A horn honked behind us. He tore his eyes away, looking forward and driving through the intersection. My heart was kicking against my ribs, sensation spinning through me as I tried to catch my breath.
“If that doesn’t tell you whether you’re my type, I don’t know what else will,” he said flatly, the bare confidence in his words widening the cracks in the walls around my heart.
I wanted to protest, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I might not know what to do with any of it, but I knew last night was something different.
As much as I wanted to chalk it up to the beyond amazing sex we had, that wasn’t it. It wasn’t Dawson’s oh, so skilled touch that had me rattled. I had no doubt he’d have brought me to climax without that searing intimacy catching us in a shimmering web. If sex was music, last night had been a song with the magic of an unexpected moment all coming together and setting a stage on fire.
When he came to another intersection, he looked over again. “I guess I thought you were gonna argue with me,” he offered with a low laugh.
I twisted my fingers together again, spinning a ring that belonged to my sister on my pinky. “No,” I finally said, my voice just above a whisper while my heartbeat thundered through my body.
He nodded, this time looking forward just as the light turned green. “I meant what I said last night.”
“What was that again?”
I honestly didn’t know what he was referring to. We had said quite a few things to each other, but much of it had been begging, pleading, dirty words, and his name. I was instantly hot, recalling when he called my name with a rough shout as he found his release.
“When I told you we would take it one step at a time,” he explained.
Oh. Oh.
I felt so dizzy and thrown off balance because I didn’t know how to handle this side of Dawson.
“I keep expecting you to crack a joke,” I offered.
His smile flashed as quickly as it faded when he glanced over. “I joke a lot but not all the time. Not right now.”
I couldn’t believe what I asked next. “So by one step at a time, does that involve you trolling the bars for your usual hookups?”
This time, his eyes narrowed when he looked my way. “Fuck no, Evie. I don’t hook up as much as you think I do anyway. I won’t deny I’m a hell of a flirt, but it’s not always something I see through.” I could’ve sworn I saw pain flicker in the depths of his smoky gaze. “I get why you said it, but that’s not how I think of you.”
Okay, now, I didn’t know what the hell to think.
The ring was warm under my fingers as I twisted it. “I guess I made some assumptions. Seeing as I hate when people do that to me, I’m sorry.”
Dawson’s shoulder lifted in an easy shrug. “It’s okay. We all do sometimes. I can’t say I haven’t done plenty to create that impression.”
I hadn’t realized we had approached the outskirts of Asheville. Dawson stopped at another intersection and glanced my way. “Your call, where do you want to go first?”
“Let’s take care of the building supplies. It’ll be quieter at the restaurant supply store later this afternoon.”
A short drive later, I followed Dawson around the massive warehouse for building supplies. He was all business, a side of him I’d rarely seen. He stocked up on lumber, all kinds of hardware, and even haggled down the price for some mismatched lumber. By the time we were done almost two hours later, I was starving.
I didn’t intend to say anything about it, but my stomach gave me away with a hearty growl once we climbed back into his truck. I slapped my hand over my belly, and Dawson chuckled.
“I was just about to ask if you wanted to grab lunch. I’ll take that as a yes.”
My stomach, disobeying the hand trying to keep it quiet, let another growl loose. “I’m starving,” I offered with a sheepish smile.
“I gathered,” he said dryly. “Any requests?”
“Not really. Why don’t you pick?”
“In that case, we’re going to my favorite diner,” he replied as he turned the steering wheel.
Quiet filled the space while my body was anything but—zinging and humming with this inconvenient desire for Dawson. It had been easier to be around him when I had something to pay attention to, even if it was just lumber. My eyes landed on his hand resting over the steering wheel.
He had good hands—strong and slightly battered with a few scars and a light dusting of blond hair. His fingers were long and thick. Unfortunately for me, I knew just how good they felt buried inside me. He was, um, quite good with his hands. I recalled the calloused surface of his palm coasting over my skin. The memory was visceral and sent my belly into a spinning flip.
