Hank’s eyes widened as he gaped at the older man. “Are you serious? Ugh. I should’ve known.” He hung his head. “Well, then, Al, I apologize for stealing Arnie.”
A long pause preceded Al roaring with laughter. “That was you? I wondered who the hell took him!”
“Who’s Arnie?” Seth asked, glancing back and forth between the two men. He was almost a decade younger than Hank and Shane and hadn’t grown up in Hazard.
“My taxidermied armadillo! My dang uncle left him to me in his will—why, I’ll never know. I kept Arnie on a shelf behind the counter in the hardware store. Marla hated him, so I thought she threw him out one day.”
“I told you I didn’t,” his wife scolded.
“Yup, I took him.” Hank took a sip of his beer, then chuckled. “If you still want him back, though, he’s in my garage.”
Marla smacked the table. “Ohhh no! Over my dead body! You can keep him! I don’t want that stuffed armored-tank pig anywhere near the stores or my house.”
Her adamant and threatening protest set everyone off into fits of hysterics, to the point Marla and Nicole wiped tears from their eyes while Al, Lane, and Seth held their stomachs and tried to catch their breath. The raucous laughter became contagious because some people at the tables surrounding them joined in without even knowing what was so funny. It took a good two or three minutes before they all got themselves under control again.
Seth noticed a couple walk by with plates loaded with yummy-looking food. His stomach growled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten yet, and he stood. “I’m going to get on the chow line.”
Lane got to his feet. “Me too.”
“Marla and Al, go with them. We’ll save everyone’s seats and then get our food when you come back,” Nicole told them.
Seth and Lane got behind the Obermans at the back of the line for the buffet, which was moving slowly but steadily. When he reached the first table, Seth picked up a plate and a knife and fork wrapped in a cloth napkin, then grabbed a piece of cornbread.
Standing behind the first few chafing dishes filled with an assortment of entrees, Giselle Baker smiled at him. The dark-skinned woman was a few years older than Seth and married to Miranda, a pediatric nurse at the hospital in Wexler. “Hi, Seth. What can I get you?”
“Hey, Giselle. Let me have the brisket, a pork chop, and a thigh of the fried chicken, please.”
“You got it.”
After she plated his food, he moved further down the line to where one of the male servers stood behind a row of side dishes. Seth requested the mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans, and corn, leaving no room on his plate for anything else. All he needed to round off the meal was a bowl of Bar None’s amazing chili. It wasn’t a party without the local favorite, which was Lou’s great-grandfather’s secret recipe passed down through the generations.
When the Obermans received their bowls of chili and moved out of the way, he stepped down to a huge, steaming vat, inhaling deeply and savoring the aroma. But then he froze when he saw who was behind it, wearing a red Bar None polo shirt. “Shylo? What are you doing here?”
Chapter 5
Shylo’s eyes widened. The party had started almost an hour earlier, and she hadn’t seen Seth, so she thought maybe he hadn’t been invited. She’d learned the town had nearly four thousand residents, and obviously, they weren’t all at the restaurant. Then again, her attention was divided between doing her job and studying Shane.
She’d only discovered the party was for him while she and the other servers were setting up earlier. It surprised her, but shouldn’t have. She'd gotten his birthday from the P.I.'s report but had lost track of the date—it wasn’t as if she needed to know it over the past few days. And even if the party weren’t for him, it was a small town, so there was a chance he would be there.
She’d watched him make his way around the room, shaking hands and hugging people while chatting and swapping jokes with them. If she hadn’t already been introduced to the mayor of Hazard Falls on the dinner shift the previous night, she might have thought Shane held that position or wanted to be elected, by the way he interacted with everyone.
However, her attention was now fully focused on the sexy as hell man who stood in front of her with a curious expression. He cleaned up well, and with his black cowboy hat pushed back on his head, she finally got a good look at his eyes. They were cobalt blue, enticing her to drown in them. “Uh, hi. I’m... uh... working here.”
“Really? Since when?”
She picked up a bowl from a nearby stack, then scooped up some chili and filled it, trying to ignore the increased thumping of her heart and the unmistakable pulse of arousal. “Uh... since yesterday. Lou needed help, and I figured I could work here until I decided what I’m doing next.”
“I thought you were just passing through.”
She shrugged and handed him the bowl. A shiver went down her spine when their fingers brushed against each other. “Well, I really don’t have any plans, so I thought I might stay in Hazard for a bit. It seems like a nice town.”
Okay, so she was stretching the truth or bending it a little to suit her needs, but from the skeptical expression on Seth’s face, he wasn’t buying all of it. Not good.
He opened his mouth, probably to ask another question, but the tall, handsome man behind him nudged Seth’s shoulder. “You’re holding up the line, dude. Flirt with the pretty lady later.”
Shylo smiled at the man, silently grateful for his interruption. But Seth didn’t walk away immediately. “That sounds like a plan. A bunch of us will probably still be here after your shift ends. Join me for a drink.”
“Um... I’m not sure. I don’t know what time we’ll be finished.” Part of her wanted to say yes because of the undeniable attraction she felt toward him, but her brain’s wariness urged her to say no. However, what came out of her mouth was, “Maybe?”
