“You talked me into it.”
“What’s that?” Annie asked.
“The steak and eggs.”
“Good choice. Toast?”
“Nah. I’ll take some home fries though.”
“You mean hash browns,” she corrected.
“The shredded ones,” Andrew clarified.
“Hash browns,” she confirmed with just a hint of smugness. She prided herself in remembering her customer’s preferences—especially this customer.
They made their hash browns fresh from real potatoes. It was one of things she’d insisted on changing when she took over the diner. They weren’t solid patties like you got some other places. In her opinion they were best put on the grill with some onion and green pepper, but she’d gotten all sorts of requests for crazy things from gravy to anchovies. She could accommodate the gravy, the fish not so much.
“Payton, do you want your pie now or with Andrew’s steak?”
“I’ll wait, thanks.”
She nodded and filled out a slip for the order. Jack, the grill man working that night, was a new hire that she’d found only a couple of weeks before, but he was working out pretty well. She’d gotten a string of younger people lately, but they were proving to be unreliable, so she’d gone for a man in his fifties on her last hiring day, and he was looking like one of the best cooks she’d ever had. Good help was hard to find. If he kept producing steak and eggs like he was, and kept showing up on time, she’d give him a fifty-cent raise in a week or two. Once you found a good one, it was best not to let them get away.
“How’s your night been, Annie?” Ryder asked while her back was still turned.
“Okay. Slow. I imagine it’ll pick up in an hour or two.”
“You working the breakfast crowd tomorrow too?”
Putting the slip up above the grill, she turned back to the men. “No. I’m taking a day off tomorrow. My first one in a while.”
“You work entirely too many hours,” Andrew said.
“Pot, meet kettle,” she replied, and they all laughed. These men were no strangers to long days themselves. She admired what they did, but she often worried about them out there chasing after crazy suspects. She’d heard more than a few wild tales.
Jack returned from where he’d been in the back room and pulled down the slip for Andrew’s order. The grill sizzled as he dropped a fresh steak on it.
“That does look tasty,” Andrew said to Annie. “Good call.”
“You like watching your food being cooked?” Annie asked out of curiosity.
“Yeah. It’s like breakfast and entertainment at the same time. Why?”
“Oh, we get mixed reviews. Some people think it’s neat to sit at the counter and watch the grill but there are a fair number of people who don’t like it at all. I guess they feel like it’s more sterile behind closed doors or something. Just wondered what you thought.”
“I like it,” Ryder agreed. “I can’t cook for shit so it’s fun to watch someone who can.”
Annie owned the business, a family business that she’d inherited at a young age when her father had an early, fatal heart attack, but she didn’t own the building. She leased the old diner and the little house across the parking lot from a man who lived out in Billings. He almost never came around to check up on the place, and Annie had taken pretty good care of it, but she’d been thinking about moving to a more updated location. The vinyl seats in most of the booths were starting to crack and the countertops were becoming more the color of coffee than the beige they were supposed to be.
“I’ve been thinking about making some updates,” she confessed. “I was considering moving the grill, and maybe putting in a dessert case or something.”
“Just ready for a change?” Andrew asked.
“I guess so. It’s looked the same about as long as I can remember. Could use a face-lift.”
“If you need any help, let us know. I don’t know anything about cooking or remodeling, but I like to eat here, so I’d be happy to give you an opinion about that.”
Annie laughed. They were sweet.
Maybe she did need a change of pace. It wasn’t just the diner. She’d been doing the same things most of her life, working and living in the same small town in the middle of nowhere. If it weren’t for the highway, no one would even come through here at all. And her love life had never been much to speak of either. She’d dated some, but the men in this town were the same boys that she’d gone to school with. The best of them had left town long ago, and the ones who stayed had either gotten married or likely never would. She was creeping up on thirty, which wasn’t old, but some days she just felt past her prime.
For a while Annie had imagined that one of the men sitting at her counter might ask her out. They sure flirted enough, but they never crossed that line. She’d have said yes to either one of them, had they asked, but that might have been the problem. She didn’t want to pick favorites between them, and it seemed as if they didn’t either.
Sighing to herself, she turned to get Ryder’s pie. Jack was already flipping the eggs so the breakfast would be ready in a minute.
“Hey Annie,” Ryder called.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t forget the whipped cream.”
Annie smiled. She wouldn’t have forgotten, and he knew it. Pulling the Cool Whip out of the fridge she spooned out a huge amount—bigger even than the pie—and dumped it right on top. That would teach him.
“One whipped cream with a side of pie coming up,” she teased as she set it down in front of him.
Ryder laughed and Andrew snorted into his cup of coffee.
“Good thing I like Cool Whip.”
She delivered the steak and eggs and then reached for the coffee pot and an extra cup. She was about ready for one herself.
Jack, having finished with the grill, returned to the back room, and the diner suddenly felt very quiet despite the classic rock station playing in the background.
“Annie, can we ask you something?” Ryder asked.
“Course. It’s not the pie is it? I’ll get you another one if you don’t want it. I was only kidding with the whipped—”
“No. No. The pie’s great.”
