by Amelia Wilde
I’m burning up. I’m going to burst into flames, my heart is beating so hard. But with a precision I’ve only seen in military men—he must be ex-military—he presses the nozzle of the canister and sprays a dollop onto two of his fingers. Then he reaches up, without a moment of hesitation, and presses them into my cheek.
Minnie goes wild. “Face! Face!”
It’s at this moment, naturally, that Sharon steps back into the room, her face halfway between curiosity and irritation. She likes the sound of happy customers, and Minnie is definitely one of those, but I’d bet anything that—
“Val, you’ve got orders waiting.” Her eyes flick between me and the handsome stranger, who’s still holding the whipped cream canister, and my face goes hot. I only have one order waiting, and it’s his.
I choose not to comment on the whipped cream. “I’m on it,” I tell her with a smile, which I keep on my face until she’s back in the front room, out of sight. Then I wheel around. With whipped cream on his face and dancing eyes, he doesn’t look nearly as intimidating as he did before. “You’re going to get me in trouble.”
“Me?” He points at his own chest, raising his eyebrows. “You’re the one who sprayed a customer with whipped cream.”
I think of his fingertips pressing against my cheek. I can still feel them there. I straighten my back and try to look imposing. “Are you going to complain?”
He considers me for a long moment. “Not this time.”
Gerald’s voice booms from the back. “Order up!”
“That’s yours.”
“You’d better go.”
I turn away from him, but it’s the last thing on earth I want to do.
6
Ryder
Minnie splashes in the puddle I dug out for her in the sand on the lakeshore. She’s into rocks lately—picking them up, stacking them, knocking down her towers—and this beach is perfect for that, by which I mean that it’s rocky as fuck. The lake Valentine was talking about isn’t like Lake Michigan, which was powerful and endless, roaring within a mile of the house I grew up in. No, this lake is more like a pond. But it’s large enough that the water is clean, and there are rocks enough to keep Minnie entertained while I figure out what the hell we’re going to do next.
The motel isn’t working out. Minnie needs more room. She needs a room, so that we can both get some sleep at night. But I haven’t been at the top of my game, so I don’t have anything lined up. I didn’t have anything lined up when I packed the car and drove out of the city a week ago, either. I only came here because I’m not going back to Michigan and my only family is here.
Not that I’m that interested in crawling back to my brother after all this time. All of this is only temporary, anyway. I just have to figure things out for the summer. One summer, and then we’re headed out.
There’s a Valentine in every town. The thought rings so stupidly false that I laugh out loud.
Minnie splashes her feet into the shallow puddle, and then points down to it. “It’s wet.”
“It’s a puddle.”
“Puddle.”
She’s quite the conversationalist.
Step one: find a place to live. Step two: find a job. Step three: stop thinking about Valentine.
The only problem is that in order to tackle steps one and two, I have to bump step three up the list. Only I can’t get her out of my head. Granted, it’s only been a couple of hours, but I can’t stop going over her curves in my mind, the silky sound of her voice, the way her red hair glinted in the sun coming through the café window, copper strands shot through it. I want to go back there right now and untwist her hair from its holder and run my fingers through it. I want it so badly that I almost tell Minnie to leave the rocks.
The rest of breakfast was smooth as hell, which was almost a disappointment. By the time Valentine came back with my plate there were other people filing in, and she couldn’t spend any more time screwing around with me. I finally had to wipe the whipped cream off my face. Minnie kept trying to flag Valentine down for more, and in the end, I had to whisk her out to avoid a total meltdown. Valentine had dropped the bill on the table on the way to drop off an entire tray’s worth of food to a group in the back, and damn if I didn’t want to wait for her to come back.
But nobody wants a toddler screaming in their ear, so I paid at the front counter and headed out.
I run my hands through my hair. For once in the last three months, my jaw doesn’t feel tight and aching. This town isn’t my favorite, but suddenly there’s possibility.
