Single Dad’s Waitress

by Amelia Wilde

  The pause was an invitation, and it struck me like a thick bolt of lightning that I hadn’t offered her my damn name. “Ryder.” I shifted Minnie’s weight on my hip and stuck my hand out to Valentine. “Ryder Harrison.”

  She took my hand with a surprisingly strong grip, blushing even more furiously. “Valentine.”

  I didn’t want to drop her hand, but I did. “I knew that already.”

  The little smile playing over her lips just about drove me crazy right there in the entryway of the Short Stack. “Valentine Carr.”

  “Valentine Carr.” Sharon, the woman in black behind the counter, straightened up and moved into the kitchen, out of sight. “Tell me, Valentine Carr. Why do you know so much about this rental cottage?”

  She looked me square in the eye and bit her lip, letting the question hang in the air for just a heartbeat. When she finally took in a breath it was like I felt it in my own lungs. “Well,” she said, her voice smooth in my ears, “because it’s right across the street from where I’m living.”

  The cottage is only a couple miles out of town, but it’s all green out here—green leaves on the trees, green grass. I pull into the driveway, double-check the address, and get my first look at my new home.

  Valentine was right. This might be a simple place—wood siding painted white, small and compact, with red shutters—but something about it makes me think it’s the perfect summer place for me and Minnie.

  And not because Valentine lives somewhere nearby.

  I step out of the car and twist around, my hand on the back of my neck. The Culvers’ property has a long front yard, ending in a two-lane road. There are two maple trees on the other side of the road, but beyond that, I can’t see any houses.

  I move one step toward the road. Right across the street clearly doesn’t mean right across the street, so where the hell is Valentine’s house?

  Minnie sees me moving and screeches. “Daddy! No! Don’t do that!”

  Don’t do that has to be one of my daughter’s top ten phrases. I’m sure I’ll appreciate it more when she’s older. I open the back door and start unbuckling her belt. “Don’t do what, Minnie?”

  “Don’t do that walking.”

  “I wasn’t going anywhere.”

  When I lift her out of the car seat, she wraps her arms around my neck and leans her head into my shoulder. She must be damn exhausted because normally she’d be begging to walk by herself.

  I take one last look across the street...but I can’t. Not right now. I’ve got to get shit set up for Minnie.

  I hold her in one arm while I pop the trunk, slinging two duffel bags and a Pack ‘N Play over my shoulder. We haven’t been living with much.

  “Baby doll,” she says suddenly. The baby doll went everywhere with her right up until we came to Lakewood, and she just spied it in the trunk. I lean down, slowly, because I’m carrying all of our worldly possessions, and dangle her just close enough to grab it. She buries her face in my shoulder, and we head inside.

  In less than ten minutes I have her bed set up, and she’s napping, sound asleep. I go to check out the house.

  Two bedrooms, one with a queen and one with a twin and a desk. A decent kitchen. A nice living room with a fireplace. A bathroom that looks like it was renovated fairly recently, and that’s it. That’s the whole place.

  I can feel my shoulders relaxing. This kind of place? This is simple. This is easy.

  Nothing like New York.

  The furniture in the living room looks a little worn, but sturdy, and it’s been carefully cleaned. I take a seat in a recliner by the window and settle in, letting out a sigh, breathing in the silence.

  I watch the cars go by.

  I tell myself again and again that I’m not looking for Valentine.

  9

  Valentine

  It’s been two days, and I have never been more invested in my job at the Short Stack. And it’s not just because Ryder left a ridiculously large tip on his bill and moved in across the street.

  This morning, I woke up an hour before my alarm and couldn’t go back to sleep. I felt like a kid at Christmas, only I don’t know if Christmas is actually coming.

  Christmas being another appearance by Ryder Harrison, who has infiltrated all of my dreams.

  Yesterday afternoon, when my shift was over, I’d made a point of driving down the road to my house at exactly the same speed I always drive. I am not going to be the kind of creeper who slows down to peer in the front windows of a rental cottage that he might be living in.

  I’d be lying if I said my heart didn’t speed up at the sight of the beat-up Chrysler in the driveway and the light spilling out into the yard.

  My phone, ringing in my purse, ended up shattering the fantasy of baking something and taking it over, just on the off chance that it’s really him. I’d pulled it out only to have my heart sink at the sight of Conrad’s name on the Caller ID. Like a fool, I’d answered.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m going to need you to come get your things,” he’d said, his voice clipped and flat.

  “Things?” I couldn’t think of a single thing I’d left at his place in the city.

  “There are some papers here. Records.” He’d held his hand over the phone then, speaking to someone else in the background. My heart twisted in my chest. I’m supposed to be over him, but the sound of his voice, so dismissive, so damn rude, cut me to the core. “And a sweater.”

  Then I was pissed. “Conrad,” I’d said, ice in my tone, “you could just mail those things to me.” I don’t give a damn about the sweater, not really, but the records.... I need those.

  “You didn’t leave a forwarding address, Valentine.” He’d thrown the words at me like I’d been the one to break up with him, like I kicked him out.

  “Do you have a paper and pen?”

