Chapter 1 Elenie
Elenie
“Best place in town for breakfast if you can put up with being served by scum.” The bristles of Chief Roberts’ porn-star mustache rippled with familiar contempt.
It had an entity of its own which was often mesmerizing, but today it made barely a blip on Elenie’s radar.
She was too busy casting furtive glances at the hot stranger on the opposite side of the table.
Pulling the notepad from her apron pocket, she smoothed her face into a blank mask and hoped the spring on her hair clip would last to the end of her shift. She could feel it weakening; a few sun-lightened strands of hair tickled her neck where they’d escaped.
“Hello, gentlemen. D’you know what you’d like to order?” Her stomach pitched and flipped, and she objected on principle. Elenie couldn’t afford to be a pitch-or-flip kind of person. Sweeping the stray curls behind one ear with the end of her pen, she waited.
All coiled energy and loose limbs, the chief’s breakfast companion had an intense, angular face and espresso-dark hair.
His graphite gray tactical pants and polo shirt were casual but immaculate—America’s Next Top Model in the latest Police Issue Workwear catalogue.
He was magnetic. Compelling. She could swear the air crackled around him.
Something about the way he watched her made Elenie feel like she had been dropped into deep water from a great height.
And his forearms. Bronzed skin, corded muscles, strong, lean, capable. Don’t start her on the forearms or she’d be fangirling like a sixteen-year-old.
She swallowed. Eager to keep as low a profile as possible, Elenie made sure her own appearance whispered, “Nothing to see here”: bistro apron tied over knee-length skirt, burgundy short-sleeved shirt, scuffed sneakers.
Uniform faded but clean, nude lips and minimal makeup.
But however hard she tried, it was impossible to slide under the radar of the police chief’s disdain.
“Elenie Dax.” A mix of derision and disgust coated her name on his lips.
Elenie resisted the urge to squirm, but it was tough.
The diner’s bustle and babble continued around her, mingling with the country music station she’d tuned into at opening time.
“One fifth of Pine Springs’ biggest vermin problem. As you’ll find out.”
Low on charm, light on team-playing skills and manners, Chief Roberts was a bullfrog of a man.
Always curt, he usually stopped shy of blatant offense, but not today.
Not in this company. Drumming stubby fingers on the table, his puffed-out chest pulling the buttons tight across the front of his shirt, Roberts was bursting to make some kind of an impression on his new buddy.
“I can give you a couple more minutes if you’re not quite ready?
” Elenie could feel her ears turning red and hot.
Her eyes on her notepad, she channeled professional efficiency through every inch of her body, armor and shield clanking securely into place.
She reminded herself that she dealt with people like the chief every day. She could write a thesis on jackasses.
“No need. I’ll have the pancakes and black cherries, please.” Mr. Sexy Forearms had a voice as rough as sand on marble. She felt it like fingertips down her spine.
“Same,” growled Roberts. “With a side of bacon and coffee. And make sure it’s hot. Don’t leave our plates sitting on the counter.”
“Of course. Grozna si kato salata.” To take the only petty revenge she could, Elenie fell back on her favorite form of stress relief, sliding in a foreign insult she hoped she’d get away with—unless the hot stranger was Bulgarian, of course, but it didn’t look likely.
Roberts drew wiry eyebrows together. “No, just the pancakes. If I wanted salad, I’d have asked for it.”
His companion made no comment.
Bulgarian for the win. So satisfying.
“Coffee for you too, sir?” It took everything she had not to stammer.
“I’ll have a hot tea, please. With milk.” One side of his mouth lifted in a half-smile. He should carry a license for that. She allowed herself to catch his eye for less than a second (no more, in case her notepad combusted) and met a shrewd and shuttered gaze.
Well, what do you know? Other people have armor too.
“Coming right up.”
Tearing the order from her pad, Elenie clipped it beside the kitchen hatch and grabbed the next selection of plated breakfasts from the counter. Handing them out to a couple with two small children, she noticed another of the booths had filled while she was busy, and stifled a groan.
What fresh hell was this? Not only did she have Chief Roberts to deal with this morning but her stepbrothers too.
Tyson and Dean lounged bonelessly on the padded bench seats either side of a corner table.
