Muriel’s hand went to her chest and then she squeezed my shoulder. “I could’ve guessed—a big boy like you.”
Women hit on me all the time, and it rarely fazed me, but Muriel’s comment set my cheeks burning. For once in my life, I was rendered speechless.
Muriel pulled a flask from her apron. “Want to make that a winter coffee?” She shook it and gave me a very obvious wink.
“How about a light winter coffee.” I nudged the mug toward her and she poured some of the amber liquid into the coffee.
“That’ll warm you up.”
While I waited for the roast beef sandwich, I sipped the winter coffee. Muriel was right, the whiskey did send a warming sensation into my limbs, and I relaxed into the booth. The restaurant was quiet. There were a couple of old guys in the corner, a family with a sleeping baby in one of those car seat things, and a beautiful woman who looked to be in her thirties drinking something from a mug while looking at some papers in a file folder.
The bells over the door jingled and a whoosh of cold air curled around my feet. I sipped the coffee and glanced at the entrance. A girl with sandy-brown hair tucked under a red wool hat stepped into the diner and stomped the snow off her boots.
“Hi, Evie,” Muriel shouted from the kitchen.
I tried not to stare as the girl named Evie walked by my table. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold, and her eyes were the same green as the stripe in her long scarf. It was the longest one that I’d ever seen; the scarf was wound around her neck a couple of times, and still, its fringes hung down to her knees. She was beautiful, but she looked like she’drobbed an eighty-year-old woman and walked away wearing her clothes. Her red peacoat had a sparkly thing pinned to the lapel—I think that my grandma called them brooches. The buttons of the coat were undone, revealing a knitted vest with reindeer on it. Bells hung from her ears, tinkling as she walked by me.
She may have been dressed like an old lady, but she smelled like a hot twenty-something. Vanilla and the expensive shampoo that they all use lingered in the air. My cock stirred in my boxers and I had to remind myself that I was only there to throw the game. Still, my mind flashed to the sound those earrings would make if I was thrusting into her hard and fast.
I shook my head. If I wanted to get some action while I was in town, this beautiful woman with the terrible outfit did not look like the type to jump in the sack for a one-night romp with a hockey player.
Which was too bad, because, like the coffee, she’d managed to warm up my body from the inside.
TWO
EVIE
The gas stationwas a short walk from the inn, but by the time I got there, I was covered in snow. Muriel waved and called my name, and I felt bad as I tracked snow from one end of the diner to the other.
“Hi, Muriel.” I leaned on the little window that opened to the kitchen.
“One second, honey.” Muriel grabbed a plate of food and the saloon doors smacked the wall as she hurried to deliver it to one of the booths. A man I didn’t recognize was sitting alone. He was wearing a T-shirt in the middle of winter and a baseball hat. I let my eyes linger a little too long on his biceps. The man was huge, the sleeves of his T-shirt stretched tightly over his massive arm muscles.
Muriel hurried to the kitchen and returned to hand me a big white box. “They’re still warm. Don’t let it tip to the side, though. Some of them have chocolate chips on top. When those suckers are melted they can be messy.”
My grandma had requested beaver tails for her book club. The box of what were basically flattened donuts was warm, and I pulled my mittens onto my hands, hoping that the grease wouldn’t soak through the bottom of the box. “Thankyou.” I smiled. I hadn’t seen Muriel in years, but she hadn’t changed one bit. She looked seventy-five when I was ten, and now, thirteen years later, she still looked seventy-five.
“Have you met Charlotte?” Muriel asked.
I shook my head. I had grown up in Chance Rapids but left when my parents divorced. My father slunk to Florida to live with his new family, and I went off on an adventure with my midlife crisis mother. Grandma Janie was slowing down and needed some help with the inn over the holidays. As neither of my parents had a welcoming home, coming back to the inn was a welcome distraction from the dumpster fire of my life.
Muriel took me by my mitten and led me to the booth where a very glamorous-looking woman was drinking warm lemon water. A leather file folder was open on the table in front of her. “Charlotte, this is Evie. Jane, from Snowy Peaks’ granddaughter.”
Charlotte had a beautiful smile and the whitest teeth I’d ever seen. “Nice to meet you, Evie. Your Grannie GJ is quite the character.”
“Is that the nice way of calling her eccentric?” I asked.
Next to Charlotte I felt ridiculous. As an attendee at the Snowy Peaks books club, GJ had insisted that I put on her reindeer vest and wreath earrings—complete with dangly bells. She finished off my outfit with a sparkly pin that looked vintage but actually had a tiny speaker that played “Jingle Bells” when you pushed on one of the fake rubies. Charlotte was dressed in a black sweater dress with gold earrings. The biggest diamond ring I’d ever seen flashed on her perfectly manicured hand.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being called eccentric.” Muriel chuckled. “It’s better than being a bore.”
Charlotte and I both laughed. “That is true. You are definitely not a bore, Muriel.” Charlotte sipped from her mug. “I remember your mom, Evie,” Charlotte said. “Tell her that Isaid hi. I was just a kid, but she was always so nice to me and my sister, Lauren.”
“I will.” I wouldn’t. I hadn’t heard from my mom in years. “I’d better get these to the book club before they get cold. Those ladies would never forgive me if I showed up with cold beavers.”
The guy at the booth behind Charlotte made a choking sound. He cleared his throat and then took a sip of his coffee. Up close, he was younger than I’d first thought—he looked to be right around my age—but I didn’t know too many twenty-three-year-olds who were built like the TV show version of Jack Reacher. Whoever he was, he must have been starving. He had cleaned every last bit of food off his plate.
“Let me get the door for you.” The man wiped his mouth with a napkin and then jogged to open the door.
