I slide the next plate toward Hunter. “Chicken and bacon sandwich with waffle-cut fries. Your cheeseburger is coming out soon. Winston is still working on it.” I add the extra sauces to the table and lift my tray. “I’ll be back with the rest.”
My second tray full, I return to their table, passing Knox his double cheeseburger with no onion, fresh tomato, and extra mayo. He always likes a double portion of fries, so I slide thatplate toward him, too. Hunter gets his cheeseburger to go with the BLT he always orders.
Wyatt has a medium-rare steak sandwich with cheese and spicy waffle fries. I pass him his food and lift my tray after checking I haven’t forgotten anything, telling them, “And a slice of pie with another round of drinks for dessert?”
All four men are staring at me, their jaws hanging open.
“How’d you keep all that straight?” Wyatt asks. “Lina used to write it all down, and even then, she wouldn’t always remember which thing belonged to each of us.”
I shrug. “Just can.”
My memory wasn’t always this good. It’s a blessing and a curse. I was always so scared of messing up Derek’s dinner or the way he liked his shirts ironed and the bed made that I repeated those things in my head over and over until it stuck. I must have been doing the same with Elias, Hunter, Knox, and Wyatt’s order for it to have stuck in my head as well as it has.
“Are you okay?” Elias asks gently.
I blink myself back to the present and find them all watching me, their eyes filled with concern.
I force a smile to my lips as I shove the remnants of a painful life I wish I could forget to the back of my mind. “Fine. Enjoy your meal.”
And I walk away, my heart heavier than it was when I first went over to their table.
Chapter 5
Knox
Reclining in my seat, I ignore the plate of food in front of me as I watch Maisie step behind the counter.
Something bothered her before she walked away. A thought or memory. A bad one. Before Wyatt asked how she could remember such a specific order, she looked pleased to see us. And there haddefinitelybeen a hint of a smile on her lips as she approached our table.
“She’s not as scared of us,” I say.
“Of you,” Hunter corrects me, picking up a fry and dipping it into his ketchup. “Which, to be fair, you are pretty intimidating.”
I glare at my friend. “I am not intimidating.”
“You threatened to launch a guy through the window,” Elias says dryly, “stuff like that is going to leave a lasting impression on her.”
“He was trying to grab her. What else was I supposed to do?”
“You know, there is a thing called diplomacy,” Wyatt drawls.
I raise my brow at him. “And what diplomatic way would you have dealt with a guy who was eyeing Maisie like dessert and getting ready to drag her into his lap while she was looking fucking terrified?”
Tawny brown eyes darken, and his hand tightens around his coffee cup.
“Exactly,” I say, victorious. My eyes return to Maisie. “We made a promise.”
“She’ll never be afraid again,” Wyatt says in a low voice, the hum of an increasingly busy diner drowning out any would-be eavesdroppers.
“I intend to keep it,” I say.
“We all do,” Elias says.
Hunter chews his French fry, swallows, and asks me, “What did he say when you turned up at his motel room?”
Discovering he was a tourist didn’t surprise any of us. No local with an attitude like that would last long in Rios. Sheriff Watson would have paid them a visit to remind them to keep their hands to themselves in public. He doesn’t like trouble in his town. He also doesn’t like to wait until trouble lands in his lap, so he’s not above going to a person directly and giving them a subtle warning that he’s watching and to save him additional paperwork by avoiding whatever it is they’re thinking of doing. It’s just one of the reasons we’re all reluctant to leave Rios. Not the main reason, but a big one.
I shrug, my mind flashing back to the college student who’d tried to slam his motel room door in my face when he saw who’d come knocking. “Obviously, he wasn’t happy. I just made it clear?—”
