“Caffeine, please. I’ve been camping for the last week and I’m desperate for a decent cup. And a full night’s sleep. I came to the great outdoors tense and irritable, and now I’m leaving tense and irritable. I thought nature was supposed to soothe the savage beast.”
Pouring his coffee, Avery aimed for a polite though disinterested attitude. His ego seemed plenty stroked, and her pride was stinging from failing to hide her attraction. Her one move was to make it clear that her being attracted to him didn’t buy him anything.
“Is that what you are? A savage beast?” She’d unintentionally allowed the last two words to fall from her lips like she’d enjoyed saying them. Damn. She sucked at standoffish.
He chuckled, ignoring her question. With a glance at her name tag, he seemed to settle in for a long talk, studying her as if later he’d be quizzed on the details. “Patty? Nice name. Mine’s Vincent.”
Patty Whitman was Avery’s alias. “Pleased to meet you, Vincent.” She replaced the coffeepots, and then turned back to him, wrinkling her nose. “It smells like your fishing trip was successful.” He did reek, and it made her wonder if focusing on that flaw might dampen her raging hormones. It didn’t take long to acknowledge little would. Maybe if he were unkind? Yeah, that would do it.
He wrinkled his nose, too. “Sorry. I had a disagreement with a fish and the fish won.” He scanned his menu and seemed overwhelmed by the options.
“You’re lucky you didn’t meet up with bears.” They would have eaten him alive. She sighed again, wondering how Vincent tasted. His lips were perfect and quick to smile. They probably tasted divine.
“No bears.” He rolled up his flannel sleeves, eyes still perusing the menu.
No customer was attempting to catch her eye, so Avery leaned her hip on the counter and lingered. She recognized his tattoo immediately. A cobra entwined around a human skull over a cross of rifles, and the moto one shot, one kill written under it. He caught her looking, and instead of eagerly discussing the tat, like every other ink fan, his smile lost its authenticity, and he rubbed his hand over his forearm, as if it bothered him.
“Sniper,” she said. The word popped from her mouth, and she regretted it immediately when his smile faded. A veteran who didn’t want to talk about his experiences killing people? Totally understandable. There were plenty things in her life she didn’t talk about, especially to a stranger while slinging coffee in a diner. “I saw that art in a tattoo magazine once.” It was a lie. She’d seen it on too many arms, on too many men who’d taken their skills to the marketplace, but she didn’t say that because she didn’t want questions, such as, why a waitress in North Conway, New Hampshire, knew about sniper tattoos.
Vincent tapped the menu. “What do you recommend?”
“The burgers are good.”
“Cheeseburger plate then,” he said, “with onion rings instead of fries. And Coke.” He leaned forward, his brows lifted, and suddenly he was all charm. “Did anyone ever tell you what amazing green eyes you have? I have green eyes, too.”
“Yes.” She smiled. “I can see.”
He peered closer, studying hers, as if it were a perfectly normal thing to do. “There are gold flecks in yours, and—”
His pause lengthened and seemed strange. “And?” she said.
He no longer focused on her eyes, but rather on her gaze. His smile widened, grew flirty. “They’re stunning. Rare. They go along with your hair. Less than two percent of the world’s population has red hair.”
“Hmm.” She tried to repress a smile and failed miserably. “I think I’ve heard that before.”
He faux frowned. “Then I need to up my game. When is your shift over?”
Whoa, Nelly. That escalated quickly. And oh how she wished she could be just a girl, being picked up by just a guy, who wanted to be with her at the end of her shift. But she wasn’t. Time to set boundaries.
“Why do you ask? Looking to take me home to mother?” Her returning smile was playful, but the shake of her head made it clear whatever he had in mind was not happening.
“Now why’d you have to go bringing my mother into this?” He feigned hurt, but she could see she’d amused him. The guy liked a challenge, apparently, and Avery was having a hard time pretending she wasn’t enjoying herself.
A glance over her shoulder told her no orders were up, so she leaned on her elbows, taking what pleasure she could from the interaction. “Mother’s tend to keep people honest,” she said.
His smile couldn’t have been naughtier. “I like honesty.”
“Yeah?” She licked her lips, repressing a smile. “So, where do you see this going?” His chuckle was scandalous, and had a few customers taking note. The guy certainly didn’t mind her calling him on his shit. In fact, she suspected he liked it, and damn…so did she. “You. Me,” she said. “We hook up during my lunch break, I bring you to my apartment, we spend a glorious hour of nasty, mind-blowing sex—”
“Liking where your head is at.” He was smart enough to know she was teasing, but confident enough not to be offended. It was a giddy-inspiring combination.
“—on the bed, the couch, in the shower, drinking water off each other’s skin.” She lifted her brows, smiling, not in the least surprised to discover she would love to live out that little fantasy. “We’ll make naughty memories to last a lifetime, all in the span of an hour’s lunch break.” He leaned on the counter, moving his face closer to hers, lips cracked with a smile.
“An hour isn’t enough,” he said, “but if you insist.”
She laughed hard enough to throw her head back. “You’re incorrigible.” Then she stepped back and clipped his order slip onto the order carousel. “If I insist, huh?” Hot and bothered, Avery knew if she continued their flirting, there was no way she’d retain even a sliver of what pride she had left. “I have a feeling women insist a lot with you.”
“If I was a good boy, you wouldn’t want me.” He winked.
Ugh. Truer words were never spoke. How else to explain her ex-husband? Still. This guy didn’t know her, and Avery didn’t like that she’d become so transparent that even a stranger could read her.
After a polite but dismissive nod, she grabbed the coffeepots and walked away, moving from table to table, refilling cups. The whole time, she had to force herself not to look at him, because she knew he was looking at her. She could see his reflection in the mirrored wall behind the counter. Vincent. He’d suddenly become the embodiment of all things she’d given up three years ago. Her penance. Her punishment. And not for the first time, she resented the restrictions of her fate. Resented the hell out of it.
The bell above the entrance chimed, distracting her. A woman gasped and caught Avery’s attention. A chair fell to the floor, but Avery’s gaze remained locked on the woman’s expression of horror. She couldn’t force herself to follow the woman’s gaze to the diner’s entrance, because the chatting stopped, the utensils stilled their scraping on plates, and silence hung in the air, as if even sound feared what was to come.
Avery forced herself to move, to walk behind the counter, eyes front, seeking to make it to the kitchen before the unseen danger got her.
A shotgun cocked, and the familiar sound had her stopping in her tracts. “You!”
She didn’t recognize the voice, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t one of her ex-husband’s contract killers. It had been three years since she’d left Dante.