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Cole half turned in his seat to get a look at the woman in question and then we were both shamel
essly staring. Fuck, were we whipped. Hannah. She was a breath of fresh air walking through the front door of the diner. Even if I hadn’t heard the jingle of the bell attached to the entrance, I still would have known she’d just arrived. Maybe I was a romantic, but I could have sworn the atmosphere shifted and the air grew thick with tension. Need. My damn need. I shifted in my seat as my cock got hard. My brain might have some doubts about her, but my cock didn’t.
She spotted us right away and after a brief pause, so brief most people wouldn’t have caught it, she kept walking straight back to our booth after dropping off her purse behind the counter. Yes, she came right over to us. She was interested.
God, she was so fucking pretty. I itched to reach out and stroke my finger over her cheek. No makeup and a ponytail and the woman was still gorgeous. High cheekbones and a slight slant to her wide green eyes gave her an exotic look—well, exotic for Bridgewater, at least. Her dark hair was pulled back for work, like usual, and that uniform of hers shouldn’t be sexy—hell, there was nothing sexy about it when Jessie wore it—but somehow Hannah pulled it off. It made me want to know what she wore beneath. She was a petite little thing with perky, lush breasts and a sweet, rounded ass. And those legs…shit, I’d been dreaming about having those legs wrapped around my waist from the first moment I saw her.
She came to a stop at our table, her pad and pen already in hand. “Hey guys. I see you have coffee already. What else can I get for you?”
It was the same thing she’d said every day this week. The difference was, this time we’d shown up early and already had our coffee. We didn’t need anything but her. The diner wouldn’t really start to fill up for the lunch rush for another twenty minutes or so, which meant she could stand and chat. This time, she couldn’t run away from us without giving us a chance to ask her out.
Cole wasted no time. “Slow down there, Hannah. You just got to work and no one’s here yet. Why don’t you have a seat and keep us company for a bit before your shift really starts?”
To back up his words, I slid over in the booth and patted the empty spot beside me.
That right there, in her eyes. I could have sworn I saw wariness flicker across her pretty features before she pasted on that dimpled smile she used with all the customers. She looked around, took in the mostly empty diner. “I don’t know if I should—”
“Jessie, tell Hannah a five-minute break is not a crime in these parts,” Cole called out.
“I just got here. I can’t take a break!”
Jessie’s laughter carried across the diner. “Girl, take a load off while you can. You’ve been running yourself ragged this week with shifts. Donna and I can set up for lunch.”
To her credit, Hannah relented with a small smile as she slipped into the booth beside me, although she kept a very blatant few inches between my broad shoulder and her uniform clad small one.
Damn, she smelled even better than I’d remembered. Clean and feminine, the scent of her soap or shampoo, or whatever it was, hit me like a drug. Strawberries, watermelon or something that made me want to lick her all over. “So, Hannah,” I said, my voice a little rough with need. “Tell us about yourself.”
Cole raised one brow but I ignored him, I was too busy watching Hannah’s reaction to the question. That smile never faltered as she shrugged one shoulder. “Not much to tell, I’m afraid. What about you guys? How long have you lived in Bridgewater?”
“Born and raised,” Cole said.
“Where did you move here from?” I tried again.
“Oh, I’m from all over.” Her smile deepened and I got a flash of that adorable dimple again. “I guess I’m a bit of a nomad.”
Cole’s gaze met mine and I knew he didn’t miss the fact that she’d avoided the question. “Are you from Montana originally?”
He flicked his gaze in my direction and I could read his smirk clear as day. He’d asked that for my benefit. He might think I was being paranoid but he was game to play along, especially when her avoidance tactics were so obvious.
“No, and for that I’m jealous,” she said. “I can’t imagine a more magnificent place to grow up. You two must have had some great adventures up in those mountains.” She pointed out the window in the direction of the Spanish Peaks off in the distance.
Her gaze was guileless when she looked in my direction but I saw the spark of intelligence there—she knew exactly what she was doing and she was doing it well. Hell, she could give a course in misdirection at the police academy.
Sure enough, Cole took the bait and told her a story from our childhood about the time we got caught in a snowstorm while out camping in the woods. It was a story we’d told often enough we could tell it by heart, and Hannah’s laugh sounded genuine.
I barely listened, too focused on watching Hannah’s reaction and trying to figure out how to ask another question without turning this little chat into an interrogation. By the time Cole’s story ended, I realized that maybe he had the right idea. If we wanted her to open up, we needed to share about ourselves first. That was why we wanted to ask her out. Once we took her out on a proper date, hopefully she’d get to know us and then be more willing to open up.
“You won’t like it here as much come January when there’s three feet of snow on the ground and you haven’t felt your toes in two months,” Cole said, ending his story.
Hannah started to shift in the booth, getting ready to stand. “I’d better get back to work.”
I placed a hand on hers. “Not so fast—”
She jerked her hand out from under mine so quickly it caught me off guard. I kept talking, pretending not to notice the blush that was creeping into her cheeks. But it wasn’t shyness or embarrassment that had her pulling away from me. My gut twisted at the flash of fear I saw in her eyes. It was there and gone in an instant, but I couldn’t have missed it. Shit, I’d never meant to scare her.
“Don’t run off just yet. Cole and I had something we wanted to ask you.”
Her shoulders were rigid, but she remained seated. She glanced between the two of us as if she were at a tennis match.