  “What? No, I—” He sighed heavily, like I was asking him to do something impossibly difficult. “Yes. Go ahead.”

  I rattled off my address, feeling like I was on a call with a snarky customer service representative. “I’ll reimburse the shipping costs if you need me to.”

  He doesn’t need me to, and we both know it. “That’s fine,” he said. “I’ll put them in the mail.”

  “Thanks.”

  He let out another sigh. “Listen, I’m sorry if I was rude. Things haven’t been easy lately.”

  I had to stifle a bitter laugh. Things haven’t been easy for him? “I’m sure.”

  “I always liked Lakewood,” he says, almost wistful, and my jaw drops open. What the hell is he thinking? “Maybe later in the summer I could head up for the day, if you wanted to grab—”

  “Jesus, Conrad.”

  “What?”

  This was classic Conrad. An asshole one moment, then playing the hurt little boy the next. It was always about him. Always.

  He spoke into the pause. “Are you doing okay?”

  It was so damn insincere, so false, that I couldn’t stand it. “I’m done talking, Conrad. I have to go.”

  He’d ended the call with an abrupt click, leaving me feeling deflated, like a week-old party balloon. After that, I wasn’t in the mood for baking. I especially wasn’t in the mood to take a risk on a man. Even a man who looks like Ryder Harrison.

  But this morning, my heart was beating hard before I even climbed out of bed. Once I did, there was no going back. A strange, giddy energy carried me all the way to the Short Stack. I was there before Gerald, even, and had to unlock by myself.

  A full forty minutes of scrubbing down already-clean tables later, Gerald and Sharon showed up together, having the kind of loud conversation you only ever have if you think you’re walking into an empty building. When Sharon saw me, she gasped. “Valentine, you scared the shit out of me.”

  I’d been working in the dark so as not to attract any early customers, and I had to laugh at Sharon’s shocked face. “Sorry. Couldn’t sleep.”

  She’d narrowed her eyes. “Why not?”


  I shrugged, and I knew the instant I did it that it came off as totally unconvincing. “Just...ready to get a head start on the day.”

  She gave me a knowing smile and disappeared into the kitchen, shoulder to shoulder with Gerald.

  I’m not fooling anyone. I can’t even convince myself that I don’t have a wild crush on a customer I’ve only seen once.

  But he didn’t show, not at breakfast, and not at lunch, and every time the door opened and it wasn’t him, my heart sank a little more. Sharon saw.

  “It’s not personal, sweetheart,” she told me when I was grabbing the last of the lunch orders. “Maybe he’s just not hungry.”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “I am not waiting for him to show up.”

  I completely was.

  I hang up my apron on the hook in the kitchen, wave goodbye to Gerald and Sharon, and head out onto the sidewalk. I parked at the local library today to get in a bit of a walk after work, but I haven’t gone half a block before someone screeches my name.

  “Val! Val!” I turn, a smile on my face before I even see hers. Cecily Harwood has been my best friend since the second grade, and here she is, screaming at me like I might not hear her in the midst of all this peaceful quiet. She comes barreling down the block at me, wrapping me in her arms like we haven’t seen each other in years, squeezing tight.

  “Oof. Let go of me, woman.”

  She holds me at arm’s length like she’s playing my mother on TV and looks me up and down. “Valentine, are you all right?”

  If it were anybody else, I’d laugh in their face, but Cecily—Cece to just about everybody—is utterly sincere. She’s sincere in a way that I can never seem to pull off. With me, it’s all or nothing. Witty and cool, or totally awkward. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  She clicks her tongue. “Seriously. Are you okay? I know you’ve only been back a couple weeks, but—”

  Oh. So she’s not talking about the fact that Ryder Harrison didn’t show up at the Short Stack today. She’s talking about Conrad. And moving back. And all of it. I haven’t seen her since I got back to town, but I’ve kept her up to speed via text. About most things.

  “Conrad called yesterday,” I say, trying to keep things nonchalant but totally unable to keep anything to myself.

  “He did?” Cece purses her lips. She disapproves of Conrad, no surprise, but alongside her sincerity, she loves gossip.

  “Walk me to my car and I’ll tell you about it.”

  She walks the next four blocks with me, and I tell her all about that asshole Conrad wanting me to drive several hours to pick up some papers and a sweater, for God’s sake. “You should block him,” she tells me when I’m done. “Block his number.”

  “I will. But I want to talk to you about that guy who came into the Short Stack.” I blush just saying that phrase out loud, which is ridiculous. “I can’t stop thinking—” I reach for my phone, but—damn. It’s not in my pocket. I always put it right back in my pocket after my shift, but I like to keep it...in my apron. It’s hanging with my apron right now. “Shit, Cece, I left my phone at work. I’m going to run back and get it.”

  “No way! Tell me about this new obsession of yours!” Her eyes sparkle.

  “I don’t want to make you late. Don’t you have a class?” Cece owns a pottery shop on Main Street, where you can paint your own plates and mugs and serving trays, and the evening class is about to start.

  She pouts. “Fine. But you’re not off the hook. Text me!”

  “I will.”

