Chapter 2
brIDGET
My heart is racing a mile a minute and I haven't even had a flipping coffee yet.
When I first saw the truck slow down beside me, I thought it might be one of the Oakley boys, but it was hard to tell through the rain. From a distance, all four brothers look relatively similar.
It's impossible to ignore the way every woman in town goes on and on about them. How they all grew up in Oakton, but moved away for several years for work. How whenever they visit, they spend time with their parents, and mainly keep to themselves.
Many of the women in the café especially talk about Ansel, the oldest and wealthiest, who apparently owns some tech company. Braden is an investment wizard, who's already dating Elise, one of the other waitresses here at Acorns. Nobody speaks much about Corbin, so I've never gathered many details.
But Dash… He certainly seems to be catching everyone's eye this morning.
As I do my rounds, delivering food and refilling coffee, I hear a few whispers from a group of women in their late twenties who keep stealing glances toward the back corner table. They confirm everything I've heard about Dash. Allegedly a bit of a ladies man.
I notice there are no snide remarks as they make their whispered comments, though. You'd think that if a guy was a womanizer, he'd have a bad reputation. Yet no one seems to judge Dash for being incredibly popular. They're all on board with it.
This still does not explain why he is paying attention to me. If he's used to having women throw themselves at him, then he could easily take his pick of anyone he liked.
Not only does he come from a well-known, well-respected family, he is utterly gorgeous.
Tall, broad-shouldered, with thick brown hair like all the brothers.
His eyes are rich cocoa, deep and expressive.
But it's his damn cheeky grin that lights up his charmingly handsome face that's the most dangerous thing of all to me.
No. I can't think about that. There must be a reason he was being so friendly.
It's not natural for a man who looks like a fitness model to be interested in a girl like me.
Sure, lots of men help themselves to a long look at my cleavage, but once they see that my deluxe package also includes wide hips and sturdy legs that will never look quite right in a miniskirt, they move right along.
It's one of the reasons I've started playing guitar: it's an attempt to break out of my shell a bit more, and let people see the real me.
I wait until Dash's mouth is filled with eggs to bring him his check, flash a wide smile, then dart away to deal with the sudden influx of customers now that the rain has stopped for a bit.
After I take all of the new orders, Sonya takes over on coffee duty so that I can help Marco for a few minutes.
Since he's the only one in the kitchen, we take turns helping out when he's busy.
By the time I get back out front, I'm sad to see that Dash is gone. Sonya pulls me aside and slips a piece of paper into my hands. "He paid for his breakfast and a bunch of muffins, and said that's for you."
"Thanks."
I slip it into the pocket of my apron, agonizing over what it might be until I have a moment to open it. Along with a ten-dollar tip is a note.
Bridget, I can't wait to get to know you better. See you at five, rain or shine.
Well, geez. How the heck am I supposed to concentrate on work now?
Several hours later, I fix my hair, add a tiny bit more smudged brown eyeliner, and go out front to see Dash standing waiting by the door. I might be imagining it, but it feels like all eyes are tracking me as I walk toward him.
"Hi." His smile triggers a warm, seductive tremor through pulse points that are brand new to me. "I think I have a plan to keep you and your guitar dry."
"I do like a man with a plan," I say lightly, wondering how seriously I should take this. He holds the door, positioning us so that I walk very close past him, as if he wants us to touch as much as possible.
I wait under the awning as he pulls his truck right up in front of the door, then jumps out to hold it open for me. My guitar and I flit through less than one second of rain, then I'm safely inside.
Once Dash is back in the truck, he reaches out to give my hand a pat on the seat. "See? Nice and dry. I can't have a relatively new musician showing up soggy and miserable to her lesson."
I give him the address of Mr. Filbert's house, and we drive away. The seat beneath me is already preheated, and the vents are silently blowing warm air in my direction.
He catches me glancing at them. "Just let me know if you're too warm. I know that girls always get cold, especially when it's so wet out."
"I'm good, thanks. I'm a bit more insulated than most."
Oh my God. I can't believe I just said that. It was the kind of crack about my size that I'd make all the time to the girls at work, but maybe I shouldn't say that in front of a guy.