Annie filled the three coffee cups and then returned the pot to the warmer. Ryder waited for her to stop moving before he spoke again.
“Would you, maybe want to go out with Andrew and me tomorrow? Since you have a day off and all?”
“Go out with you?” she asked. What exactly is he asking?
“Yeah there’s a county fair out east of here. You know, funnel cakes, Ferris wheel, fireworks, that sort of thing. I thought you might enjoy it.”
Annie felt a little dense. “Is it, like a group thing?”
“Just the three of us.”
She was confused. For a moment there she’d hoped he was asking her out on a date, but then she thought it must be a big group of them and their friends. He was just being polite, asking her to join in. But if it was just the three of them, that felt like…she wasn’t sure what. But she wasn’t going to do anything tomorrow anyway. Where was the harm? It might even be fun.
“I’d like that,” she answered, her lips curving up in a smile.
“Great,” Andrew said enthusiastically, and she realized he’d been holding his breath because it all came out in one whoosh when she’d agreed.
“We’ll pick you up here at 6:00 tomorrow evening?”
“Sure. I’ll be ready.”
The bell jangled again, and the late crowd started to file in, so she never got a chance to really say good-bye, but she waved to them as she saw them get up to leave. What have I gotten myself into? she wondered.
Chapter 3
Andrew Filley stood under the steaming spray of the shower and wondered what in the hell he’d agreed to the night before. In the dark bar, after a couple of drinks, a three-way relationship hadn’t felt so farfetched. He wasn’t a prude by any means, and he knew that there were other people who
chose to live that way, Sara, Tyler, and Gage for example, but it felt a whole lot more intimidating in the light of day.
What if Annie hated the idea? Sure she’d agreed to go out with them, but that didn’t mean anything. She was probably just as confused as he was about the whole date and with good reason. Ryder hadn’t exactly spelled it out for her.
Reaching for the shampoo, he let the water roll off his back, wishing it would take some of the stress and tension down the drain with it. What was he going to do now? Ryder’s plan was to just have a good evening—see if the three of them could have fun together and not worry about anything else—but he was always more laid back. Andrew had always been the type to make up a very detailed plan and stick to that plan. He needed a strategy.
Would they kiss her at the end of the night? How did that work? Did you just take turns or…The mental image of the three of them knocking heads was both humorous and terrible. There was just so much that could go wrong. What if Annie got spooked and never wanted to see them again?
If he stood in the shower any longer thinking about it, he’d be late. Maybe I shouldn’t go. Ryder could take her out, and they’d have a great time. Would she be disappointed if he didn’t come? He hoped that she would. The three of them got along so well, and a part of him hoped it wouldn’t be the same without him.
“Fuck it. I’m going,” he said to himself.
He shut off the water and reached for a towel. He’d spent more than half an hour this afternoon trying to decide what to wear which made him feel ridiculous. You’d think this was his first date ever. He tugged on the jeans and T-shirt that he’d decided on. It was a fair for goodness sakes, not a beauty pageant.
Taking one more quick look in the bathroom mirror on the way out, he grabbed his keys and pulled the door shut behind him. He’d agreed to drive, which should be interesting. His only vehicle, besides the police cruiser, was his silver Ram pickup truck. To avoid putting Annie in the backseat, they’d decided to take the truck where she’d have to squeeze in between them. God help them all.
Ryder lived about twenty minutes from him, but he was mostly on the way to Annie’s anyway, so it made sense to get him first. He pulled into the driveway and was about to honk, but Payton was sitting on the front steps waiting for him. He looked as nervous as Andrew felt.
“Hey,” Ryder said as he climbed up in the cab. “You ready?”
“Nope,” Andrew replied as he backed out of the drive and headed for Annie’s.
“It’s going to be fine,” Ryder said sternly.
“You trying to convince me or yourself?”
“Shut up. Really. She likes us. I’m sure of it. That’s half the battle.”
“Yeah but the other half is convincing her that fucking two men at once is a good idea.”
“Hey. Don’t talk like that. That’s not what this is about. At least not for me,” Ryder protested.
Andrew took a deep breath. “I know man. I’m sorry. I just…You put the idea in my head and now I’m having a hard time getting it out. I’d never treat her like that. You know that, right?”
“Yeah. I know. Let’s just take it slow. She might surprise us. I just keep thinking about Gage, Tyler, and Sara, you know? It was so natural for them. They made it look easy, and I don’t think it has to be as complicated as we’re apt to make it.”
“They do make it look easy,” Andrew agreed. He’d been thinking about the trio a lot, too. The love those men had for their woman was so apparent. He could see himself with a relationship like that, with a future like that.
Andrew pulled onto the highway and took the truck up to seventy. He was torn between impatience to get there and the desire to “accidentally” drive in the wrong direction.
“Have you talked to them?” Andrew asked. “Tyler and Gage? Since you came up with this idea?”
“Yeah. I’ve been checking in with them now and then,” Ryder confessed. “I wanted to see how Sara was settling in, and I had a few questions.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Like why they’d decided to ask Sara to stay.”
“I think that’s pretty obvious,” Andrew said. “They were in love with her.”