  Then she’s moving again, a blur of blonde hair flying back toward the main drag. It’s only a few seconds before she turns the corner. As soon as she’s out of sight, I turn on my heel, ready to hustle back to the Short Stack.

  But I’m stopped short, running straight into what feels like a wall of muscle.

  Muscle...topped with frosting.

  10

  Ryder

  I take one step outside the bakery, still trying to close the top of the cupcake container, when a woman whirls right into me, crushing two of them against my shirt.

  “Oh, shit,” she says, her hands going out to the smear of frosting.

  Then her eyes go up to my face.

  “Oh, shit, it’s you,” she breathes.

  It’s Valentine, but here in the afternoon sun, she’s a different Valentine than the woman I snapped at during breakfast at the Short Stack two days ago.

  It’s only been two days, and I haven’t stopped thinking about her. Last night, I finally forced myself to stop staring out the front window like some kind of stalker and go to bed, even though I’m dying to know just how close Valentine’s house is to mine.

  Would a summer fling be so bad?

  She’s wearing the same black t-shirt as before, but now I can see the jean shorts that hug the curves of her hips, and damn if she’s not the most gorgeous woman on the planet.

  “First whipped cream, and now this?” I say it like I’m a little bit pissed off, but I can’t help grinning at her. I didn’t mean to run into her like this. I’m not the kind of man who normally buys cupcakes at the bakery. But they’re having a party at Minnie’s brand-new daycare. We walked in the place an hour ago, just to check it out, and she fell in love with the toys, with the other children, with the kindly middle-aged woman, Norma, who owns the place. Minnie didn’t want to leave, and I need to run some errands—namely, visiting my brother. All Norma asked was that we bring a little something for the party since she’d only planned on so many kids.

  So here I am, with cupcake frosting on my shirt and a pressing errand that I need to take care of.

  “Now this,” Valentine agrees, her eyes flicking over the mess on my shirt. Her expression changes, like she’s made a decision. “I think the whipped cream might have been a better look.”

  I give her a hurt expression. “Better than this?”

  She grins, opening her mouth to reply, but just then the bakery door opens and Leslie, the woman inside, is there holding another tray of cupcakes. “I saw what happened,” she says. “Some replacements, on the house.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” I tell her, but she’s already pressing the second tray into my hands—this one closed properly so no more accidents can happen. Then she’s gone, leaving Valentine and I standing out on the sidewalk, looking after her. “Tell me it’s not like this all the time.”

  “Like what?”

  “Sweeter than sweet.” I look back into Valentine’s green eyes. “So sweet it’s fucking disgusting.”

  Her mouth drops open a little, and then she laughs out loud. It’s not a nervous laugh, it’s full and pure, and I love the sound of it. “Sorry to disappoint, but that’s Lakewood.”

  “Damn. I was hoping at least one person here wouldn’t give me a canker sore from all the sugar.”

  Something has broken open between us, something has shifted in the air. I have to get back to that daycare, have to get back to the task at hand, but I don’t want to move an inch. I don’t want to shatter this moment.

  “I’m not sweet,” Valentine says abruptly.

  That calls for some serious side-eye. “Oh, please. I saw you blushing all during breakfast at the Short Stack.”

  “Being a good waitress doesn’t mean I’m like all of these people. Trust me.” There’s a defiance in her expression that makes me want to know more—makes me want to know everything.

  “Yeah? How are you any different?”

  “You’re one to judge,” she shoots back. “You live in a cottage by the lake, a cutesy place just like everybody else.”

  I pretend to be surprised. “Are you stalking me?”

  She rolls her eyes. “I notice when someone moves in across the street, yes.”

  “You also told me about the place when you didn’t have to.” I lean a little closer and get a big breath of her scent. Judging by her outfit, she’s been working at the Short Stack all morning, but underneath the smell of pancakes and bacon is something clean and pure and into
xicating. “It’s almost like...you wanted me to move there.”

  The air between us goes as hot as Valentine’s face. This is closer to flirting than we ever got during breakfast, not counting the whipped cream incident, and my mind screams a warning. This is how you got fucked over in the first place. I shove that thought out of my head. Not every single moment for the rest of my life has to be ruined by Angie. Only some of them.

  Valentine’s lips part, and damn if I don’t want to wrap my hand around the back of her head and pull her in for a kiss right now. If I weren’t holding these cupcakes... “That’s ridiculous,” she says, but I don’t quite believe her. “I don’t know anything about you.”

  “What more do you want to know? I’m an open book.”

  She laughs out loud again. “Ryder Harrison, you are the least open book ever to eat at the Short Stack.”

  “And yet we’re already on a first-name last-name basis.”

  “If we’re so close...” A playful look flashes across her face. “How come you haven’t stopped over to say hello, like a good neighbor?”

  “Whoever said I’d be a good neighbor? I won’t even be in town that long.”

  “I’m hoping you’ll be a bad one,” Valentine says with a wicked look in her eyes, and the next moment her face is a deep red. But she doesn’t look away from me. She commits. “You know, the kind of guy who...who’s always mowing the lawn.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Mowing the lawn?”

  “Mowing the lawn.” She’s deadly serious. “Shirtless.”

  11