11
Evie
Dawson pulled up in front of a tiny restaurant tucked between what appeared to be two office buildings. It was a rather nondescript square building with a bright pink sign that read Candy’s Diner.
Bemused, I followed him inside. He held the door for me, his hand sliding down my back as we stepped through. With a coaxing pressure, he angled me toward the corner. Seconds after we slid into a booth, an older woman arrived at the table wearing large pink glasses with her gray hair tied into a bun held in place by a pen stuck through it.
She smiled brightly, pulling a notepad out of her black apron tied over a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt. “Well, hey there, Dawson Marsh. You finally brought a date for lunch.”
Dawson’s return smile was wide. “Hey, Candy, this is my friend Evie,” he said, gesturing toward me.
Candy’s smile immediately lifted my spirits. The warmth and ease she gave off was comforting. “Nice to meet you, Evie. I’m Candy, and welcome to my diner. What can I get you two?”
“I’ll take a coffee to start. You?” he asked, his eyes swinging to mine.
“Definitely some coffee. Let me look at the menu,” I replied, pulling one of the menus out from where they were tucked between the condiments in the center of the table.
“I’ll be right back with those coffees. Everything is served all day, so get whatever you want, hon,” Candy said before turning away.
Opening my menu, I paused to look around. The diner was small with booths along the walls and tables scattered in the center. A counter along the back offered a view of part of the kitchen. The décor was simple. The booths and tables were polished wood with silverware rolled up in paper napkins in front of each seat. Photographs lined the wall behind the counter, and bright pink curtains hung in the windows.
Glancing at Dawson, I smiled. “Candy seems nice.”
“Oh, she’s nice all right, the best kind of person. She’s salt of the earth. I knew her before I moved here. In fact, she’s the one who told me about the job at the lodge.”
“How do you know her?” I asked.
He had glanced down to open his menu, so I followed suit, perusing the options as he answered. “Candy and her husband used to live where I grew up near the coast. She grew up in the mountains, and they decided to move back and take over this diner when her mom got sick. They’re good people. I’ll take you back in the kitchen and introduce you to her husband before we go.”
Although Dawson clearly felt affection toward Candy and her husband, there was a subdued quality when he spoke of where he grew up. I wanted to know why.
Candy arrived with our coffees, and I followed Dawson’s lead to order what he described as the “best biscuits and gravy in the universe.”
After Candy departed for the kitchen again, I said, “So tell me about where you grew up. Is your family still there?”
Dawson—usually so easygoing and quick to joke—had a blank look on his face for a beat before his eyes shuttered. Although I knew next to nothing about his family or his hometown, I knew instantly his childhood didn’t contain happy memories.
He took a sip of his coffee, tracing his thumb over the curve of the mug handle after he set it down before he spoke. “I grew up a stone’s throw from the co
ast. If you’ve been to the North Carolina coast …” At my nod, he cracked a smile, and continued, “You know it’s busy. Anyway, we didn’t have much. It was just me, my mom, my dad, and my younger brother. We were poor, and I surfed. I stay in touch with my mom and my brother, but my dad passed away about six years ago.”
Dawson’s words were calm, level to the point that it was as if he had recited them many times. I had so many questions, yet I sensed now wasn’t the time for them.
“I’m sorry about your father,” I said softly.
He nodded tightly and took another swallow of his coffee. Undercurrents rippled, yet with his eyes flat and his lips tightening, it was clear the topic of his father wasn’t a good one.
“What does your brother do?” I asked, figuring perhaps that was a safer topic.
“He took over my father’s construction business after my dad passed away. We’re not too close, but we stay in touch.”
“And your mom?” I asked, wondering why I pressed ahead. My curiosity was getting the better of me. There was more to Dawson than the surface he showed to the world, and I was curious, always so curious.
“My mom does the books for that same business, always has. She’s got some health problems now, but she still handles that.”
