“Don’t be ridiculous.” I waved a dismissive hand, but my voice came out less sharp than I intended. “I can’t have people leaving here looking like they’re upset. Rumors would spread that Pati’s losing her touch in the kitchen.”
“Well, don’t you worry your pretty head about it.” There was the flirtation again, but it felt forced. Automatic. Like he was going through the motions because that was what he always did. “I won’t be leaving just yet.”
“I’m sixty-eight years old. My head stopped being pretty about two decades ago.”
He leaned forward, his eyes dark and hungry as they locked on mine. “Bullshit, darlin’. You got more curves and fire in that body than women half your age could dream of. And that mouth...” He dragged his gaze down to my lips, then back up, slow and deliberate. “That mouth of yours could make a deadman rise. Trust me, I know what I’m lookin’ at, and what I’m lookin’ at is one hell of a woman.”
“Stop.” I held up a hand, hating the way my pulse jumped. Hating that at my age, with everything I’d been through, this man could still make me feel like a foolish girl. “Just... stop.”
He set the money on the counter—exact change this time, I noticed—and turned his back on me. He walked to the window and sat down at the table.
That table.
The same table Grace and Karlyn had sat at all those months back, before the world fell apart. Before the Death Dogs. Before everything changed.
I watched him as he sat down and pulled a book out of the inside pocket of his jacket. Not a book, a journal, leather-bound and worn. He leaned on the table and opened it up, his large hands surprisingly gentle as he turned the pages.
I should have gone back to work. Should have left him alone. Should have done literally anything other than stand there staring at him like some lovesick teenager.
But I couldn’t look away.
I tried not to stare at him. Didn’t want him to think I was being nosy. But the truth was, I was nosy as hell, and I wanted to know everything. What was in that journal? Why did he look so lost? What had happened to put that expression on his face, as if he were reading something that broke his heart and healed it at the same time?
I watched the smile spread over his face, soft and sad and achingly tender. And I wanted to know what had put it there.
Who had put it there?
A woman, probably. Some memory of a love lost or a life left behind. He was Grace’s father, which meant there had been a mother somewhere. Someone he’d cared about enough to create a child with.
The thought shouldn’t have bothered me. It did anyway.
“Stop being an idiot,” I muttered to myself, gripping the edge of the counter. “He’s just a customer. An annoying, arrogant, too-handsome-for-his-own-good customer who leaves ridiculous tips and says inappropriate things and?—”
And I was thinking about him way too much.
Before I could stop myself, before I could think about what I was doing or why, I reached into the display case and pulled out a bear claw. His usual. I set it on a plate, the porcelain cool against my palms.
This was stupid. This was breaking my own rules. This was showing him that I cared, that I’d noticed his routine, that his sadness affected me.
I didn’t care. I wasn’t affected. This was just... customer service. Good business practice. That was all.
I walked around the counter, my footsteps too loud in the quiet shop. Pati was in the back, and the morning rush hadn’t started yet. It was just him and me and the weight of six months of unspoken things hanging in the air between us.
I walked until I was standing in front of him. He looked up as I set the plate on the table, and our eyes met. Up close, I could see the silver in his stubble, the tiny scar above his left eyebrow, the way his pupils dilated slightly as he looked at me.
I could smell his cologne, something woodsy and masculine that made me think of leather and motorcycles and bad decisions.
I walked away before I could do something truly stupid. Like asking him what was wrong. Like touching his shoulder. Like sitting down across from him and demanding to know why he looked so lost.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice quiet. Sincere.
No flirtation. No crude words. No cocky grin or suggestive comment.
Just... thank you.
I nodded without turning around, busying myself with wiping down the already-clean counter.
He wasn’t acting like himself. He wasn’t flirting with me and making innuendos that made me blush and curse him under my breath. He wasn’t leaving hundred-dollar bills or asking me out or looking at me like I was the most interesting thing he’d seen all day.
