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“I’ll have the egg and toast breakfast, eggs over medium, and multigrain toast with a side of fruit.”

“Any meat?”

My nose curled. “No, thank you.”

“Anything to drink?”

“Iced tea, please.”

She was a little less eager when she turned to Trevan. No doubt leery of his frame. Of his cut and patch and what it all meant.

I hated that the citizens of Crimson Creek were afraid of them, of what they exuded and represented, but it was necessary.

“For you?”

“I’ll have the steak skillet with poached eggs and a black coffee.”

He took both our menus and handed them to her, nodded as he rumbled, “Thank you.”

“No problem,” she said, easing a fraction. “I’ll be right back with your drinks.”

“Thank you, Rylee. It is so good to finally meet you.”

“You, too,” she said, then she turned and scurried away.

Trevan grunted.

“You could have smiled a little wider to make her comfortable,” I scolded with a smile twitching at the edge of my mouth.

“Then she really would have run away…just like she’s been doing when your brother strolls in.”

“What do you mean?”

“Brody seems to think he’d like a little taste of that.”

“Ugh, Brody thinks he’d like a little taste of everything. Hopefully she knows better.”

Trevan rocked back in his chair with a grin. “Shoots him down every time. Makes him nuts, the one woman in the whole town who’s not falling prey to his charm, and now she’s the only one he wants.”

I laughed. “Serves him right.”

Trevan leaned forward. “Even the worst of us deserve to get our HEA, don’t we?”

No doubt, he was referring to himself.

I managed to get both of his hands under the table, my boobs pressed to the top, our faces so close to meeting in the middle. “Only when he doesn’t realize he’s the best of us.”

I was working on getting him to recognize the whole of it. That he deserved everything. His son included. It was a topic that was a bit precarious. The man was still so wounded from his past that he wasn’t sure that he deserved every amazing thing this world had to offer.

I prayed one day he would see.

It was strange, knowing he had a child out there. Realizing he’d fathered him with Felicity, that time wrought with so much insecurity and questions for me.

But God, I wanted it for him. Wanted it for us. I loved that faceless boy with my whole heart just because he was a part of Trevan.

His gaze turned gentle. Eyes caressing as he rubbed our fingers together where they were threaded under the table.

“Only you can see me that way.”