd.”
    “So I’ve been told.”
    He huffed out a breath then he held out a hand. “Frankie Funigello.”
    “Quinn.”
    He raised an eyebrow when she didn’t offer her last name. “Want a job?”
    “Maybe.” A job at a place like this might be just what she needed, even though it broke one of the rules she’d made for herself. Helping out during the lunch rush, what was that? A couple of hours a day? She glanced at the clock a beer company had supplied which hung over the beverage cooler. It was almost two now. Her gaze darted to the tip jar which held a