I wonder if all this stress will help me shed some pounds?
“Sit,” Austin pointed to the table.
“But I need coffee.”
“I’ll bring it over.”
“You can’t possibly know how I take it.”
“I can, and I do.” Austin winked at my grandmother.
Austin served me a plate with two pancakes, a healthy serving of scrambled eggs topped with shredded cheese, and a cup of light colored coffee.
He’d gotten the creamer portion right, but did he get the sugar right?
Austin and my grandmother watched as I lifted the cup to my lips and took that blissful first sip.
Perfect. Of course.
“Thank you.”
Austin’s smile lit the room and melted my heart.
I stared into his steel-blue eyes, wondering how I’d ever thought he was a hard man. The man standing before me seemed happy doing something so mundane as serving me a perfect cup of coffee.
Hard men didn’t do that, did they?
But he seemed so distant when I first entered the kitchen.
Maybe Austin was actually sweet and caring, but had to be mean and nasty at work.
Why would a nice guy choose a job like that?
Maybe I’d have time to ask him at the safe house.
It’d taken me hours to come to terms with the safe house idea.
Hours and lots of tears. But I’d accepted it and fallen asleep trusting that John and SSI would keep my grandmother safe, and Austin and Ryan would stop the bad guys from hurting me.
“Eat.”
Austin’s awfully bossy this morning.
“Aren’t you guys eating?” I asked.
“Yes, after we clean up.”
He cooks and cleans? And he wants to protect me.
Be still my beating heart, he’d be the perfect hero for Ashley’s next book.
Too bad I wasn’t older. Or he wasn’t younger. Maybe we’d have a chance.
Look how many of the SSI guys found love while protecting someone.
But Austin didn’t work at SSI.
And I’m not like the women they fell in love with.
