Sitting at a four-top with her mother. As ever, just looking at him made her treacherous heart do a little happy skip.
Stop that at once, she sternly told her heart. And not for the first time.
He was wearing a black leather jacket and jeans and motorcycle boots, and he gazed at her with eyes the color of whiskey.
No wolf should ever be that handsome. It was just wrong. It was distracting. Liable to cause accidents when people couldn’t stop staring at him and walked into walls.
Austin was dangerous, that’s what he was. He should have a “Warning: hazardous materials” label slapped on his forehead.
As she walked over, she saw that there was an empty plate in front of him, with a shred of lettuce on it. And a twenty-dollar bill.
So. Austin was an insanely generous tipper. Damn it, couldn’t he just be a jerk all the time?
As she reached the table, Austin flashed her an enormous, taunting grin.
She slid her hand into her pants pocket.
He stood up, threw his arms around her, and murmured in her ear, “Is that a Taser in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
Now how thehelldid he know that? And why did he have to smell so delicious and feel so good? His body was so solid it might as well have been carved out of marble, except marble wasn’t warm and musky.
She wriggled out of his grasp, praying that he hadn’t felt her diamond-hard nipples pressing into his chest. But he probably had, because nothing got past him, the bastard.
Before she could inflict grievous bodily harm on him, her mother stood up too.
“Yourfriendcame by here with half of the bounty from the other day, from that fellow who ran off,” she said, putting way too much emphasis on the word friend. What had Austin told her? “And he insisted on buying the Haymarches’ lunch and paying their full tab. And treated Anthony to an extra lunch and dessert. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. What a sweetheart!”
Her jaw dropped.Their full tab?That had to be hundreds of dollars. Close to a thousand, probably.
Anthony was sitting at the counter, with an empty platter in front of him, next to three empty pie plates and an empty milkshake glass.
Savannah looked at Austin warily, and he rewarded her with a sunny, innocent smile.
“I don’t owe you guys anything any more, so you can’t give me a hard time,” Anthony called out, and he stuck his tongue out at her, then turned and ran for the kitchen.
Normally, Savannah would have chased him and smacked him, but she was too busy being shocked right out of her shoes.
“Half of the bounty?” she said suspiciously to Austin.
“Yep.” Austin’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “I know we were going to split it, since you did half the work. And since it was my fault that he escaped, I figured I owed you.”
What the hell was he playing at here?
“I tried to tell him that he didn’t have to pay you, since the guy ran off and neither of you got the bounty,” her mother added.
“Of course you did.” She rolled her eyes. They were broke as a joke, and her mother still insisted on being painfully, scrupulously honest.
“Savannah, you never told me your mother was such a wonderful cook.” Austin grinned at her, then put his arm around her shoulders. His muscular arm felt so good, so right. She fought the urge to rub up against him and purr.Foxes don’t purr. What the hell was the matter with her?
She shrugged him off and stepped away, shooting him a look that dared him to touch her again.
“And you never told me that you had such a charming boyfriend,” her mother burbled to her. “A Bronson, at that! I did a couple of quick internet searches after he told me. Just on my phone. So far, he checks out completely. And it was so sweet of him to move all the way across the state to be closer to you, I almost forgive you for not telling me sooner.”
“Hey, is that your boyfriend?” Jessamine had emerged from the kitchen, and she was standing in the doorway, using her outside voice. The one where she yelled really loudly. “Are you dating a wolf?” she called out across the room. “Is it true what they say about wolves?”
Savannah didn’t want to know what they said about wolves. She wanted her sister to explode into flames. “If you want to keep your scalp attached to your head, you’ll shut up,” she yelled back. Everyone in the entire restaurant was staring at her with intense interest.
She returned her attention to Austin, staring up into his eyes. “Austin, dear, we need to talk.” Savannah fluttered her lashes at him. “Can we step outside for just a minute?”
