Stay With Me (6 page)

Before I could say anything, she was gone again, and Duncan pointed to a table by a window.

“Here good?” he asked.

“That’s fine,” I said, looking around as if eyes were on me for some silly reason. “Do you want to come pick something out or just want to trust me on the tacos?”

His slow lazy smile made me tingle from the toes on up. “Black coffee, and on the food, I trust you,” he said softly.

“Good choice,” I said. “They will change your life.”

He laughed, and I got in line, mentally kicking myself. Where did I get these things? I shook it off and tried to keep the thought that this was a date. Even though it was morning and I’d have to go to work afterward, my ex-something could come in at any minute, and my sister was picking up the bill—still totally a date.

I looked behind me after a few minutes. God, Duncan looked good, all kicked back in his chair, arm slung over the other one. I wanted to be in that other one, but we weren’t there yet. Yet.

Ian wasn’t there yet, either, but that was not going to matter or have anything whatsoever to do with this date. Because it
was
a date. With a man I’d been dreaming about for months.

I shuffled in place behind Mrs. Sullivan and a high school girl with lopsided hair and glanced back at him again. Duncan was reading the old newspaper articles under the glass on the table. How adorable was that? I let myself imagine reading the newspaper in bed with him on Saturday mornings, coffee mugs in hand. I’d steal the Lifestyle section of course, for the crossword—

The side door swung open. “I’ve got ten more bags in the back,” said the man breezing in with two giant bags of ice over his shoulders. “Should get us through till this afternoon.”

My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth as everything went dry. Sweet Jesus. All my breath left me in a
whoosh
as I watched my past rush by and slam frozen bags onto the old brick floor.

“I’ve got the rest,” Jim said, emerging from the back and slapping Ian on the back on his way out the same door. “Can you help Lily out for a minute?”

Help Lily out? At the counter. I was stricken with fight-or-flight and my feet didn’t know what to do. I wanted to look back at Duncan for strength but my eyes were stuck.

Ian McMasters. Holy shit-fuck. Even knowing he was coming I felt like my knees had been buckled behind me. He was still mouthwatering. Still hard-bodied and emanating electricity, like if you plugged him into an outlet he’d light up. He was a rougher, more boisterous version of Jim, with skin that lived in the sun and a body that rippled from hard work. Still a smoky smoldering darkness to his gray eyes. Thank God I wasn’t the next one up, or I might have peed myself.

Lily took care of the teenaged girl and divided her attention between smiling patiently at Mrs. Sullivan and looking at me as if I might liquidate. Mrs. Sullivan took her time as usual, deciding what she wanted. It was going to be a ham and cheese kolache. It was always a ham and cheese kolache. But she always had to think about it. For once that was okay.

I watched Ian load up the ice machine as if it were normal for him to do so. Lily had said he was visiting
maybe indefinitely
but had said nothing about him working there. What the hell? Did he need money that badly?

As if I needed more reason to stand there, Mrs. Sullivan ordered two giant rib-eye steaks to be trimmed.

“We’re going to have a special night tonight, me and your father,” Mrs. Sullivan said, pinking up as she said it and unfortunately turning to include me.

I didn’t need her to include me. Especially since it caused Ian to turn around and do a double take. And the temperature in the room shot up fifteen degrees.

“Get a new puzzle, did you?” I asked her, if for no other reason than to force blood through my tongue. It needed to remember how to function before my turn came up.

Mrs. Sullivan laughed and stepped aside while she waited for Lily to pull the steaks and bring them to the back for Jim to do his thing.

That left just me. And Ian. And an unblinking look that made my toes go numb and remind me that some things would never change. Every memory of everything we’d ever been was in that look, including the last time I’d seen him, burning through to the back of my skull. Shit. I held my chin up, however, and put on a smile, unwilling to let him see me sweat.
He did this, not you.

“Hey, Ian.”

The look melted into a cocky, sexy familiarity that I instantly wanted to slap off him.

“Savi,” he said, letting my name roll softly off his lips. I had to grip the counter. “What can I get for you?”

That’s the first thing he says?

I chuckled. He wouldn’t best me. “Kind of a commute, isn’t it?” I said.

He didn’t blink, but did a small shrug. “Helping out.”

I nodded like that was logical. What did Duncan want again? Was he even still back there? I couldn’t seem to turn around.

“Um, a vanilla latte, black coffee,” I said. “And three breakfast tacos.” Duncan could eat two. I could actually put away all three, but this morning I was going to do good to swallow anything.

Ian finally broke eye contact and glanced behind me to Duncan’s general vicinity.

“Husband?” he asked, his mouth twitching into a smirk at one corner.

I narrowed my gaze and tilted my head, attempting cavalier. “I’m pretty sure you probably know I’m not married,” I said. “Come on.”

Ian held his palms out. “Why would I? Fifty-fifty shot.”

“You don’t think you’d have heard about Lily’s sister getting married?” Good, go with the
Lily’s sister
angle. Safer.

Ian grinned and walked closer, resting his bare forearms up on the counter. His eyes had little laugh lines fanning from them, but the intensity that emanated from them still made my scalp sweat. Damn it. The scruff that normally turned me off with guys was working on him. It had always worked on him. I could feel my blood move faster.

“It may surprise you to know,” he began, talking softly through that grin, “that we don’t usually talk about you.” Oh, witty. Glorious. He squinted a little in Duncan’s direction. “Do I know him? Kinda looks familiar.”

“Doubtful.”

“Hmm,” he said, looking back at me. “Well, enjoy,” Ian continued, a gleam in those intense eyes. “You make a pretty couple.”

“Oh, you think so?” I said, miraculously finding my brain. “Would you like me to introduce you?”