Something flickered in his gaze, and my heart gave a little squeeze.
“What about you?” he asked, shifting the topic away from himself.
For a moment, my curiosity pressed again, but when I looked into his silver-smoke eyes, I wanted the pain lingering there to dissipate. “You already know I grew up right around Stolen Hearts Valley. You’ll meet my older brother, Mack, sometime because he’s planning to move back home. I’m close to my parents, but they were kind of strict. Things were really hard after my sister died.” I paused and shrugged, feeling the same thing I usually felt when I thought about my parents—just “not enough.” After Krista died, the aftershocks of that event continued to ripple in all our lives.
“I get the parent stuff. You can love someone, and it doesn’t mean they’re perfect,” Dawson said with a slightly bitter smile.
Staring over at him, it felt as if so much more was contained within his words, yet all I could do was nod. Candy’s arrival with the promised biscuits and gravy was timely.
“Here you two go. Now, you tell me if they’re not delicious, hon,” she said with a wink.
“Red’s food won’t let me down,” Dawson drawled.
Candy reached out and squeezed his shoulder, her touch motherly. “Red would never let you down, hon.”
When Dawson smiled, the shadows that had entered his gaze when we were talking about his family disappeared. Candy spun away, and he tucked into his food. I took a bite and actually moaned out loud. The light and fluffy biscuits were that kind of absolutely perfect Southern biscuit—buttery, flaky, and just this side of heaven. The gravy was melt-in-your-mouth to die for.
“Oh, my God,” I said when I finished chewing, “these are heaven. How come you didn’t bring me here before?”
Dawson chuckled and shrugged. His gaze was warm on me, and I wanted to reach across the table and squeeze his hand. My heart did a little funny tumble in my chest, and I took another bite. I wanted another bite, but more than that, I needed something to distract me.
The meal was beyond delicious. I was quite full by the time I finished and shoved my plate to the end of the table. “I’m going to be useless for shopping after this.”
Dawson winked. “Good thing we got the lumber taken care of this morning.”
“Oh, don’t go thinking you’re done with the heavy stuff. You know what the kitchen orders are like—boxes and boxes and more boxes.”
“Give me half an hour, and I’ll be fine. I’m gonna run to the restroom. Be right back.”
He stood, tugging his jeans up slightly as he turned away from the table. I didn’t mind taking a nice long look at his ass. I couldn’t help but stare. With his sun-kissed hair, silver-smoke eyes, and that rangy, lean body of his that I was now intimately acquainted with, well, I sighed a little just thinking about it.
I hadn’t noticed Candy at the table right beside us. “He sure is easy on the eyes, isn’t he?” she asked, pausing beside our booth.
My cheeks had to be fire engine red by the time I looked up at her. Although I knew she wasn’t technically his mother, she sure felt like it.
She laughed softly, giving my shoulder a light squeeze. “Oh, hon, don’t worry about it. I imagine most girls look their fill.” She gathered our empty plates, stacking them on a tray she set on the table. “You’re the first girl he’s ever brought here, you know?”
My pulse leaped at that news, and I took a sip of coffee to buy myself a minute. “I didn’t know that,” I finally said.
“I didn’t think you did.”
Candy’s gaze was assessing. I felt as if I were being weighed and measured to determine if I met whatever imaginary standards she’d set for Dawson, a man she clearly cared about.
She cocked her head to the side as if she had made a decision. “Dawson’s a good man, and he brought you here, so you mean something to him. Don’t be fooled by his joking. Oh, he’s a flirt, all right, probably the worst sort. But I always figured if he really liked a girl, he would be all in. He’s that kind of man.”
Conveniently or not, someone at a booth on the other side of the restaurant called Candy’s name. With a last look, she added, “You seem like a nice girl. Just don’t break his heart. Trust me, he’s already had it broken, though maybe not in the way you think.” With that, she started to turn away, glancing back at the last moment. “It was very nice to meet you, Evie.”
