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She sticks her tongue out at me, and I pull up a smile for my next customer. I start to open my mouth—only to realize it’s a fresh face.
A kid, maybe eleven or twelve.
This dark-haired, gangly, raw-boned boy who looks like he’s just growing into his hands and feet.
Someone new here in Heart’s Edge but who’s already made himself at home, considering he’s been adopted by the town’s local oversized marmalade lump.
Mozart the cat trails after him, twining around his ankles and mewing loudly.
The boy looks down with the devotion of someone who’s trying not to trip over his feet or the purr-ball.
On second thought, I think I’ve seen him a couple times recently? Might’ve served him sodas for a dollar.
I never got his name before he was gone, ducking his face beneath his shaggy fringe of hair and always fidgeting with a camera dangling from his neck by an adjustable strap.
But this is the first time I haven’t seen him alone.
A few seconds later, there’s another jingle of the bells on my door, and a tall, bulky shape I outwardly call Mr. Cold Brew strolls inside.
Inwardly, there’s only one name that truly fits—Cold Brew the Barbarian.
I’m not exaggerating.
Almost seven feet tall, with biceps bigger than my head, I don’t think he’d even need a hilariously big fantasy-novel sword to eat an army of evil brutes for breakfast. Just a really big spoon.
He’s one tall, dark, and deliciously mysterious drink of whoa, mama, perched on two honed columns for legs that would probably scare the most shredded kangaroo on the planet.
...look, I never said I had a promising career as a stand-up comedian, did I?
Seriously, Alaska Charter hasn’t been in town that long. But he’s made one banging dent on every single woman’s midnight fantasies, including—especially—mine.
Just long enough to leave an impression that hits my lady-bits like lightning.
Just long enough to notice when he disappeared for the winter, too, after months of seeing his tall, loping stride bust through the door every day while he worked on that big construction project in the valley.
It’s that place everybody knows and barely mentions where the old hotel and older mine shaft—plus a certain evil lair that won’t be mentioned—used to be.
But I didn’t see him for a while and figured maybe he was just a temp or seasonal staff.
Once Holt Silverton got his construction business wrapped up for the season, the big guy went home.
He reappeared a week or two ago, lugging around that huge growler jug he always wants filled to the brim with cold brew, and bearing a laundry list of coffee orders for the entire construction crew.
This time he’s here with that kid in tow—who looks way too much like Alaska not to be his.
Huh.
So the mountain man barbarian’s a daddy.
That’s something I hadn’t picked up through the small-town gossip grapevine.
No point in being a tiny bit disappointed, wondering if there might be a mom, too, who’s going to show up just as suddenly and mysteriously as the boy.
Nah.
Let’s be real.
I never stood a chance with a man who looks like that. Not because I lack confidence, it’s just, you know...
I’ve got a business to run.
It’s also a full-time job competing with the Vulture Squad, AKA every single lady in Heart’s Edge, with their bloodhound instincts for brutally handsome, seemingly unattached men.
I know when to keep my distance, or risk getting beaked.
But that doesn’t mean I mind taking a secretive look as Alaska stops to curl one massive, thick hand around his son’s shoulder, handling the boy with warmth and gentle restraint.
He bends down and murmurs something to the kid, who nods and dips down to scoop the cat up.
They’re lucky Mozart’s lazy and always thrilled to be carried anywhere he can easily walk.
While the kid cuddles the meower close to his chest, Alaska straightens, striding to the counter with his usual metal growler jug.
My eyes flick down and—
Oh. Wow.
The jug’s steely dull grey is almost the same shade as the silvery-grey ink of the sleeve tattoos rippling up his forearms, detailing stylized artwork that looks like a storm captured in raw muscle and graceful lines of total power.
Those muscles twist and swirl, sinew tightening as he sets the jug down on my counter and then lifts his arm. He drags a hand through his hair, pushing the thick mess of black out of his heavily bearded face, exposing the brilliant glow of mocha-brown eyes.
You’d think a beard that thick would hide his face.
Actually, all it does is center how firm his mouth is. How sensuous.
His lips look like they only speak sternness and cruelty and ice-cold commands.
But it’s like he’s always got a hidden smile, waiting to burst out, and when he speaks there’s nothing in his deep, gravelly voice except kindness and this harsh Yankee drawl like he’s always just stepped away from a red-eye shift in a biting wind.
