“Can I ask you something?” I tore the napkin into little strips and tried to shore up my courage. I wanted to ask about Clayton. What he was like, where he went, what he did. Anything to get insight on the male who’d consumed my dreams last night.
Even as I told myself I wanted his friendship to cement a fragile tie to Harper, I knew it was a lie. I wanted him for purely selfish reasons having nothing to do with his brother and everything to do with how I’d felt in his arms last night.
Emma wiped her hands with a rag threaded through her apron loop. “Shoot.”
“Do you think that I’ll see Clayton again? Is he…?”
The way her nostrils flared made me rethink my question. Emma definitely had some kind of history with him, and it didn’t appear to be the happy kind. I wanted to ask if he and Dana were attached, but chickened out and jerked a thumb towards table five.
“It’s been fifteen minutes. I bet Mr. Jenkins is tapping his foot and checking his watch. You better top off his coffee soon if you want to earn that ten-cent tip.”
Emma glanced over, chuckling. “You’re so bad.” But she picked up the last pot of coffee off the line and carried it over to the waiting gentleman, using the final drops to refill his cup.
I exhaled once she walked out of hearing range.
The muffled ring of the telephone cut through the silence. “You want me to get that?”
She topped off the almost level mug of coffee and walked back to the bar to set the pot on the counter. “Nice try, but you have ten minutes left. Don’t move a muscle or I’ll make you sit out another ten just for spite.”
I shrugged and let my head rest against the vinyl seatback. A minute or two passed while I considered whether or not rephrasing my question might help deflect some of her anger. When she rounded the corner, worry knitted her forehead. Her hands fumbled with her apron strings, caught between untying them and making the knots worse.
“Are you okay? Who was on the phone?”
“That was Dana.” She dropped her hands. “Apparently Parker took a dare from one or both of his brothers to fly up to the roof of the inn.”
I sat upright. “Is he okay? Did they get him down?”
“He’s down all right. He got scared and fell off the edge. Dana sounded certain his leg is broken. She wanted to know if I could baby-sit the inn and the guilty parties while she drives Parker to the emergency room.”
I shooed her with my hands, poised to pull off the icepack. “Go on.” I gestured towards the vacant restaurant. “It’s not like there’s anything happening here. Besides, you’ll be right across the street.”
“I can’t leave you alone. Anything could happen. Maybe Lynn could come in for the last half of the shift. It’s only a few hours. Her male can live without her that long.”
The tinkle of the tiny silvery bell hung over the entrance intruded into our conversation. We both glanced over, expecting to see one of the regulars, but finding Clayton instead.
He nodded to Emma before shooting me a dimpled grin. My heart skipped faster and my hands turned clammy. The taste of his impulsive kiss from the night before seemed to flavor my tongue. I didn’t know what to say to him.
Emma didn’t have that problem. “What do you think you’re doing here?”
He held up a bouquet of daisies. The multicolored kind you bought at the grocery store and wondered if nature or food coloring lent them their vibrancy. A tiny rectangle of cardstock peeked just over the top with the words “Get Well Soon” emblazoned on them.
“I came to see how Madelyn was feeling today.”
He crossed the restaurant, bypassed a none-too-pleased Emma, and sat on the bench opposite me. He offered me the flowers with a quick jut of his arm. Maybe he was embarrassed, which I’m sure had nothing to do with my sister standing just over his shoulder, staring daggers at his back.
When I took the bouquet, our fingers met around the bundled stems and the spark of something arced between us.
“Thank you.” The scent of permanent marker used to sign his name to the card made my nose wrinkle.
“You’re welcome. How are you feeling?”
“Sore, but I’ve felt worse.” I tried to soften that truth with a smile, but I don’t think either of them bought it. I ushered Emma with my hands. “Parker’s waiting. You’d better go.”
Clayton asked, “What happened to Parker?”
