“Heavy hands, maybe.” He looked back with eyes that had dropped the facade and made her melt deep inside. “But they’re beautiful ones.”
She took an involuntary step back, wondering if she’d heard right. This was the rude guy, yes? Not someone who flattered. She didn’t reply and turned abruptly.
“Excuse me!” he called after her. She stopped in her tracks, and turned slowly, wondering what on earth he was going to say. Was he about to tell her he was wrong, her hands weren’t in the slightest bit beautiful, or maybe that he didn’t want his lunch after all? Maybe she’d dreamed the whole thing.
“Yes?” she asked breathlessly.
“And a coffee, please. Short black.”
“Right,” she said, more to herself than to him. “Right. Coffee it is.” Coffee it was every day. If there was one thing that the green-eyed man who made her legs go weak was, it was predictable. But, as she walked over to her brother’s table, she considered the word. Predictable was a bit negative. Maybe regular, or ‘knows what he wants’ would be more accurate. Yes, that was infinitely better. Because he’d just turned out to be anything but predictable.
She brought out her notebook and poised her pen but her mind was full of the word ‘beautiful’. She turned the hand that was holding the notebook and studied it.
“What the hell are you doing, Amber?” asked Gabe. “Is there something wrong with your arm? Here”—he reached out in his best doctorly fashion—“let me take a look.”
She snapped back to the present and pulled her arm from Gabe’s hand. “No. Of course not.” She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the sensation on the back of her hand from where the green-eyed man had touched her, trying to focus on the present. It wasn’t easy—her family had always accused her of having only a weak grip on reality. She took it as a compliment.
“Then why do you look so goofy?”
Now that annoyed her. Goofy was the last thing she wanted to look at that precise moment. She glanced at the man but he was flicking away an annoying wasp from his table.
“Amber! You haven’t taken our order,” said Gabe.
She dismissed him with a wave of the hand. “In a minute.” She returned to Green Eyes’ table, leaned over and opened a window. With the aid of a menu, she carefully scooped up the wasp and flicked it gently out of the window. She pulled the window closed once more. She turned to see that he was completely still, his eyes focused intently on her.
“I’ll leave it closed.” She mimed a shiver. “It’s a bit chilly outside this…afternoon.” She grinned at the added emphasis.
He cleared his throat and sat up straight. “You should have one of those fly things to kill flies and wasps. They’re pests.”
Her grin faded. “They’renot. I’m not into killing things, and we usually have the windows open so things fly in, and then they fly right on out again.” She looked around defensively. “Anyway, do you see any flies?”
He cast a steady look around and pointed into a distant corner by the open front door. “There.”
“That’s not fair. That one’s just come in.” She pointed. “And look, it’s just gone out again.”
He shrugged.
“And what does that shrug mean?”
“Simply that I proved my point.”
“You did no such thing. Anyway, if you don’t like it, thereareother cafés.”
He held her gaze for a long moment and she felt her irritation wobble and then flutter and dissolve into nothing, like a popped sigh, or a rain cloud evaporating under a hot sun. He might not be able to talk without provoking her but he sure could speak with those eyes, and she liked what they were saying. A loud ding sounded from across the café.
“I don’t want to go to other cafés because they don’t have you as a waitress.”
A small whimper escaped her lips and she touched her burning cheek. She never blushed—what on earth was happening?
The ding sang out again.
“Someone at the counter is trying to attract your attention.” He glanced across the café. “Yes, two lattes by the look of it.” He frowned. “Funny color, must be soy or something weird.”
She nodded and stepped back. “Right, I…” She turned and walked away, waving her hand as Gabe tried to attract her attention again. Once the two lattes had been deposited—and how the green-eyed stranger knew soy milk had been used, she had no idea—she went to take Gabe and Maddy’s order.
“What’s got into you, Amber? You’re acting all distracted. Well, even more distracted than usual.”
Amber pressed her hand flat against her chest, willing her heart to stop pounding, willing the heat that she could feel flooding her cheeks to subside.