And it’s not because I’ve fallen for a waitress. It’s definitely not. I don’t know that many people who’d have been able to recover from embarrassment like she did back there, and at least she’s given me a glimmer of hope that this summer won’t be a total fucking disaster.
Minnie raises her head from the sand, squints, and then takes off running on her two-year-old legs. She looks almost like a kid now, not just the chubby baby she seemed like when she was up in the middle of last night.
“Minnie—”
She’s not going far, skidding to a stop after only a few steps. She squats down, peering at something on the ground.
“What are you looking at?” My heart is beating a little faster, just from watching her run. I’m ready to take off after her. I’m ready to do whatever it takes to protect her, and even though she’s only gone a few feet, my muscles are tensed. Still, I don’t want her to think I’m some raging psycho, so I keep my tone even and relaxed.
“Paper.” Paper. She picks up a torn shred of paper from the sand and unrolls it, then comes back across to me. “Here you go.” She holds it out to me.
“Thanks, honey.” It’s trash—a section of rolled-up newspaper—but it reminds me of something. It reminds me of Minnie’s hands reaching for that message board in the café, the one with all those flyers fastened to it with push pins.
I leap up from the sand. Shit. Is anyone around to have witnessed that? I don’t actually have fire ants down my boxers.
“Minnie, let’s go.”
She grins up at me, holding her arms up to be lifted. I scoop her up and start making a beeline for the car, which is in an empty row of the parking lot. We’ve got to go across a wide green expanse of grass, nothing like the deserts in Afghanistan, before we get there.
It takes forever to buckle Minnie into her car seat, even though she’s not even putting up a fuss. It’s just that my hands don’t want to work. I want to be driving already, heading back for that café—heading back for the waitress named Valentine. I want to touch the smooth skin of her cheek without whipped cream on my hands.
But no—I’m not going back there for her. I’m going back there for that message board. If there’s anywhere in town that will have information on a place for us to live, it’ll be that message board. I’m sure of it.
Finally I get everything clipped and buckled and throw myself into the front seat.
“Daddy!” Minnie cries.
My mind races through all the things I could have forgotten to do, and I whip around. “What is it, doll?” She grins at me for a long, silent moment, and I take a deep breath. Patience. Fucking patience. “What do you need, Minnie?”
She extends her hand, leaning forward against the straps of her car seat. “Here. Here you go, Daddy.”
I reach back and open my hand, and she drops something into my palm—a treasure from the beach. It’s a piece of beach glass that’s perfectly worn by the water, all the edges smooth, a gleaming green like Valentine’s eyes. “Is this for me?”
Minnie grins wider. “For you, Daddy.”
My heart melts. Last night doesn’t matter. All that matters is finding this sweetheart a nicer place than the motel by the highway to live in.
And if I happen to see Valentine while I do it, I guess that would be fine.
I start the car and put it into gear. “Do you want to go back to the café, Minnie?”
“Yes!” she shouts, clap
ping her hands. “Right now! Right now!”
“Right now!” I shout with her, and then we’re off.
7
Valentine
The door of the Short Stack swings shut behind the last of the breakfast crowd, and I lean against the front counter.
That was a hell of a Tuesday morning. It felt like a Saturday rush, but I should have expected that. It’s summer in Lakewood, and summer means tourists, and tourists mean weekdays that are just as hectic as the weekends.
I wonder if the sex god I saw earlier is a tourist. Well, maybe he’s a sex god. There’s really only one way to find out. My cheek still burns where he touched me—burns in a kind of pleasant hum. I wouldn’t mind if he came back in and tried it again. Maybe if he came back in, I wouldn’t act like such an idiot. God, what was I thinking? I lean my forehead into my fingertips.
“Did you get his number?” Sharon’s voice makes me jump. I straighten up, spinning to face her.
“Do you have to sneak up on people like that?”
