Chapter 5
T he man under Pumpkin tried to jerk himself up, but the hold Pumpkin had him in required little effort from him because it was all shoulder pressure.
The more the man struggled, the more he’d hurt himself.
Which was good, because Pumpkin’s legs were not happy with his decision to bolt across the restaurant and rescue a woman, whom he thought was a stranger.
Except she wasn’t.
Before this moment, any time Pumpkin tried to remember his drunken one-night stand from his patch-in party, he got a blurry haze.
He knew she had blonde hair, was gorgeous, and was shorter than his six-two.
He couldn’t remember why he thought she was gorgeous, only that he recalled thinking it that night.
It was like putting a pair of glasses on. As he stared at her, as she stared back at him, he took in all her features in perfect clarity. This was his mystery woman. The woman who’d essentially done a fuck and dump, leaving him curled up naked outside with a goddamn pumpkin.
He’d been right that she had blonde hair.
He didn’t recall her having purple ends that night, but he liked it.
Made her look spunky. And so fucking hot.
She had big caramel eyes, long eyelashes, and rounded cheeks.
He estimated her height to be around five-seven, though he couldn’t see her shoes so it might be shorter.
Dressed in a slim, black number with a flared skirt…
Fucking hell, the things he wanted to do to those long legs.
He had the oddest recollection of a sweet, floral scent.
It was intoxicating. He had no idea if the sudden vision of him on his knees while she sat on the top of a picnic table as he ate her out was a real memory or a prophetic vision, but either way, his dick got hard.
“I, uh,” she stuttered, her eyes looking anywhere but at him. “I should go.”
Go? What the fuck? He’d finally found her again, and she was going. She recognized him. He knew she did. That flush? Yeah, she knew who he was and what she’d done to him.
“No,” he said, short and clipped.
She paused. Jesus Christ, he could remember eating her out but not her fucking name? Why weren’t name tags a common thing? It’d be so fucking helpful in situations like this. “No?” she questioned him, blonde eyebrows raised in disbelief.
“He,” Pumpkin said, lifting her date off the table, “is leaving. You are staying.”
“I am not—” the man started to protest, but Pumpkin spun them around so they were facing the door and gave the jerk a mighty shove. He stumbled forward, face colliding into the back of a chair. He cried out, clutching his eye.
Pumpkin wished he could do a hell of a lot more to the douchebag who’d touched, uh, her , but he wasn’t in the right physical condition for that.
If the man fought back, it would only take one lucky shot to fell him at the moment.
His back was screaming at him. Why the fuck hadn’t he rented one of those motorized scooters at the zoo?
Why the fuck did he have to be so stubborn as to insist on manually pushing himself around?
Frustrated at his inability to exact the revenge he wanted, he tried to find satisfaction in the fact that the empty chair had likely blackened the man’s eye for him.
As the man straightened, Pumpkin grabbed a knife from the table behind him and held it expertly in his hand. His body might not be what it was, but he sure as hell was no coward. “Try it.” He pulled up his long-sleeved Henley to show off his Marines tattoo. “I dare you.”
The man backed off, one hand over his eye. “You’ll pay for this!”
Pumpkin just rolled his eyes and turned his back on the man. “Well, that was an original comeback.” He turned his attention onto the woman. “You remember me.”
Her cheeks flushed again. Even if she denied it, he knew it to be true. “I remember you,” she said, averting her eyes again.
“Good. Come join us for dinner.”
“What?” her voice rang out throughout the entire dining room. Making all the patrons, who had been staring earlier at the scene her date had made, turn their attention back to them again.
But that’s not what caught Pumpkin’s notice.
No, it was how her eyes immediately found Frankie and SJ on the other side of the dining room.
Unless she’d seen them be seated—and Pumpkin wasn’t sure which of their parties had been seated first—there was no way that she should know that was Pumpkin’s table.
Unless… Did she recognize Frankie? But why would she?
For months following the pumpkin incident, Pumpkin had searched for her.
He’d looked everywhere through Mount Grove.
Asked around, tried to find some answers.
Granted, he was mostly trying to prove she existed in hopes that he could get his old road name back, but he also wanted to see her again.
