Lust and Lies 04 - Pretty Maids in a Row

believe the microwave was the greatest invention of the twentieth century."
    "Well, hell! And here I was about to suggest you could repay me for my hospitality with a few days of cooking."
    "Fat chance!" she said, laughing. "Once I left my parents' restaurant, I swore I'd never work with food again." A stray memory of the day her father had ordered her out of her bedroom and off to work took away her smile.
    David took a sip of his coffee as he watched Holly deal with some inner conflict. His natural ability to read people by their expressions and body language gave him an advantage in his career and personal life. It was also natural for him to use that talent to analyze an adversary. And Holly was definitely an adversary.
    Every time she started to relax around him, he said something that got her uptight again. This time however, it was her own words that had caused the mood swing.
    "Where was their restaurant?" he asked, more to get the dialogue flowing again than out of real curiosity.
    "They still have it, in a northern suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."
    "Oh? Is that where you grew up?"
    "For the most part."
    "Any brothers, sisters, childhood pets you'd like to tell me about?"
    She glanced at him and took a drink of tea. His voice had a strange edge to it, as if he was interviewing her, rather than having a friendly, getting-to-know-you chat. It was probably only because he was a reporter, but it made her uncomfortable. "Haven't you heard enough of my voice for one day? Why don't you tell me about yourself instead."
    He considered her reluctance to give personal information proof that she had something to hide. Of course, he'd already uncovered the basic statistics about her, but he had thought if he could get her talking about her background, she would say something that would give away her connection to Erica Donner. Perhaps if he opened up to her first, she'd relinquish a few tidbits about herself in return. "What would you like to know?"
    "Whatever you'd like. Let me rephrase that. Whatever you can tell without bringing up your intimate encounters with the opposite sex."
    "Well, hell. That wipes out half my life story!" He gave her another wink that could have meant he was joking or it was the complete truth. "Okay, let's see. I grew up in a relatively seedy area of Washington, D.C., along with four brothers and sisters. Nancy and Patty are older, Gary and Jill, younger. That made me the middle child, but I was the smartest and best-looking, so I never suffered for it."
    He ignored her groan. "With my old man, that made six of us in a two-bedroom, one-bath apartment. You can't imagine how strange it seemed when I moved out and had a bathroom all to myself. Every once in a while I still expect somebody to bang on the door when I'm taking a shower."
    Holly angled her head at him. "What about your mother?"
    David shrugged. If she had a heart at all, this next truth would win him a few points. "She took off right after she dropped number five in seven years. We never heard from her again." Bingo. Her heart was in her eyes.
    "How awful."
    He raised his brows in surprise. "Not really. We learned to make do. Sometimes I think we had a closer-knit family because we had to help each other. Dad did the best he could, under the circumstances. His job in the factory never earned enough to take care of five kids, but we managed with welfare, and as soon as I was old enough, I got a job as a paperboy for The Washington Herald.
    "It didn't get really tough until Dad was laid off when I was in tenth grade. I skipped the rest of that school year to take a full-time job working at a deli, besides keeping up my paper route. The other kids earned a little money too, but I wouldn't let any of them quit school."
    Holly frowned. "What do you mean, you wouldn't let them. What about your father?"
    Again David shrugged. "I don't know. It just sort of happened. One day, he was in charge of the family and the next day, I was. Like I said, he did his best, and eventually he found another job, I went back to school."
    "What about your sisters and brother?"
    He couldn't help but grin over her interview technique. Fire the next question the instant the last one is answered. "Nancy and Patty got married. Gary went to refrigeration school and Jill became a paralegal. I'm the only one that liked school well enough to go for a college degree."
    "How did you manage that?"
    He didn't even try to hide his pride. "Fortunately, schoolwork came