She waves a hand dismissively. “I never sneak anywhere, and you know it. What are you doing up here? Fantasizing about him?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Fantasizing about who?”
Sharon clicks her tongue and reaches up to adjust her hair. The movement reminds me of my own hair, which has to look like a total mess after the breakfast shift. I take my hair down, twisting it into a braid. There. Not quite so much pressure on my skull.
“You can’t ignore my original question.”
“I can and I will.”
Sharon narrows her eyes. “Are you telling me that you didn’t notice how attractive that guy was?”
“Are you telling me that you didn’t notice how he has a daughter?”
She shrugs. “So what?”
“So—” How about, I’m just out of a relationship, and for related reasons? “He has a daughter. He’s not interested in dating some waitress.”
“Who said anything about dating?” Sharon smiles at me, her eyes twinkling. “I think you need to get out of this rut.”
“I’m not in a rut. Conrad and I just broke up.”
There’s a small sink in the front corner, just near the counter with the cash register, and I move around to wash my hands.
“That may be,” says Sharon sagely, “but Conrad was always an asshole. Forget about him. Move on. It’s been forever.”
“It’s been two months.”
“Two months, and you’re still crying over him?”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not crying now. I was only crying this morning because—”
“That piece of shit called you up, didn’t he?”
I can’t answer her.
“You called him?” Sharon purses her lips. “Valentine. No. Focus on the here and now. Find out who that young man is.”
“I’m not interested.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
Sharon takes her turn at the sink, washing up, and then leans on the counter over her elbows. I say nothing. I’m thinking of the sexy stranger, the way his muscles rippled under his t-shirt, the way those eyes were almost intoxicatingly blue. I’m thinking of his touch on my skin. No, I’m not interested. I can’t get swept away by all that. Not now. I need time. I need to recover. I can’t just go after a man I meet at work because—
Sharon laughs out loud. “Are you giving me the silent treatment?”
I laugh, too. “Not even. I was just mentally preparing to bus the last of the tables, and then—” I step over to the doorway into the next room, scanning the tables, pretending that’s all that’s on my mind.
“You were not. You were thinking about him. And who wouldn’t be? You can admit it to me, Valentine.” She’s teasing, but my cheeks are getting red. “You can admit that he’s the finest thing ever to walk in the front door. You can admit—”
I put both my hands on my hips, and Sharon laughs. “Fine, Sharon. Fine. I will admit it. I will admit that he was hot. And yes, I enjoyed looking at him. And yes, he might have been flirting with me just a little, but that doesn’t matter because—”
The bell on the door chimes against the glass, and I turn on instinct, ready to greet whoever it is that’s coming in for an early lunch.
Only it’s not chiming because the door is just swinging open. It’s chiming because a cute toddler named Minnie has flicked it up against the glass, reaching from her dad’s arms. The door is wide open, and he’s standing in the threshold, a half-smile on his face, looking right at me.
I open my mouth to welcome him back to the Short Stack, to make some witty comment about how he’s only been gone a couple of hours and he can’t possibly be hungry, but instead what comes out is: “Welcome, hungry already?”
His smile widens, and Sharon laughs out loud, taking over. “Welcome back. Did you forget something, or are you here for lunch?”
He doesn’t take his eyes off me. “I’m here for your message board, actually.”
“Come in, come in,” says Sharon, making a sweeping gesture toward the shabby bulletin board. He steps inside, and his daughter grins at both of us. “Are you looking for anything specific?”
“A place to rent.” He drops my gaze, turning to look at the flyers, and my stomach plummets into my shoes.
Because there is a flyer there with a place to rent. There’s exactly one flyer, and I know exactly whose place it is.
“A place to rent!” Sharon exclaims. “Well, Valentine can tell you all about that.”
He turns back, and I’m caught in his gaze. “Can she?”
I clear my throat. “It’s very rude to talk about people like they’re not in the room.”