The one thing he was sure of from that night was how much he liked her and that he’d had the intention of asking her out in the morning.
He was fairly certain she didn’t live in Mount Grove. But then, how would she know Frankie? Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she had seen Pumpkin get seated and had recognized him then.
She seemed utterly aghast that he’d told her to join him for dinner. Did she think he’d let her go after finally finding her again? At the very least, she owed him for the goddamn pumpkin cuddle.
Or maybe she was upset about the douchebag?
“Don’t tell me he means something to you?” Pumpkin demanded, throwing a thumb over his shoulder in the direction her date had exited the restaurant .
“What? No!” she vigorously shook her head. “This was our first date, and it wasn’t going well long before he touched me.”
Pumpkin stepped forward. He gently took hold of her arm. Her dress had long sleeves and a low neckline. While he couldn’t see her skin under the material, he palpated carefully for any obvious injuries. She didn’t even flinch. Instead, her caramel eyes held his like she was searching for something.
Satisfied he didn’t have to go hunt the bastard down, Pumpkin slowly dropped her arm, but he didn’t let go.
He took her hand in his, lacing their fingers together.
Was her heart beating as fast as his was?
He hadn’t had anything to drink tonight, but damn, did his head swim at the scent of her floral perfume.
“You…” She cleared her throat. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Done what?” he asked.
“Touched me like that.”
Fuck, he had every intention of touching her a hell of a lot more than that. All over. He wanted to bathe in her floral scent, bury his face in her blonde hair with purple ends, bend her in two as he pounded into her… He was not letting her vanish on him again.
He stepped forward. Despite her words, she hadn’t moved to take back her hand. Her pupils dilated at his nearness.
“Why not?” He didn’t see a ring on her finger, though he wasn’t entirely sure that would have stopped him if he had.
“Your wife and kid are right there ,” she whispered like she was revealing the coordinates to Atlantis.
Pumpkin stifled a groan. “Frankie’s not my wife,” he corrected. “She’s my nanny.”
Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Oh! I mean, when I saw you two… I mean, no, that would make sense. She’s your baby’s nanny, of course.”
He refused to admit out loud that Frankie was his nanny.
He did not want to have to share that story tonight.
It was already bad enough that he couldn’t take her out to the SUV and fuck her within an inch of her life because he physically couldn’t.
Oh, his dick worked just fine. It was the rest of him that was the problem .
“Are you sleeping with her?”
Pumpkin’s eyebrows shot up, but he wasn’t angered by the question and the obvious jealousy in her voice. If anything, he was amused.
But before he could answer, she quickly backtracked.
“Oh God! That’s none of my business. I am so sorry.
I don’t know what I was thinking.” Though her cheeks flushed in embarrassment, she only used her free hand to cover the one side of her face.
Like she subconsciously didn’t want to let go of his hand.
Pumpkin chuckled. He started to the table, pulling her along after him.
And not just because he needed to get off his legs.
He’d left the wheelchair in the SUV and had only brought his cane inside.
It was currently hooked over the back of his chair.
When he’d seen a woman in distress, he’d acted without thinking, moving much too fast for his sore body.
Fucking hell, he was going to need to take a bath tonight and maybe see Paige in the morning for an acupuncture treatment and massage. Not the happy ending kind. Demo would murder him, and Pumpkin had no intention of dying again.
Certainly not when he’d finally found his woman. Because she was his . He didn’t know how yet or when, but this woman who was following him so obediently with her purple hair and caramel eyes was his . He felt it in his soul.
He just had to convince her of that. And maybe, find out her name.
What was she doing ? Dosia just wanted to go home.
She couldn’t think of a worse way to make her evening even more awkward than to have dinner with Vodka, his infant son, and the nanny he was most likely sleeping with.
She recalled seeing them in town a few days ago.
The woman had had her arm through his as he pushed the stroller and her head had been on his shoulder. They were definitely sleeping together.
But why did her big, fat mouth have to have asked him that question? Really? It was none of her business. She wanted no part of him or his life. Likely, the nanny wasn’t the only one he was sleeping with.