I worded my answer carefully. “He fell from the inn’s roof and probably broke his leg when he landed. Emma”—I gave her my most severe look—“is going to cover for Dana while she takes him in to the hospital.”
I watched for his reaction. He frowned over the news, but didn’t dash from the diner or ask to make a phone call. I couldn’t see a male like Clayton not caring for his offspring, so his casual acceptance of Parker’s injury made me question my hasty judgment. Maybe he wasn’t their father after all.
Emma’s hard stare dragged me from my thoughts. “I haven’t decided if I’m going or not. I don’t want to leave you alone.” She dug in her pockets. “I’ll see if Lynn or Marci are home.”
Clayton’s gaze touched on points around the open eat-in area. “I haven’t been here in years.” His lips tipped up in a smile reminiscent of a child caught doing something bad. “I do have Dana sneak me hamburgers from time to time. The food here is the best in town.” He cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind having a trainee underfoot, I’d be glad to stay and help out. That way Emma could leave and you wouldn’t be alone.”
“That would be—”
“No, absolutely not,” she snapped, holding the phone to her ear. “Damn it, is no one ever at home when you need them?”
I groaned. “You need to go. There’s a five-year-old boy in pain, waiting on you to get your butt in gear. Clayton is already here and the inn is just across the street.”
As she looked through the window, I saw her resolve weaken and the phone flip closed. “Fine, but you keep your phone on and in your pocket. Call me if he so much as looks at you funny.”
“Will do.” I offered her a mock salute.
She spared another second to glare at Clayton before pushing through the front door, jogging across the pavement and disappearing inside the modest house turned local inn.
He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “So, what does a waiter-in-training do around here?”
I pointed towards the bar. “He puts on a pot of fresh coffee. Emma just poured the last drop.” I paused. “Are you okay to be around it?”
“I had my round with caffeine a long time ago.” He laughed softly. “My father beat that addiction right out of my hide.”
His joking tone led me to believe his beatings were of a different sort than the ones I’d grown up experiencing. But the subject of his father did make me wonder. “Was he a hard man?”
Clayton shrugged. “He was a lot of things, but yes, hard was one of them.” He pushed away from the table and any other questions I might have asked. His skilled avoidance of subjects he didn’t want to talk about with me only succeeded in making me more curious about him. “Is there anything else that needs doing?”
I swallowed noticeably. “Just listen out for the bell over the door. Nurse Emma says I’m booth bound for at least another five minutes.”
“Good for her. You need to rest that knee.”
Despite the dull throb in my knee, I felt fine. I could have gone hiking today. I would go hiking tomorrow, whether my sister approved of it or not. My skin itched from being confined to small spaces. I wanted fresh air and sunshine, not recycled blasts from the circulating heat vents and fluorescent lighting.
“I’m perfectly fine.” I balled up the mess I’d made in my palm. “There’s no reason I couldn’t be at Emasen instead of here.”
“Emasen?”
“Yes, I hike Emasen, thank you very much. Every Wednesday, except today because of yesterday’s…mishap.”
“That’s a very dangerous pass. You’re better off waiting until you can
handle it.”
“You know what?” I snatched the bag of ice from my knee and slid from the booth. “Never mind about the coffee, I’ll get it myself.”
My uneven stride was worsened by my frozen-stiff kneecap. Instead of storming off into the kitchen, it was more of an undignified hobbling. I snatched the empty pot off the counter and went into the kitchen to give it a quick rinse in the stainless-steel sink. The dull roar of high water pressure meeting sink basin meant I didn’t hear Clayton follow me.
I did feel him tug the end of my long braid to get my attention. I twisted around to face him and found he still held the rope of hair in his hand.
“Is there something I can help you with?” I planted my feet, determined not to find the way his broad shoulders hemmed me in unnerving.
He shrugged, still fingering the ends. “I have a confession to make.” His voice wavered with the same indecision causing me to slip on my first attempt to turn off the faucet. I picked at my fingernails to avoid looking into his face.
