Last year Sophia’s parents had decided to retire. In doing so, they split up their businesses equally amongst their three children. Among Sophia’s new assets was the Groveton Diner, which was known by the locals as justthediner. Other such food establishments had tried to pop up in Mount Grove over the years, but they’d failed. Small-town pride was high in their community, and no chain restaurant had stood a chance. Between the diner, Tony’s pizzeria, and Mabel’s bakery, the residents of Mount Grove were well fed.
Sophia had made small changes to the diner after taking over. The biggest being bringing on Tally as the head cook. Being blind had never stopped Tally from doing anything she set her mind to, including going to culinary school. Once known as the Blind Chef of Atlanta, she’d successfully run a downtown restaurant until a real-estate tycoon had burned it down when she refused to sell. Scar had then brutally murdered all his employees before slicing the tycoon’s knee tendons so he couldn’t walk and lighting the man on fire. But Tally had no designs to rebuild. Instead, she’d packed up her entire life and moved to Mount Grove because she knew this was where Scar’s family was.
Sophia had offered her a job. As good as the diner’s food was, Sophia wanted to make itbetter. She even purchased the space next door to the diner from her brother and was remodeling to expand. The new, temporarily smaller, menu had a turkey, pear, brie, and cranberry panini that wasto die for. While Jack tended to stick with his standard Reuben, Jenna was determined to try every one of the new sandwiches. In place of french fries, Jenna got Tally’s apple slaw or poppyseed fruit salad with honey and lime.
Cooking had always been one of Jenna’s favorite activities, but after losing control of a knife last summer and almost slicing herself, she’d taken a step back. Jack, who was more of a griller than a cook, was picking up the slack, and Ollie was even experimenting with some recipes, to which Jenna was all too happy to be his taste-testing guinea pig. Having Tally added to the club family, though, was a godsend, because now Jenna knew that all the club brothers were being fed too.
In addition to Tally, Sophia had also put herself on the payroll. She had a college degree in liberal arts, but no experience running a business or restaurant. Therefore, she had announced over Christmas that she was going back to school for business management. It wasn’t much, just a couple of online night courses, but she wanted to do right by the town’s staple restaurant and her parents’ legacy.
Pirate was not thrilled about Sophia being a waitress, especially since they’d also announced her pregnancy over the holidays. What they’d thought was the flu was actually a swashbuckling rogue baby growing inside Sophia’s womb—at least, that’s how they put it. Therefore, Pirate made an addition to Sophia’s waitressing uniform. On her right ass cheek was a graphic of a white handprint with the wordsProperty ofabove the fingerprints andPirateover the palm. Sophia was neitherembarrassed nor surprised by her husband’s possessiveness or need to publicly claim her.
Tally needed no such announcement. Her fiancé shadowed her wherever she went, and there wasn’t a man in the world with the balls to attempt something with Tally.
Unless he had a death wish.
Tally’s best friend, Simone, was also working at the diner part-time while her husband, Tom, and Keys were setting up their new business. They’d broken ground before the winter, but then had to stop when the ground froze. Jenna had seen the plans for the building, though, and she was impressed. She did not have the heart to ask Keys if he knew what he was doing or had the money for such a venture. While the others might call Keys a kid, she did not want to, nor did she want to think about him in that fashion. He might be young, yes, and a bit naïve, but he was smart and he was a grown man. Harper had confided in Jenna and Tessa one night years ago that she had an inkling Keys was on the spectrum. To Jenna’s knowledge, she’d never asked him or voiced her suspicion to him.
Jack spun Jenna’s chair around. “You still want to work your way down the sandwich list?”
Jenna nodded. “Sounds great to me.”
He leaned forward, claiming her lips. “I’ll send Darrin and Viktor. Raspberry iced tea?”
“Please,” she smiled up at him.
He kissed her again before heading out the front door. Jenna licked her lips, trying not to smile. Per Jack, why send a text when you could simply walk a few feet to talk to someone face to face? The club prospects weren’t just guarding Little Shoes. Since Steel now joined her daily in the store and was there to protect her, they were now to keep an eye on all the club businesses up and down Main Street, which included Dosia’s bookstore, Calliope’s new age store, Angel’s tattoo shop, Lucky’sart studio, Sophia’s diner, and Jasmine’s vet clinic. Around this time each day, they stopped in to get Jack and Jenna’s lunch orders, knowing that Steel wouldn’t leave Jenna alone to run down the road and get them their meals.
The bell above the door chimed. Jenna raised her head and smiled at the middle-aged man who walked into her store. “Welcome to Little Shoes. Is there something I can help you find?”
He approached the counter where she sat, placing both hands on the glass. Her instincts pegged him as military or former military. He still had the haircut and the build. On his right hand, she saw the letters H-O-L-D tattooed over each finger. Glancing to his other hand on her display case, she saw F-A-S-T over those fingers.
But it was the Staff Sergeant tattoo on the left side of the man’s throat that confirmed her suspicions. He was tall, like Jack. She placed him in his mid-forties with salting hair and a nose that had been broken one too many times to classify him as ruggedly handsome anymore. His skin was dark enough that she guessed mixed heritage, though light enough that she wondered if that genetics was from his second generation relations.
His haunted eyes aged him more than the wrinkles on his skin. He’d seen more than his fair share of bad things.
“It’s been a long time, Mrs. Duncan. We’ve actually met before.”
Her eyebrows went up. “We have? My apologizes, I don’t remember you.”
He waved it off. “Don’t. It was many, many years ago. I’m actually looking for your husband. My name is?—”
The bell rang over the door once more. Jenna turned to see Jack walking back in. His gray eyes narrowed on the man at the counter. He stiffened, and she saw the way his hand slipped to the small of his back, where she knew he kept his gun.
As nonchalantly as possible, Jenna twisted her chair over so her knee tapped the panic button under the counter.
“Gunny,” the man said, stepping away from the display case. “It’s really good to see you?—”
“Hands where I can see them,” Jack snapped.
There’d only been a few times in their life when Jenna had seen Master Gunnery Sergeant “Steel” Duncan. With her, he’d always just been Jack. Even in uniform, she’d never seen anyone else. But it wasn’t the uniform that others saw when they looked at Steel. It was the eyes, the hard as steel persona that led men into battle and made life or death decisions.
This was the warrior, not the husband or the father of her children.
The man paused, his eyes dancing back and forth between Steel at the door and Jenna behind the counter. As if he realized the issue was the fact he was closer to Jenna than Steel was, he stepped even further away. His hands weren’t raised over his head like a suspect, but he held them shoulder height with his fingers spread.
“You’ll have to excuse what happens next,” Steel said, bringing his gun out. He kept the muzzle down towards the floor. “We’ve had some things happen around here, and I won’t take any chances. On your knees, Staff Sergeant.”
The man complied, lowering himself one leg at a time. “I know. That’s why I’m here. I came to warn you.”
