Chapter 1
Maisie
“Another slice?” My hand only shakes a little today.
“Please,” Wyatt says, his voice gruff.
He usually comes in with three other alphas who work at the construction site down the road where a new condo is being built. This morning, it’s just him.
I finish topping up his coffee, set the coffeepot down on the counter, and head for the glass cabinet to serve him his second slice of blueberry pie.
I nearly poured hot coffee into his lap on my first day. Not that he seemed to mind one bit. He just smiled and said, “Take your time, darlin’, I’m in no hurry.”
“Maisie, right?” He adds a splash of creamer to his cup.
It says so on the badge attached to my light pink dress, but he always keeps his eyes on mine, not on my chest. I appreciate that. “Yeah.”
“How are you finding Rios?”
I’ve lost count of how many minutes I’ve spent replaying his sexy drawl over and over in my head when I’m back in my apartment. Southern, but not the Texas twang I’ve heard so many times before. His is smooth. A slow caress along my senses.
It’s been a month since I started working at this small-town Iowa diner. Nico, the Greek American owner, took pity on me when I drifted in, exhausted from too many hours on the road. Nico’s Diner was supposed to be a quick pit stop before my next hiding place. Yet here I am, thirty days later, making no move to leave.
“Quiet. Everyone is nice.” I remove his empty plate and place the small dish with the generous slice of blueberry pie in front of him. Wyatt doesn’t usually sit at the counter like this, but it’s a quiet early fall morning, and he’d smiled when he walked in and said he’d sit at the counter, save me from dashing to whatever table he picked out.
“Well, if you have any trouble, let me know. I’ll straighten it out.”
I believe him. My eyes linger on the strong, tanned hand he wraps around the coffee handle. Everything he picks up seems so small. “Thanks.”
“Wyatt. Wyatt Comeaux.” He flashes me a grin so sexy I nearly polish my hand instead of the counter. “Figured I’ve been rude long enough not telling you my full name. There must be at least twenty construction workers named Wyatt in the country.”
There might be twenty of them, but there’s only one six-three alpha who smells of bourbon and hot iron. And I doubt any of those Wyatts would have the same effect on me as this one does.
Tawny brown eyes, chestnut hair, and long, sooty lashes. He’s almost always in low-slung blue jeans, a gray long-sleeve tee, and steel-toed boots. Even if he didn’t have shoulders like doors,thisWyatt is one of a kind. I like the way he looks almost as much as I love the way he smells.
“Lina already mentioned it,” I say, torn between wishing someone would come into the diner to distract him from all the attention he’s paying me and dreading it at the same time.
Mondays always start slow.
I get here for the morning shift at 6:30 with Nico, who’s in the kitchen finishing his prep for the day. Lina, his daughter, rolls in at 10 after dropping off her son at school. We’ll have a slow trickle of Rios locals through the morning as the residents of this small Iowa town crawl out of bed and come searching for strong coffee to kick off a new week.
A dimple forms on his cheek. “Hope she hasn’t been telling you all my flaws.”
“Youhave flaws?” My cheeks burn at what sounds suspiciously like flirting talk. I take a step back, nervous fingers plucking at my white half-apron. “Sorry, I didn’t?—”
His deep, rich chuckle wraps around me. “Sweetheart, no man on the planet is gonna ask for an apology for a compliment from a beautiful woman,” he gently interrupts with another devastating smile. “Least of all, me. Accuse me of having a big head if you must, but I intend to savor being unflawed until the next time I walk into something.”
“I don’t believe you.”
His long-sleeve gray shirt conceals muscled arms and powerful shoulders. He’s big enough for everyone and everything to move out of his way for fear of him running them over.
Everyone in Oregon said I was clumsy, but my clumsiness didn’t come from tripping over things or walking into doors; it came from marrying the wrong man.
Looking me right in the eye, he says, “I have a tendency to walk into many things when I’m distracted.”
“Distracted by what?”
His lips tilt up in a crooked smile. “How about we leave the answer for another time? I’m not sure now is the time to get into it.” His long, hungry look communicates that I’m the biggest source of his distraction.