“Yeah, but they were happy just the two of them before she showed up. I wondered why they thought that this was better—what they gained.”
“What did they tell you?”
Ryder shrugged. “They gave me a lot of reasons. It works for them, and a lot of those reasons apply to us, too. I think we could do this. You and me and Annie. We could be happy like that.”
Andrew didn’t respond, but he agreed. A moment later they pulled off the road and into the parking lot of the diner.
“Let’s go get her,” Ryder said.
They’d barely gotten out of the truck when Annie came out to meet them. She looked different, but in the best possible way. Gone were her usual jeans and her diner apron. She wore a red and white summer dress that somehow managed to be conservative and sexy at the same time. She wore it with cowgirl boots, which had always been a huge turn on for Andrew. Her brown hair, which was normally pulled up out of the way was falling down around her shoulders in soft curls, and there were blond highlights in it that he’d never noticed before. It was enough to stop him in his tracks right there in the parking lot.
“You look amazing,” Ryder said, walking right up to her and slipping an arm around her waist.
Still fumbling for words, Andrew walked around and opened the passenger door of the truck. “Amazing doesn’t do you justice,” he finally said. “I’m so glad you’ve decided to join us.”
“Me, too,” she agreed before climbing up into the cab. Ryder helped her up and then slid in beside her. Andrew took a minute to catch his breath before walking back around to the other side and climbing in himself. Let the games begin.
It wasn’t nearly as awkward as Andrew feared it might be. Ryder seemed comfortable, and he had Annie laughing up a storm pretty quickly. It was all he could do to keep one eye on the road, and not both of them on her bare legs. Her thigh was brushing his, and she hadn’t shied away when he’d touched her hip reaching to connect his seatbelt. They usually had the counter between them at the restaurant, so it was nice, being closer to her in the truck. He could smell her faint perfume and feel the slight heat radiating off her skin.
“So what’s on the agenda for tonight?” Annie asked.
“There’s a flyer for the fair in the glove box if you want to look,” Andrew answered, “all kinds of stuff going on.”
Ryder found the flyer and handed it to Annie who started reading through the list of tractor pulls, musical acts, and farm show activities.
“Anything strike your fancy?”
“It all sounds good to me,” Annie said.
It sounded good to Andrew, too. The more he settled in, the happier he was that he’d decided to come.
The fair was in full swing by the time they arrived so they followed the parking attendants down a long field that was doubling as a parking lot. Andrew helped Annie down out of the truck, thankful that she’d gotten out on his side. She got in on Ryder’s side, so it was only fair. He wondered how long it would take before he stopped thinking about everything like that. When did you find that natural equality and stop worrying about who got more time with her? It had to happen eventually.
They waited in the short line side-by-side to get tickets and then joined the already rambunctious crowd inside.
Chapter 4
Annie couldn’t remember when she’d had a better time. She wasn’t used to being the center of attention, and while it was a little awkward at first, she’d eventually decided to just enjoy it. Why not? She had two fantastic men who, for some unknown reason, seemed committed to making sure that she was having the time of her life, and they were doing a pretty good job.
They bought her funnel cake, and cotton candy, neither of which she’d have eaten on her own, but when you split them three ways, carnival food wasn’t as
overwhelming. She was currently sitting between them on a set of rather uncomfortable bleachers sipping lemonade that was really just a whole cup of wet sugar with a squeeze of lemon, and watching a demolition derby. Ryder had his arm around her waist from behind and Andrew had his fingers laced through her own in the front. It was strange, she’d admit, but it felt good, and she was just going to go with it for now.
This was definitely a date. It felt like a date. They hadn’t stopped touching her from the moment she climbed into that truck, and they were pulling out all the stops on flirtation, but she was worried about how it would end. What if they asked her to choose? What if after such a fun evening they sat her down and asked her to pick who she’d rather continue to see? That idea did not sit well with her at all. But what was the alternative? They couldn’t do this forever, could they?
“Oh! Did you see that?” Ryder yelled. He was referring to a giant pileup at the end of the arena.
Annie laughed and Andrew squeezed her hand. She fought the urge to look around. No one seemed to be paying them any attention, and no one had seemed the least bit concerned all night that she had two dates, but it was all she could think about. What if someone said something?
Of course what did she care? This wasn’t her hometown. She didn’t know anyone here, and even if she did, it didn’t matter. She was a grown woman and the world was changing. People were becoming more accepting of other people, at least she hoped that were true, and after twenty-eight years of doing exactly what a small-town girl is supposed to do, she was having fun.
“You doing all right, darlin?” Andrew asked. “You look lost in thought.”
“I’m great,” she answered. “But I need a ladies room. Bathroom break?”
It was like she was fifteen all over again and couldn’t go to the Port-A-Potty by herself. Both men went with her and insisted on guarding the door. It might have been insulting if it weren’t so cute.
After that, they walked around for a while, looking at the farm show animals and the homemade quilts and pies. It was getting dark and the lights had come on in all the game booths and carnival rides. The air felt like it was charged with electricity and romance.
Blair, Samantha - Pioneers [Protectors 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 2
