Chapter 2 #2
I knew where my weekend went. I'd spent most of my time working on a ridiculously oversized twelve-foot dining room table for Mrs. Stephenson. She’d told me there was no rush, but the woman obviously didn’t know what that meant.
The fact that she’d been dropping by—not an easy feat for a woman who lived thirty minutes away—every day had forced me to insist she hold off until I was finished.
Of course, that had only incentivized her to call at least twice a day to check on my progress.
Since we’d lost our office manager two months ago when she decided to up and marry one of the ranch hands out at the Double D, I had been dealing directly with our customers.
Which was the reason I'd finished up the table over the weekend. The only thing left was the chairs and I fully intended to knock those out soon. I got the feeling Mrs. Stephenson’s surprise visits and frequent phone calls were getting a little more intimate than they should.
“Amy’s an angel,” Lynx noted, picking up the coffee cup that was waiting for him.
I didn’t respond, but I did glance over at Amy.
I'd long ago learned to have coffee on hand when Lynx showed up anywhere. Apparently, Amy had figured that out, too. Didn’t matter the time of day, although mornings were the most critical.
The man would’ve been better suited with the name Bear, especially on mornings he didn’t have his caffeine. “What’d you do this weekend?”
Lynx cast a sideways glance at me, then looked around the room as he set my coffee mug on the table. “I had to go see Tammy.”
I put down my cup and turned to my cousin. “And?”
“It’s done. I got her to sign the papers.”
Shit.
I sat up straight. “Please tell me she didn’t get anything else outta you.”
Taking a sip from his mug, Lynx shook his head. “She tried. But I refused this time.”
Tammy was Lynx’s soon-to-be ex-wife. Their six-month stint at wedded bliss had failed miserably, and it had taken the same amount of time for them to put an end to it.
They’d been doing this song and dance for the past four months, and every time I thought Lynx was getting that much closer to finalizing it, Tammy would throw a wrench into the works, insisting that he give her something else.
Why Lynx was even entertaining the notion of giving her anything at all was beyond me.
What I really didn’t understand was how Lynx had hooked up with Tammy in the first place.
For most of my life, he’d had a major thing for Reagan Trevino.
Not that the woman had given him the time of day—not that I knew of, anyway—but it was obvious he was into her.
Needless to say, we were all stunned when Lynx popped up in town after a weekend hiatus, letting everyone know he got hitched. To a woman no one had even met yet.
“So, it’s over?” I wasn’t sure how all that worked, and I hoped like hell I never found out firsthand. If and when I ever got married, it would be the forever kind. Which was part of the reason I was still single at twenty-nine.
“I ran the papers over to my lawyer last night. She’s gonna file them this mornin’. Then it’s a waitin’ game.”
A clatter sounded from the kitchen, and I jerked my head over in time to see Amy startle, her hand covering her heart. The woman was easily spooked, and I couldn’t help but wonder why that was.
She seemed to catch herself and quickly reached for a coffeepot, wandering over to our table and topping off our cups, her hands trembling.
I did my best not to stare at her because I knew it made her nervous.
From the very first moment I saw her, I recognized the fear in her eyes.
The kind that caused her to instinctively back away from strangers—mostly men—although I wasn’t sure she realized she was doing it.
She was even doing it now, despite the fact that she was relatively familiar with my cousin and me.
Then again, I had been told I made people nervous.
I was nothing more than a good ol’ boy, living my uncomplicated life on the edge and enjoying every damn second.
Sure, I tended to get myself into trouble from time to time, but that was how it worked.
And because of my past behavior, my actions had been talked about on more than one occasion.
Of course, there were plenty of rumors about me and my cousin running rampant through this town.
No telling what Amy Smith had heard about us.
We kept to ourselves for the most part. The house I had built with my own two hands sat on the very outskirts of our small town, secluded on my family’s land.
If I didn’t come into town and you wanted to find me, it would take some effort.
But that was the Caine way and always had been.
I was sure Amy had heard plenty of the rumors, probably believed half of them. Hell, I sometimes believed half of them, although I knew they were mostly fiction.
