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“Shouldn’t have come back.”
“Those Sweets are nothing but trouble.”
“She’s the trashiest of the whole bunch.”
Those who didn’t know her better thought it was the cut-throat modeling world that had given her skin as thick as an elephant. In reality, it was having to hold her head high among Salvation’s disapproving citizens, most of whom had never met a Sweet they liked or trusted. Her sisters had both fought the crazy Sweet moniker. Olivia had embraced it, which had seemed like the best choice at the time. Now all she could see was the leftover baggage of her decision.
“Damn straight you will liven things up.” Ruby Sue made a sharp left around a table of men dressed in head-to-toe camouflage. “Your sisters have gotten downright dull and you always were the wild child.”
Olivia glanced over at Luciana, who was half listening to the conversation as she carried Benito and herded a distracted Amalie toward the back corner booth. “I don’t know. It looks like my partner in crime may have other commitments.”
Her friend nodded. “Yep, these two wake up early and keep me running all day. I’m dead on my feet by nine.”
Ruby Sue stopped at the booth. Amalie clapped her hands together, raced forward and clambered across the seat, stopping once she reached the welcoming arms of the man already occupying the booth. Mateo gathered the girl up and gave her big squeeze. The girl disappeared under the table, only to reappear on the booth seat on the opposite side, where she promptly took out her crayons and went to work on The Kitchen Sink’s kids’ menu.
Olivia’s pulse took a nosedive before ramping up to warp speed. She’d never been one of those girls to lose their shit over pictures of hunky guys with cute kids, but damn if he didn’t make it look good. Better than good.
While she was in the process of reining in the hottie-inspired overreaction, Mateo looked up. She nearly fell down. The man was fucking lethal. The scars? Once the initial shock had worn off, the attraction had come back as meltingly hot as ever, because it had never been about Mateo’s looks. It had been about him. At least, the man she’d known during their hotel nights together.
His hazel eyes narrowed and he looked away, but not before giving her a quick once over that left her weak in the knees.
There had to be something in Salvation’s water supply that turned people crazy. That was the only explanation for her Jell-O-kneed reaction to a man who had less than no interest in her and acted as if he couldn’t stand her.
Ruby Sue pulled herself up to her full height of five-foot, two-inches and in her best stage whisper, said, “Looks like you need a new partner.”
“Don’t get any ideas,” she shot back. If there was anything that would send her last bit of sanity flailing into a black hole, hanging out with Mateo Garcia would be it.
“I’m always full of ideas.” Ruby Sue all but rubbed her gnarled, arthritic hands together like an old-time villain. “You know that.”
Her stomach sank like an iron balloon. “And that is exactly what I’m afraid of.”
Mateo had never cut and run during a firefight, but the sight of Olivia and his sister together again had him thinking of beating feet out of there. Fast.
Luciana had a solid head on her shoulders and was an outstanding mom, but add Olivia into the mix and God knew what would happen. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to bail them out of jail. Again.
Still, the sight of her in a V-neck Sweet Salvation Brewery T-shirt that followed the famous curves that had landed her magazine covers taped to CHU walls from Iraq to Afghanistan had his thoughts turning to another direction totally. A few years ago, when he was nothing but a horny pretty boy who thought the world was his for the taking, he’d almost fallen for it. He’d learned better.
“Hey sis.” He dropped his gaze to the menu he knew by heart. “Olivia.”
“You don’t have to say her name like it’s a dirty word, you know.” Luciana rolled her eyes and settled Benito, still snug inside his carrier, into the high chair Olivia had moved to their table. “And hello to you, too.”
She slid into the opposite side of the booth next to Amalie, who was going to town on the kids’ menu. That left Olivia standing awkwardly at the end of the table. There wasn’t enough room for her to sit next to Luciana, and he, because someone upstairs held a grudge, happened to have an empty seat right next to him. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her hesitate, taking in the way she pressed her pale pink thumbnail into the pad of her pointer finger. Press. Release. Press. Release.
The woman should never play poker.
“You gonna sit or you planning to eat standing up?” Ruby Sue asked and poked Oli
via’s upper arm with the corner of a laminated menu. She dropped the menus on the table. “I’ll be right back with some sweet tea.”
Rubbing her arm, Olivia sat down beside him. They weren’t touching, but in the tiny booth it didn’t matter. His whole body went on hyper-alert. The flick of her head as she flipped her hair back. The way she nibbled on her bottom lip as she read the menu. How she relaxed back into the seat as if his presence didn’t even register.
Not that it should. And not that he gave a flying fuck.
Sure you don’t, Garcia.
He tossed down his menu in disgust. He’d lost his ear, not his balls. Time to man up.
“I didn’t think you knew she was back in town,” he said to his sister.
