Chapter 1 

For longer than I can remember, well, at least the last three years, I had a dream life mapped out in my head.  By the time I was thirty I was going to be living on a tropical island with water lapping at my feet and a little B & B nestled in the palm trees behind.  I was going to be my own boss.  Of course, no one I told believed I’d ever do it.  I think most people thought I was the type of girl who wandered through life looking for something she’d never find.  Little did they know.

Having skirted my way around a minefield of professions - PR Girl, Personal Assistant and Tupperware Lady, to name a few, I’d come to the conclusion that what I really needed was for my life to be pared back.  Simple.  Uncomplicated.  And thus the dream was born.  The small inheritance I’d received shortly after making the decision merely cemented the idea.  To achieve my goal, and supplement the pathetic wage I currently earned as a nanny, I worked part time at the local German beer house. Two nights a week, and sometimes on Saturdays, I could be found wearing a natty frilled apron and a red checked frock. Though this was not my number one choice for a career path but rather a means to an end, everything was going the way I’d planned. 

Until the day I met Sam Brockton. 

It was a typical Thursday evening at the pub.  The dining room was teeming with people. The regular crowd of businessmen were at their table in the corner partaking in after work drinks.  A party of girls filled a table in the centre of the room. Bridal veils, L plates and trays of cupcakes in the shape of penises were the order of the day.  Three bikies sat at the bar swilling schooners of lager and Dianne, the bar manager, was polishing glasses while chatting to them. I was in the servery on the opposite side of the room and Bob, the owner of this classy establishment, was helping me to prepare garlic bread for a group near the window. Bob had a habit of popping up during busy periods on the pretext of lending a hand.  I didn’t mind.  I knew he was keeping an eye on me because he thought I was hopeless. You see, though my job was easy, I had a habit of becoming distracted by little things around me and this often led to another annoying trait of mine: destruction. I was public enemy number one to all manner of breakable things and a few that were once considered imperishable.

We were packed to the rafters and there was Bob, guarding the microwave.  He was still perplexed as to how, on a previous shift, I’d managed to jam my fingers in the door of said machine and not realise I was nuking them.  He said it wasn’t that he didn’t trust me with it anymore but rather didn’t want to have to explain my lack of digits to the customers.  I knew he was trying to spare my feelings.  Deep down, he loved me.

“Wait till you see the bloke just started working in the front bar, Millie,” he said over his shoulder, as he unwrapped the steaming loaves and put them into little wicker baskets. “His name’s Sam.  You two’ll get on like a house on fire.”  

He stopped and winked at me and I wondered what it could be that would make him think such a thing.  I was not your typical waitress.  I was a university graduate. Did I look like I had ‘shag me’ tattooed on my forehead?  I wandered off in the direction of table six to deliver the bread, considering Bob’s words.  That comment had been way off base and, well, frankly, a little hurtful. I hadn’t had a boyfriend in months.  Another couple of weeks and I would have been officially declared a natural disaster, a woman in the depths of a man drought.

Turning back to the servery, I stopped, just in time to see the double doors at the end of the dining room fling open like a scene from an old fashioned western movie.  A masculine form filled the space.  It was tall.  It had shoulders the size of a small European country and for reasons even Helen Keller could see, I knew what Bob meant.  I’d definitely shag that given half a chance.  The figure paused inside the doorframe and perused the scene before him, a boyish grin tempting every woman in the room. A dimple grew in his cheek and his oceanic eyes twinkled.  It had to be Sam.  Nobody else who worked at The Lederhosen looked like that.  In fact, the majority of men I worked with were the product of one too many German sausages with extra sauerkraut. Though I tried not to, I fully checked him out as I walked back to my station, a doleful sigh escaping my lips.

The man was sex on legs.  So much so, that I lurched full frontal into one of the dining room pillars that had been strategically placed for such a moment. My pile of dishes fell with a clatter to their death, and I tumbled to the carpet, landing on top of them.  Beneath the silence of the girls at the table beside me, I wiped the splodges of tomato sauce from my bum and rolled to my knees. Tears of mortification stung my eyes. The whole dining room had seen me fall and not one of them offered assistance.  They merely sat with their mouths open. Well, except for the new guy, Sam.  He was laughing fit to kill himself.

“That’ll come out of your pay, Millie,” Bob grumbled, as he handed me a dustpan.  “I can’t afford for you to keep doing this. You’re a one woman demolition team.”

“Sorry Bob.”  I didn’t bother to add anything further, there was no point; his face was that frightening shade of puce that could not be put right with words.  Besides, it was all Sam’s fault.  A girl needed protective glasses to look at him.

                                                                             *****

A few nights later, keeping my nose to the grindstone and out of Bob’s way, I was polishing forks when Sam came in.  As if it happened every day, he ignored the crowd that parted before him like The Red Sea and made his way across the room. Determined, I held my breath and kept my eyes on my work.  I was not going to be led astray by his shoulders again.  I had to keep my job. 

“Here he comes,” whispered Alexandra, my co-worker. “Oh my... he’s way hotter than Chantelle said.”  She flicked her blackened locks over her shoulder and pushed out her ample Greek bosom. 

“Humph,” I snorted in reply.

Sam waltzed up to where we were standing, looking like a walking shagfest.  His mohair jumper, just a tad too fitted for fashionable, showed off his body a treat and his sooty hair, sexily unkempt, added to his bad boy persona.  Even the stubble was sprinkled to perfection across his jawline.  Mesmerised, Alex let out an audible whimper.  I slunk into my tea towel and tried to pretend he wasn’t there.  His presence made me dizzy.  I couldn’t acknowledge him.  It would be so weak; perving like everyone else.  It would go against everything I’d ever said about looks not being everything, the person inside being the most important and all that.

Sam rested his large, smooth hands on the counter. A little tuft of mohair wafted from his jumper and landed on Alex’s cleavage.  “Has my dinner arrived yet? I’ve only got a fifteen minute break.”   

“Um...er, yeah,” I swallowed, pulling his snapper from the dumb waiter and handing it to him.  Our fingertips collided on the edge of the plate and I pulled my hand away, curling and uncurling it behind my back. Lightning bolts surged up my arm and my brain registered signals it hadn’t felt in quite some time. Flustered, I gave him a hint of a smile.  Surely, he’d sensed it too?

“Thanks,” Sam said, as he whisked the cutlery from the counter. With a wink at Alex, he disappeared to the front bar. 

I was bewildered.  He had winked at Alex. Where was my flash of smile? Who did he think he was?  He hadn’t even bothered to introduce himself.  Not that he needed to.  We all knew who he was.  Even after a week on the job, the gossip was rife. 

We watched him leave and I prised Alexandra’s fingers from my arm. I handed her an order book.  There was no point in drooling. He had no interest in us. We were waitresses.

“It’s not just me, is it?” she asked, as I propelled her out into the sea of beer steins and schnitzels, “He is the hottest thing you’ve ever seen, isn’t he?”

“He’s cute but he seems a bit smug.  You know, up himself. He didn’t even talk to us.”

And that was my defence, feeble as it was.  I ask you…what hope did I have?