His blue eyes are hot, hotter, the hottest. “I’m sorry about that. And—” He clears his throat. “I’m also sorry about being a d—” He stops himself just in time. Minnie has her arms wrapped around his neck, and she’s staring right at me, but I’d bet a fat bundle that if he said the word “dick” right now, it would be a toddler disaster. “I’m sorry about how I acted earlier.”
I shrug at him as awkwardly as is humanly possible. “Not a big deal. I shouldn’t have said—”
“Don’t worry about that. It’s a mistake that everyone makes.”
I don’t want to think about what I said, and before I know it, the words are spilling out of my mouth. “I was going to say that I shouldn’t have asked you how you like your eggs. You’re clearly an over easy man.”
“Oh? Is it that obvious?”
Jesus, that smoldering grin. It wipes my mind clean of everything I was about to say. “Y-yes.” Lame. Can it get any more lame?
He laughs out loud, and Minnie does too, clapping her hand over her mouth. Sharon is leaning on the counter, hand under her chin, watching the entire thing like it’s a shitty soap opera. I’m a terrible actress, and the longer he stands here, the hotter it’s getting.
“So,” he says, and the way he says it makes me think he might ask me out on a date. I don’t know how that would work, what with his daughter, what with everything, but suddenly I’m dying for him to ask me on a date so I can prove I’m not a tongue-tied nerd with a temporary waitressing job and not much else. “Tell me about this place for rent.”
8
Ryder
“We’re so glad to have you,” the old woman says tremulously, pressing the keys into my palm and squeezing with both hands like she’s giving me a precious diamond. “If there’s anything you need, anything at all, you don’t hesitate to call me.” She glances down at Minnie, holding my hand and standing still, a little shy in the presence of a seemingly ancient human, and gives her a watery smile. “And you, precious, you’re going to love that little bedroom with the yellow walls. I just know it.”
“Thanks, Mary.” She finally drops my hand. “We’ll be in touch.”
She nods and ushers us back out the front door of her house, giving us a big wave while we head back out to the car.
“Thank you for your service, son,” she
calls out at the last minute. Old ladies can always tell. I wonder if it was obvious to Valentine that I was in the Army. It wouldn’t be terrible if I stopped by the Short Stack one more time, would it?
Focus.
Step one, complete.
It was almost too easy, with Valentine’s help. She’d stepped over to the notice board. In order to reach it, she’d had to stand right next to me, and damn it, I didn’t want to move away. So I didn’t.
Minnie was enthralled with her red hair, anyway, and the moment Valentine turned her eyes toward the message board Minnie’s hands had shot out. “So pretty,” she said, her small voice in my ear, and I’d had to agree with her. I could see Valentine’s cheeks heating up, smell the scent of her hair, and God, there I was, getting more infatuated with the pretty waitress by the second.
Valentine reached out and gestured to a flyer pinned to the lower corner of the message board. This was no printed flyer—it was actually handwritten, in the spidery, precise handwriting of someone super old. Cottage for rent to responsible individual. Two bedrooms. Across the street from the lake. $600/month. The phone number at the bottom was guaranteed to be a land line. “This is probably the only place in town that’s still available this far into the summer.”
“Far? It’s only June.”
Valentine turned, crossing her arms over her chest, and narrowed her eyes. “It’s the third week of June.”
I looked back at her. “And?”
“Are you...new to town?” She asked the question like she already knew the answer.
I laughed. “I think we both know the answer to that.”
It was her turn to chuckle. “True. I would have noticed if someone like you—” Valentine’s face went absolutely scarlet. She cleared her throat, patting at her neck like something was caught there. “Most of the places were rented out months ago, but most people don’t prefer to deal with land lines. Especially land lines without answering machines. The Culvers finally resorted to putting up this flyer.” She’d taken a deep breath, her vivid green eyes sending sparks down my spine. “It’s a cute little place, near the lake. Clean. They keep it well-maintained. I’m sure you’d like it...”