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“I can’t make sense of it,” I finally share with Wilder, telling him the cutesy moment of how we met. “I thought he was different.”
“Because that’s what he wanted you to believe,” he growls in my ear, sending another shiver down my spine, comfort mixed in with arousal.
I nod because I know that’s true. “Anyway, Friday would have been our eight-month anniversary. Things were going well with us. Cyrus was kind and sweet, generous with his time and money, and he treated me well. Until he didn’t.”
“So, this was a one-time thing?”
I nod. “Definitely.” I take a hesitant step forward, and Wilder releases me. “Last night, Willow and I were cleaning up the place after closing. Cyrus stopped by to pick me up.”
Wilder frowns. “Didn’t you meet him buying a car?”
I nod. Seems like everyone in town knows how we met, but that’s what happens when you own a restaurant or café. The word gets around about your private life.
“Yeah, but he stayed over and brought me to work yesterday morning, so I was without my car.”
I thought Cyrus was just being his usual kind self, but now I have to wonder if everything he did was calculated to rope me into his web of deceit.
“Anyway,” I said to Wilder, “a few minutes after he showed up, we’re making plans for the evening, everything’s like, you know, normal. But then, in an instant, it all changes. A bunch of bikers storm inside my place, looking angry and on edge. I’m terrified, and that’s when I learn Cyrus is working with the Iron Kings.”
The look of surprise on Wilder’s face is almost comical. “That dude in the khakis is working with the Iron Kings? For real?”
“Surprised the hell out of me too, but it turns out the guy in charge, Nogales or Billy, is his brother-in-law.”
I watch Wilder carefully as he processes this information to see if he’s someone I can trust. Not fully, mind you, just a man who doesn’t go back on his word. While he takes in the information, I look at him,reallylook at him, for the first time since he first came intoFor Goodness Cakes.
Wilder is gorgeous. He’s got that exotic mixed-race thing going on with mocha skin, beautiful curls on his head, and the biggest, deepest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. He’s tall and lean, and I know firsthand just how hard he is. Everywhere.
He is, without a doubt, a magnificent specimen of a man, at least, he would be if he wasn’t twenty-three years younger than my fifty years. And a biker.
“They must be getting desperate if they’re recruiting car salesmen,” he grumbles. “Does he have any special skills?”
I scoff. “Other than lying? Nope.”
Wilder smiles at my words, and hot damn, that’s the kind of smile that sends panties flying in the air. The kind of smile that makes a woman stupid and makes her start thinking very dirty things about a man half her age. And the accompanying laugh is rich and deep and well-used as if he’s a man who doesn’t take himself too seriously.
If I was just twenty years younger…
“You’re gonna be all right, Maven,” he says.
Something about the way he says the words makes me believe them.
“I’m always okay,” I tell him, or maybe I tell myself as a reminder that whatever I’m thinking about Wilder right now, it’s because I’m traumatized. He’s a biker and too damn young. “And with that Nogales man talking about war, I’ll have to be.”
“War?” Wilder’s expression is instantly serious again, and he takes a long slow look around my kitchen, assessing everything, and I don’t like it. What does he see when he looks at my little bakery? A shabby little place that needs more work?
“You need better security here.”
My shoulders sink in relief at his final words.
“Yeah, I know, and I’ll take care of it when money starts to grow on trees.”
He laughs, but there’s little humor behind it.
“Sorry to tell you, sweetheart, but war doesn’t wait until you can afford it. I know firsthand.”
There’s a look in his eyes I can’t quite figure out, and then I beat myself up mentally for even trying to figure it out.
“I’ll get it done when I can.”