My manners got me through the moment even though her comment rattled me. “You as well. The meal was delicious. Thank you.”
Dawson returned a few moments later, unknowingly giving me just enough time to gather myself. I knew without a doubt Dawson had spent plenty of time in Asheville. The guys from the lodge sometimes came here together for some fun beyond the boundaries of Stolen Hearts Valley.
I was utterly stunned to learn I was the first woman he’d brought to Candy’s restaurant, especially considering it was obvious he came here often. Astonished didn’t begin to capture how I felt. Everything that had transpired over the past twenty-four hours capped with Candy’s bits of information had left me flabbergasted and spun sideways inside, scattering my expectations and assumptions like paper in the wind.
Sliding into the booth across from me, Dawson caught my eyes, his narrowing as he took me in. “Are you okay, Evie?”
Ignoring the swirl of emotions inside, I nodded. “Sure. Thank you for bringing me here. The food was better than promised. Now take me to the back to meet Red.”
Lord knows why I said that. But he said he would, and I was curious to meet someone else who so clearly meant something to him.
12
Dawson
Without thinking, I caught Evie’s hand in mine as I led her into the back of the restaurant. Once I had her hand in mine, I didn’t want to let go. Pushing through the swinging door into the kitchen, I called, “Hey, Red!”
“Dawson, get back here and give me a hug, boy,” he called in return.
Red, the closest man I had to a father in spirit, came out from behind the counter. He had a round, sturdy build with twinkling brown eyes and mostly gray hair. He pulled me into a back-slapping hug, forcing me to let go of Evie’s hand.
When he drew back, his eyes went right to Evie. “Well, hello there. Candy told me Dawson brought a date today.”
Evie smiled politely, and the lines of tension bracketing her mouth and eyes eased. Red’s warm and easygoing demeanor had that effect on people. “I’m Evie,” she said, holding her hand out.
Red chuckled, reaching his big palm out and engulfing hers. “How was your lunch?” he asked as he dropped her hand.
Pink bloomed on her cheeks, and I wanted to kiss her. “It was heavenly. I’ll be coming back, that’s for sure.”
“Well,” Red drawled, “now that Dawson’s brought you, I expect you here anytime he is.”
Evie’s blush deepened.
“Now you know, I’m usually here for work, Red. Evie’s not always with me.”
Red shrugged easily. “Well, whenever she is, we expect to see you. You been doing okay?”
“Just fine. We should probably go, though. We’ve got more errands to run for the lodge.”
“Just like I have orders to cook. Good to see you. Don’t be a stranger. Oh and don’t even try to pay for your lunch,” he called as I started to turn away.
“Already did,” I called back.
“Nice to meet you, Red,” Evie said, casting another smile at him.
“You too, darlin’.”
When we stepped out of the diner, Evie looked up. “They’re so nice. Now, I have a new place to eat when I need to run errands here.”
I hadn’t thought much about bringing her here, but it suddenly felt meaningful. Candy and Red had known me since I was little and were the closest thing to family I had around here. I’d never even considered bringing another woman here, not even for a casual lunch.
It’d taken me two full years to realize Evie was so much more than just flint to my stone, striking sparks against the desire between us. As she looked up at me, something passed between us. Whether she knew it consciously, I knew she felt that same depth I did. I felt out of my element with her, uncertain what to do with what was happening between us. My only move when it came to women was being a flirt.
I had to play this right with Evie, or I’d screw it all up. I was damn good at letting the people who mattered to me down.
“You’re welcome,” I replied belatedly. I had to swallow through the emotion thickening in my throat. Evie squeezed my hand before we turned and walked to my truck.
Hours later, I leaned against my truck’s tailgate and looked over at Evie. The sun was setting, the sky above the mountain ridge in the distance a watercolor of lavender, pink, and gold with dusk sliding in to quietly claim the day.
Vote Then Read: Volume III Page 135