A brunette in a shaggy yellow jacket that made her look like Big Bird pressed up against Ty, and one of their more cretinous friends, Vince, made up the foursome.
Watching Vince pretend to snort three crystal lines of white sugar through a straw, Elenie estimated he’d be behind bars within six months.
“Friends and relatives.” She kept her voice flat and low. “What can I get you today?”
Tyson, eldest stepbrother, moron and bane of her life—twenty-five to Elenie’s twenty-seven—was a mixture of stupid and nasty that often exploded into violence.
A recent barbershop visit had left him with a severe buzz cut at odds with the facial hair he’d left to grow into a short, patchy beard.
Elenie eyed the tattoo of a death moth which spread down one side of his neck and disappeared into the grubby collar of his t-shirt.
More ink lay beneath it, some better crafted than others.
She dreamed of the day he’d come home with a spelling mistake in his latest creation, which no one in their house would notice but her.
Not as tall as he’d like to be, Tyson made up for it in attitude.
He thought he was a ten. She’d give him a two and a half at best.
Wincing at his loud and guttural sniff, Elenie chewed on her pen, well aware Ty was keeping her waiting just to be a dick. The diner was busy; he knew she was under pressure.
“Get us a Coke float and three chocolate milkshakes,” he grunted finally.
A quick sweep of the room told her no one was listening, and Elenie couldn’t resist messing with him. “I’ll need to see your ID to check you’re old enough to order those.”
Dean and Vince looked confused; the brunette frowned.
Wow, this table has the collective smarts of a chicken nugget.
Tyson’s eyes flared. “Just do your fucking job, Elephant.”
“I’ll be right on that, Typhoid,” she murmured, giving him the fakest of smiles as she turned from the table.
Same shit, different day.
Some shifts felt so much harder than others.
It wasn’t even mid-morning and Elenie wanted to throw up her hands and surrender.
Every time a customer held their purse tighter and gave her a suspicious side-eye, stiffed her on a tip, ignored her, snapped at her, or even moved their small child closer, it chipped away another fragment of her self-worth.
Four years of this job would be enough to break anyone’s spirit.
One day, things would be different.
One day, she’d slide into a booth, in her own clothes and with well-rested feet.
She’d place her order with another waitress.
She’d sit with friends and a partner who looked at her like she lit up his world.
Like he couldn’t take a proper breath without her nearby.
Like . . . well, like the heroes in her favorite romance books. Who didn’t exist.
Simple dreams. Impossible dreams.
And if I’m going after the impossible, make it him, please. The sexy stranger. Cool, calm, and charcoal-wrapped in gray.
It was a particular form of torture to have him listen, missing nothing, while Chief Roberts talked to her like a diseased possum.
Elenie squeezed the mugs, pancakes, and bacon onto a tray and dragged her attention back to the present, wondering for the millionth time if her miserable boss would ever convince a second waitress to last more than a week.
“Here we are, gentlemen.”
Roberts didn’t bother to acknowledge her. He continued his monologue—something riveting to do with budgets—around a mouthful of bacon, stuffed into his mouth the moment the plate was laid in front of him. Manners of a pig, potbelly of a wild boar.
Mr. Sexy Forearms was a different beast entirely, radiating powerful wild-panther vibes. Fluid, alert, and contained. When he leaned back from the table to give Elenie space to finish unloading the tray, her hand brushed so close to his arm that her pulse took a little jump shot.
“Thank you.” His smile was another small lift of his lips, but it was friendly. Surprising enough to make her pause, handsome enough to make her stare. His eyes, so dark it was hard to make out the pupils, studied and evaluated until Elenie felt way too exposed.
His face wasn’t perfect. It was a little too drawn, hollowed around the cheekbones.
The fine line of a well-healed scar ran just below the curve of his jaw, yanking him by the collar out of “Aftershave Ad” territory and into “I’ve Seen Some Things In My Time.
” His nose wasn’t quite straight either.
Maybe he’d broken it at some point, maybe it had always been that way.
Maybe she should stop staring at him now.
Elenie poured the chief’s coffee and moved away. Going from table to table, order to order, she made herself focus on the work, her surroundings, the customers—and was successful, to a point.