But he just grinned. “Quality check. Had to make sure it wasn’t poisoned.”
“You’re a menace!” Noelle laughed, shaking her head. “Do you quality check all of your customers’ food? Because I’m pretty sure that’s a health code violation.”
“Of course not!” he exclaimed, looking affronted. “I don’t care if the rest of them get poisoned.”
“You have customers, go away!” Noelle said, rolling her eyes. He grinned and stood, retreating to his spot behind the counter.
Val leaned her elbows on the table and whispered loudly, “That boy has been in love with you for as long as I can remember. Please tell me you see that, right?”
“What? Eww,” Noelle muttered, shaking her head. “You’reinsane. And it’sTheo. He used to pick his boogers and wipe them on me.”
“Noelle, he was like five!Youused to lick all of Marnie’s cookies so he couldn’t have any!”
Noelle shrugged, grinning. “He used to get so mad that I put my ‘cooties’ on everything.”
“Didn’t he step in as your senior prom date when Matt Hinnum stood you up?” Willow asked around a bite of her sandwich.
“Oh my god, I totally forgot about that,” Noelle said, nodding. She picked up a chunk of the bread on her plate, dipping it into her soup. “He was on crutches from that soccer injury, too. He still managed to dance with me.” She shrugged then. “He’s just a friend, you guys know that. Marnie and Mom have always been close, Dad and Drew were best friends… And we were always stuck together for everything in school because our last names are both C’s. He’s not in love with me.” Waving her spoon in Val’s face, Noelle continued, “It’s you and your obsession with all thingslove. I’m not going to lie, it’s kind of a nice break from your usual over-the-top insanity with this damn holiday. It’s like you only see the world through rose-colored glasses all the time and you think that there’s a Hallmark love story romance waiting around every corner. You read too many smutty romances.”
Willow nodded in agreement next to Noelle. “I support that statement.”
“There is nothing wrong with a good smutty romance novel, thank you very much,” Val protested, laughing, as she stabbed a crouton with her fork. “I have been on five hellish first dates, two even worse second dates, and then whatever these last two months have been with Ryan.” Taking a bite of her salad, she chewed and swallowed before she said, “So if I want to immerse myself in a good ol smutty romance novel and imagine that some totally ripped, outrageously handsome, heavily tattooed lumberjack of a man with a thick beard is going to stroll his way into myflower shop one day, sweep me off my feet and give me a dozen orgasms, that is my prerogative!”
“Oh, come on now, a woman like you deserves at least two dozen orgasms, Val,” a deep voice murmured from behind her and she jumped, dropping her fork with a clatter.
CHAPTER 3
The deep flush of red that tinged her cheeks and made her face feel like it was on fire caused him to chuckle, the bastard.
“Beau!” Val stuttered, laughing, as she slapped her palms to her cheeks. The waves of her dark hair swished around her shoulders, the ends brushing her collarbone as she shook her head. “You werenotsupposed to hear that!” Turning to glare at her sisters, she hissed, “You could have told me he was right behind me!”
Her sisters laughed, and he chuckled lightly. She watched as he snagged one of the black metal-backed chairs from a nearby table and dragged it to the end of their booth, straddling it backward. His well worn, faded blue jeans pulled taut over muscled thighs that were spread wide around the back of the chair. Black work boots covered his feet. A blue flannel shirt was left unbuttoned over a black t-shirt that fit snug to his body, and the arms of the flannel were pushed up his forearms, revealing the tattoos that covered them.
He pushed the fingers of one hand up through thick black hair that was fashionably too long and streaked with silver,shoving the thick strands back away from his forehead. A dark beard trimmed about an inch long covered the lower half of his face and upper lip, also streaked through with threads of silver. The man had started graying in his early thirties and it only made him that much more attractive. Impossibly dark, chocolate brown eyes fringed with thick, dark lashes were focused on her face. The grumpy façade was a damn chick magnet, and he knew it, too. His body was thick all over, but muscle rippled under his skin. He was big and burly cantankerous, and when he fixed that impenetrable glare on someone, more than slightly intimidating.
God, I love a dad-bod, she thought wistfully, then rolled her lips inward and blinked rapidly to dispel the thought.
Folding his tattooed arms across the back of the chair, he leaned close and murmured, “So I heard Ryan proved me right.”
“Ugh, that little shit,” Val muttered sourly, turning to give Theo a dark glare from across the room. “He wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”
Glancing over at Beau again, she dropped her gaze to her food to avoid his eyes. She hated that stare that he leveled on her, the one that could see everything, even the parts that she didn’t want anyone else to see. It was like his own annoying superpower.
“We’re man hating today,” Noelle informed Beau with a smirk. “No one is off limits, even you. But thank you for our lunches.”
Beau chuckled again, a small smile tilting up one corner of his mouth. He had straight white teeth and an impossibly full bottom lip. Val had admittedly had a crush on Beau as a teen, but the man was as closed off emotionally as the brick wall they were sitting against. She’d never known the man to date more than for casual hookups. He was a self-proclaimed, lifelong bachelor. He lived in an apartment above the coffee shop that she knew was decorated similarly to the shop itself. Brick walls, old fashioned hardwood floors, black furniture, minimal décor and heaven forbid there be anyfeminine touchesin his space. Women were not invited to stay overnight, and as far as Val knew, she and her sisters were theonly women outside of his immediate family or casual hookups to be invited in at all.
She knew he had dated while he was away at college, but upon returning home to northern Michigan, he’d been single. He was single-handedly responsible for breaking a dozen mama’s hearts because he had no interest in settling down or marrying their daughters.
Beau Collins was like an all-black, ten-thousand-piece puzzle with odd shapes as the pieces. It would take a miracle to ever figure out this man. He was polite, cordial, and always willing to help in any capacity… but he liked his privacy and didn’t let anyone in.
“Do I need to be worried about you ladies for dinner tonight, as well?” he asked, his deep voice gruff.
“Oh lord, no,” Willow laughed, setting her sandwich down. “Noe and I have dates tonight.”
“I’ll be home with a bottle of wine or a pint of ice cream, and possibly a slasher movie,” Val said on a chuckle, only half joking. “Guess it was pointless for me to buy that new dress for tonight.”
“Put it on and wear it around the house!” Noelle said then. “You get dressed up foryou, not some douchey guy.”