“Okay, let’s hear it.”
I could have kicked myself for prompting him, but he made me curious. I couldn’t imagine anything making this male nervous, but I saw the fine tremors move through his hand. He disguised it by fumbling my braid.
“I used to watch you.”
I tore my nail down to the quick and cursed as a perfect blood drop formed on my finger. “Damn it.” It stung, but was hardly life threatening. Determined, I still played up the wound to make the most of his momentary shift in focus. I needed a minute. Sixty minutes wouldn’t be enough to pull order from the chaos of my thoughts.
Clayton lifted my hand to his opened mouth. His lips closed around my finger. My eyes fluttered shut before I could stop them. When his tongue swirled around my finger, my other hand grasped the sink for support. I didn’t want him to stop.
I bit back a moan. “You watched me?”
He released my finger with a kiss to the tip. His shoulders rolled. “I tried not to. I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help myself.”
His downcast eyes and guilty expression softened me. I tipped his chin up with my finger. “Why are you doing this? We hardly know one another.”
He turned his cheek into my hand so that I flattened my palm against his rugged jaw. The same heat from the night before rekindled, roaring to life. “I know you don’t know me,” he said. “But the way Harper talked about you…I feel as if I know you, like I’ve always known you.”
His strong thumbs rolled over the joints in my fingers. “I know that you grew lilacs in a planter box outside of your bedroom window in Rihos.” I barely noticed his subtle shift closer. “And that Harper knocked it loose learning to fly so that it always tilted to one side.”
The center of my chest filled with something achingly sweet. He knew me in the same way I knew him, through snippets of conversation and shared spaces. How many times had we walked down a common path without our lives crossing? How many times had he made certain they didn’t?
I noticed we now stood chest to chest. “I don’t know—”
“Just give me a chance.” He coaxed my hand from his face to drape it across his shoulder. “I promise you won’t regret it.”
I had time. If I hadn’t wanted what he offered, I could have stopped him then and there, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Under his fingers, my senses awakened with a deep stirring I wanted to experience. I needed to feel that way again.
His dark head lowered, lips parting just before they reached mine. The first light tease of his mouth across mine had my fingers digging into his shirt. His touch was gentle, asking. I answered the only way I could. Grasping his shoulder, I urged him down to me.
When his tongue thrust through my parted lips, I moaned and leaned into him. He backed me until his hips pinned mine to the sink basin. Pleasure preceded panic as his large body corralled mine. Maybe I wasn’t ready. This could be a huge mistake. He might not even realize what he was asking.
“We can’t just,” I gasped. “There are customers out there and they might need me.”
“I need you more than they do.” His lips rejoined mine, kissing me once, twice.
I wanted to believe him, but how could I? I couldn’t forgive myself if I took advantage of him while my body coursed with pheromones designed to make him act this way. I broke away from him, needing space to clear my head.
The shop’s bell tinkled, followed by the low hum of eager, excited voices.
Relieved by the interruption, I seized the opportunity with both hands. “What is all that noise? One of us needs to go find out.” I walked towards the hall, but his muscular arm braced across the doorway and blocked me inside the kitchen.
“It sounds almost like…” He stuck his head out to look around the corner. “It is.” He sighed and adjusted a bulge in his pants that hadn’t been there moments before. My gaze darted away quickly. Not that I had been looking. “Oh, hell, it’s a busload of kids. I see a couple dozen and they’re still coming.”
Clayton thumped his forehead against the wooden trim of the doorway. His expression turned so dire, I grinned. I couldn’t help it.
“Come on, waiter boy. Let’s see what you’re made of. Surely, the colony leader can handle a couple dozen kids looking for the chicken snack special?”