The old grin played on his face. “I would love to be introduced,” he said, making my heart skip a beat. “Now?”

Crap. “Tell you what,” I said, scrunching my nose. “We’ll do that another day. You look busy. I can imagine it’s crazy to come back here and carve up cows again after the life you’re used to.”

His eyebrows moved upward. “You think we just carve up cows?” he said, his voice smooth as his eyes bored into me, drilling holes in my defenses.

“Pigs, too?”

Ian smiled. “I’ll have to give you a little lesson sometime in what we do back here,” he said. “Give you a tour.”

“Oh, I’ve had the tour,” I said, letting that memory fill me as my tongue tasted the sourness.
Soak it in. Remember that anger, that pain, that—
“I don’t need to revisit that.”

To my surprise, the arrogance left his expression. His eyes went soft, and he blinked away.

“So, how’s the girl?” he said, changing tack and frowning slightly, methodically putting our tacos together like he did this every day.

“A woman,” I said, making him look up. “Abby’s twenty-one now.”

A flicker of something shot through his expression. “Holy shit,” Ian muttered. “She was—”

“Ten,” I finished for him. “Time flies.”

His hands stopped, and his gaze fixed on mine. “So it does.”

The playful, arrogant ass I knew was gone in that instant, looking at me with something much more substantial. It made my heart hurt.

Lily came back to the counter with Mrs. Sullivan’s steaks and I felt her eyes on me.

“I’ve got their drinks, Ian,” she said, bringing his attention to her, breaking the eye contact and releasing me from hell. “Are you done with that?” she said, gesturing at the tacos.

“Yeah,” he said, wrapping them up quickly. Handing them to me, he darted a glance toward Duncan again before landing back on me.

“Thanks,” I said, trying to mask the jolt that shot up my arm when our fingers touched. Shit-damn-hell.

He inhaled slowly. I wondered if that was his version.

“Good to see you, Savi.”

Chapter Five

Good to see you, Savi.

Five chaste and harmless little words that when replayed again and again on long loop with the voice and the eyes pretty much rendered me the world’s worst date.

I managed to knock over my coffee—all over both of us. I picked apart and mangled my taco so that not only was I not eating it, raccoons would have turned their noses up at it as well. And I spaced out so many times, Duncan gave up on repeating himself, simply smiling and saying it wasn’t important.

He was a friggin’ prince and I was being a moronic troll. Here I was, finally sitting across a table from the guy of my dreams, and all I could do was obsess over the man behind me (because, yes, I’d insisted on the chair facing away from the counter). The man that cheated on me, ripped my heart out, and left the state, not even returning when his father died. I should despise him. So why on earth did I feel as if I were being tugged backward through my spine at that moment by some invisible magnet?

I didn’t need to see him. I could hear all the conversations.

Ian McMasters, why, I never expected to see you behind your dad’s counter again.

Oh, my goodness, Ian, you look fantastic (giggle, giggle). Where have you been?

Boy? That you? The prodigal son has returned, huh? Thought you fell off the face of the earth. Guess I need to get a security system.

What, Key West wasn’t nice enough for you? You felt the need to come back to the armpit of Texas?

Every greeting, every question, Ian responded with a laugh, a handshake, a “yes, ma’am” or a “no, sir.” He asked after people’s families, jobs, health, and kids he’d grown up with. We’d grown up with. I felt the eyes on me as those people would leave and do a double take. I could just imagine the conversations once they made it out the door.
Do you remember those two? I heard they once broke into the mayor’s house to have sex on his pool table. Yeah, I heard he stole a bunch of money and skipped town.

I’d heard it all, too. And every time I heard his voice, little fires traveled my spine.

“Everything good?” Lily said, startling me with her sudden appearance at my side.

I looked at her funny, that being an odd thing for her to do. McMasters Meats wasn’t a restaurant, they just happened to have a few prepared things. They didn’t wait tables, there just happened to be four tables in the room on the off chance someone wanted to sit. Most days, that was just me.

“Everything’s fine,” I said with a smile that was beginning to feel tight.

“Truly?” she asked, her eyebrows knitting.

Ah. She was worried about me. Well, that would have to wait a bit.

“All good,” I said. “Had a coffee mishap, but—”

“I’ll pay for another one,” Duncan said.

“No, I told you,” I began, still mortified that I’d soiled his shirt.
Think about him taking it off, Savi. Look at him, look at him.
God, I needed a kick in the butt.

“I insist,” he said, covering my protesting hand with his. My skin tingled a little at the contact, and I celebrated inside my head. Maybe there was hope for me.

Duncan pulled out a five and handed it to Lily, who took it like she was selling her soul as she headed back.

I resisted the urge to turn around when Ian and Jim started laughing about something, but my distraction was cut short. Duncan took my hand again across the table, starting a slow warmth that flowed over me. The smile in his eyes kept it going. God, he was hot. Could he still be this nice? Could he be real?
Oh, yes,
I thought, concentrating on the warmth from his hand.
Let this be a shield to block out all demon spawn.

“I am so sorry,” I said, closing my eyes for a second. When I opened them, he was still there. Yep, he was real, all right. “I have not been myself this morning, and that is so unfair to you.”

Duncan squeezed my hand. “No big deal.”

“Well, it should be,” I said, attempting a chuckle. “I asked you here, and I’ve been horrible company.”

“So let’s try it again,” he said.

Seriously? He wanted to repeat this fiasco? I hadn’t completely repulsed him?

I smiled. “Really?”

“Let me take you to dinner—better yet, let me make you dinner,” he said. “I’ll give you the address, you’ll have your car and can bolt at any time.”