As I waited for my food, I allowed myself to watch Amy as she moved around, stopping to hand out checks, grabbing dishes from deserted tables.
Honestly, I couldn’t quite figure the woman out, and I was typically rather good at it.
It was clear to me that she was running from something or someone, yet she came into this diner several times a week to work.
She was right there in front of every person in this small town, talking to them, getting to know them.
And they were doing the same with her. Embers Ridge was like any small town, full of gossip and conjecture.
Not to mention, nosy fucking people. For a woman who had a secret, she hadn’t realized that showing up here was a surefire way to out herself.
Or maybe she had and she was merely testing out the theory of hiding in plain sight.
Not that I should be interested in her secret or even her, for that matter. She seemed far too sweet and innocent for the likes of me. Yet that was exactly how I found myself.
There was something in Amy’s eyes that intrigued me, made me want to know more.
“Here you go.” Amy’s melodic voice brushed every one of my senses, and I looked up as she delivered our breakfast.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Lynx rasped, grinning from ear to ear.
Lynx had been flirting with Amy since the first day we’d seen her in here about three months ago, yet she hadn’t once returned his interest. Honestly, it irked the shit out of me that Lynx did it, but I didn’t exactly know why.
Since I couldn’t explain it, I didn’t bother telling Lynx to knock it off. That was the way he was.
“We’ve got a truck comin’ in at nine, Wolfe,” Lynx noted.
I knew that was his way of telling me to hurry, but I didn’t bother heeding his warning. The guy knew not to push me. When that happened, I tended to do the opposite.
As I ate, I felt eyes on me. I was used to that.
People in this town were nosy as fuck. They didn’t have a problem digging into other people’s business, mine included.
I was usually good at shrugging it off, but this time I looked up, my eyes scanning the well-lit room, trying to see who was so interested in how I took my eggs.
I met Amy’s curious gaze from across the room.
A soft blush crept up her cheeks and she instantly looked away.
Damn, she was pretty. Big brown eyes, pouty pink lips. Her blonde hair—darker at the roots—was always pulled back in a ponytail, making her look remarkably young, although I figured her somewhere in her mid-twenties.
I returned my attention to my food, then met Lynx’s gaze briefly.
He shook his head slightly, answering my silent question.
I had asked him to find out more information on Amy.
Where she came from, how she ended up here.
Basic questions that I wanted to know about anyone who lived here.
That was how the Caines operated. We kept an eye on these people.
That was the way it went and I couldn’t explain why that was, either.
“What’s up, sweetheart?” Lynx asked.
I looked up to see Lynx smirking at two women sitting at a table close to us. Both women were staring, batting their eyelashes. Relatively attractive, you could say. Granted, I wasn’t all that impressed by the pearls with the tank top, but hey, what did I know about fashion?
Not that it mattered. Neither of them got my dick hard. Probably wouldn’t even if they were naked and on their knees in front of me.
It had nothing to do with biology, either.
I was capable of getting a hard-on, but the shallow women who solicited me just didn’t do it for me anymore.
At twenty, I'd been living high on life, fucking half the women over twenty-five in this town.
Promiscuous had been my middle name. At one time, I'd ventured down an entirely different road, sharing women with my cousin on occasion, experimenting with men, sometimes hooking up with a man and woman at the same time.
However, I'd kept that part of myself locked up tight for years.
As I grew up, I started to have an issue with casual encounters.
Oh, that hadn’t stopped me completely, of course. However, as I neared thirty, it took a little more than a smile and a wink to make my dick stand up and take notice.
That didn’t necessarily explain why my body was on high alert when it came to the cute little waitress with the guarded brown eyes.
“Why don’t you just offer her the job?” Lynx inquired between bites.
I snapped my eyes over to Lynx when I realized I'd been staring at Amy again. “Who?”
“Amy,” he said softly. “Clearly she’s a hard worker and you know we can pay her a hell of a lot more than she’s makin’ here. How many jobs does she have anyway?”
Only two that I knew of.
I glanced over to see Amy wiping down the counter for the tenth time.
“Plus, she’s bored outta her mind,” Lynx added. “We need an office manager.”
We did. That was a fact.