I fished a pad and pen from my pocket and offered them to him. He took them with a resigned grunt as I grabbed his arms and twisted him around to face the hall. “It’s easy. You seat them in groups of four until we run out of booths, then you move on to tables. Then you ask, ‘What would you like to drink?’ Hand out the menus—wait five minutes and ask, ‘Are you ready to order?’”
He spun around and reeled me against him, capturing my mouth with his. I raised my fingers to touch where my lips still tingled. “What was that for?”
“Luck.”
Supplies in hand, he went to face our customers while I turned up the fryer and added more oil. Then I hauled out bags of frozen French fries and baggies full of Emma’s special-recipe chicken strips from the walk-in freezer.
I paused as I heard Clayton’s raised voice drift down the short hall. “What would you like to drink?” he asked, followed by a cacophony of noise as dozens of children answered all in the same breath.
I chuckled, almost feeling sorry for him as I dropped the first batch of chicken into the grease.
Hours later, the kids were gone, the tables cleared, the floors mopped and the closed sign flipped over.
Clayton sank into a worn dining chair just inside the kitchen. “I don’t see how you do that every day.”
I looked up from loading the dishwasher. “It’s not that intense every day. Mainly on weekends or the odd holiday, but most days it’s not a bad way to make a living. I enjoy it.”
The heavier pans clattered as I dropped them into the deep, industrial-grade sink.
“Can I give you a hand with those?”
“Sure.” I paused, considering. “You do know how to wash dishes, right?”
A few feet above the sink hung a coil of ribbed silver tubing ending in a spray nozzle. The premise was simple. You pulled and water came out of the end.
“I have washed dishes before, you know. You have to learn a lot of things living on your own, but I guess I don’t have to tell you that.”
“Fine,” I said, unconvinced. “Show me.”
He reached up and gave a swift yank on the bell-shaped head, activating the sprayer at full power. I heard the water bounce off the metal pans still crusted with biscuits left over from breakfast. His hand opened and the cord pulled taut, retracting as he cursed and jumped backwards.
When he turned around, his white polo shirt was slicked to his stomach, and I could count the ridges of muscles in his abdomen. He was soaked from chest to crotch. I cleared my throat and found something interesting in the doodling around our shift schedule to hold my attention.
“It’s stronger than what I’m used to, okay?”
Between his defensive to
ne, his confounded expression and his soaked clothes, I couldn’t help it. I laughed. It was easy to relax with him. He uncorked all the laughter I’d bottled up over the last few years until it released in a rush that cramped my stomach as I doubled over, gasping for breath.
His hand lifted, going for the sprayer again. Instinct told me to run and run fast before he had the chance to do whatever it was making his eyes gleam and his lips hitch up to one side.
I spun around and barely made the doorway just before a stream of icy water hit the small of my back. Water seeped into my pants and soaked my underwear, running down my legs until even my shoes squelched.
“What was that for?” Now the loose shirt I wore over my tank top clung to my skin.
“Payback.” His lips formed a wicked grin.
“I didn’t do anything to get paid back for. You were the one who said he knew how to work the sprayer.” I fumbled the hair band from my braid and finger combed the length until it covered my soaked back.
“You laughed at me.”
“It was funny.”
He grabbed the hose again. “I’ll be more careful this time.”
“No.” I backed out of range just in case he got any ideas. “Just leave them. I’ll do it. Just let me mop up this mess first.” I took a step and slipped a fraction, wincing when my bad knee sailed out from under me.
Clayton cleared the distance in four swift strides. He bent down, getting level with my stomach, and hauled me up over his shoulder. “I made the mess. I’ll clean it up. Just tell me where the mop is.”
I pounded my balled-up fists against his back. “Put me down. Now. Or I’m calling Emma.”
“Tattletale,” he teased, and swatted my bottom with his open hand.
“Oww.” I would have fought harder if I hadn’t looked down and noticed the bunch and flex of his ass moving beneath the faded denim of his jeans. I was tempted to reach down and give his bottom a good, solid whack, but I didn’t want to encourage him.
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