As we pause at a stop light, Dash looks over, his sultry eyes raking over my body. "I think your entire figure is completely sexy. If my hands weren't meticulously glued to the wheel like I was taught, it would be hard to keep them off you, gorgeous."
My cheeks grow warm and flutters ripple through my belly from the thought of him touching me at all.
The ride was short, but it would have taken me forever to walk in this weather. "What time shall I pick you up?" Dash asks, after delivering me right to Mr. Filbert's porch.
"We're usually about an hour. Unless the next guy cancels, then we sometimes go a bit later."
He grins as if he'd won a prize. "Then we need to exchange numbers, just in case."
I type Dash's number into my phone, then give him mine, watching as he enters it as "My gorgeous Bridget."
That is the most presumptuous, cocky, and outright adorable thing that any man has ever done for me. I can't possibly let it slide. "You just assume that I'm yours already?" My left eyebrow reaches for the sky.
A gust of wind sends a sheet of rain our way, and he instinctively blocks it with his body, caging me against the wall on the tiny porch. "Yes," he breathes, his deep eyes sincere instead of saucy. "You are."
He takes my free hand, placing it against his heart. I'm not sure what a normal man's pulse should be at a time like this, but it does seem pretty rapid.
"I want to be yours, and I want you to be mine.
" He leans in to kiss the top of my head sweetly.
"All of those motivational books say that we have to speak things out loud in order for them to happen, right?
" Warm lips drift along the back of my hand.
"So I'm putting it out there to the universe: I think you're riveting, and I'd like to take you to dinner after your lesson. "
Just as my lips part while I attempt to think of a response, the door opens. "Bridget, honey, get in here before you catch your death." Dash grins, kissing my hand again before stepping back so I can dart inside as Mrs. Filbert holds the door.
The first few minutes of my lesson are always spent on hand stretches and finger exercises, and Mr. Filbert notices that I'm still trembling slightly.
"I'm going to assume that those shaky fingers are from the damp chill today, and have nothing to do with being dropped off by one of the Oakley boys." The sweet old man straightens his brown cardigan with a knowing smile. "Naturally, I couldn't help glancing out the front window."
I laugh. "No comment?"
"Got it. Not my business, until I start helping you write love songs in a few months. Now, let's see how your lightning fast chord changes are coming along."
I'm strumming something that vaguely resembles "Bad Moon Rising" when the timer goes off, and we can hear Mrs. Filbert letting the next student in the door.
When I open the front door to leave, sure enough, Dash is waiting with a large golf umbrella to help me into his truck. "Okay… Dinner?" he asks.
I hesitate. I am not dressed for a date, and I feel like I need to wrap my head around things first. Everything about Dash is just too…
much. He's too gorgeous. Too known around the town.
Everything I feel for him is too intense.
Yet when he gives me that seductive smile, I honestly want to jump across the bench of the truck and sit in his lap purring like a kitten.
"My Mom works evenings, and this is our one night a week to have a proper dinner together and do some meal prep."
He reaches out to pat my knee, totally unphased. "No problem. Maybe tomorrow?"
"Maybe."
"Where do you live? I'll drive you home."
Again, I hesitate. Oakton doesn't exactly have any bad neighborhoods, but my end of Walton Street is definitely a poorer area with ramshackle houses.
I give him the address anyway, because what choice do I have?
It's a small town. He's going to find out all about me anyway.
Or at least as much as Mom and I have allowed to be known.
What would Dash think if he knew that we moved across the country three years ago so that Dad would never find us again?
I'm definitely not the sort of girl that Dash could get involved with in the long term. Yet for the moment, I can't stop smiling back at him. "So, I hear through the grapevine that you and your brothers are going to be logging your forest?" I ask.
"Grapevine? Do you mean people chatting in the café?"
"Well," I peek at him from under my eyelashes. "At work, I can't help but overhear things."
"I understand," he chuckles. "We're not logging, as in chopping everything down. We're going through methodically, removing dead trees or anything that's about to fall soon. Then we're selecting the most valuable trees for use in furniture."
"You're doing this all yourselves?"
"Yeah." He gives a half shrug as he turns onto my street. "We don't trust anyone else to do it right. Plus, we were all sick of our day jobs."