The Maverick: The Maverick / Magnate’s Make-Believe Mistress. Diana Palmer

“Does Dolores still work here?”

      The woman stared at him for a minute, but without recognition. “Dolores? Yes. She’s in the kitchen, making canapés. You look familiar. Do I know you?”

      “I’ve got that kind of face,” he said easily, smiling. “My wife and I know Dolores, we belong to her church. I promised the minister we’d give her a message from him if we came tonight,” he added.

      “One of that church crowd,” the woman groaned, rolling her eyes. “Honestly, it’s all she talks about, like there’s nothing else in the world but church.”

      “Religion dies, so does civilization,” Alice said quietly. She remembered that from her Western Civilization course in college.

      “Whatever,” the woman replied, bored.

      “In the kitchen, huh? Thanks,” Harley told the woman.

      “Don’t get her fired,” came the quick reply. “She’s a pain, sometimes, but she works hard enough doing dishes. If the senator or his wife see you keeping her from her job, he’ll fire her.”

      “We won’t do that,” Harley promised. His lips made a thin line as he led Alice away.

      “Surely the senator wouldn’t fire her just for talking to us?” Alice wondered aloud.

      “It wouldn’t surprise me,” Harley said. “We’ll have to be circumspect.”

      Alice followed his lead. She wondered why he was so irritated. Perhaps the woman’s remark offended his sense of justice.

      The kitchen was crowded. It didn’t occur to Alice to ask how Harley knew his way there. Women were bent over tables, preparing platters, sorting food, making canapés. Two women were at the huge double sink, washing dishes.

      “Don’t they have a dishwasher?” Alice wondered as they entered the room.