“But, those are men’s na — ”
“Shut up,” Burke interrupted. He stood up, wrestled Devin’s hand away from Kalvin, and introduced himself. “Officer Burke Pierce. I assure you this moron doesn’t work here.”
“I just visit,” Kalvin said cheerfully.
“Hopefully, you spend your visits on the other side of the bars,” Smith muttered under her breath.
Chase shook her head. “Sorry. She was born without manners,” she said, looking toward Dean.
Dean nodded. “So was Kalvin.”
“So Devin and Dylan? A little confusing, huh?” Kalvin asked.
“Call us by our last names,” Chase offered.
“Or, better yet, don’t call us at all,” Smith commented.
“Different last names,” Kalvin observed. “Married?”
“Divorced,” they answered simultaneously.
Dean studied the picture the two women made standing side by side. They were both gorgeous. There was no denying that. They were perfectly identical as far he could tell, but he knew he would be able to tell them apart.
Smith was the harder of the two. She stood in a casual slouch with her hands still in the pockets of her brown leather jacket. She wore beat-up blue jeans, black running shoes, and no jewelry. Her short, black hair lay flat against her head in a boyish way and hung in her eyes. She smacked on a piece of bubble gum as she stood in front of the three of them, sizing them up.
Chase stood slightly taller than her sister, but only because of the two-inch heel on her black boots. Black dress pants led up to a black wool blazer. A gold necklace dipped down the front of the blazer, and there were matching gold studs in her ears. Her hair, the same color and length as her sister’s, was curled and pinned back from her forehead. Her expression was one of curiosity as she watched the men.
Dean offered a hand to her. “Dean Whitley.”
“Whitley?” Smith asked. “I pictured someone older.”
Kalvin laughed. Loudly. Until tears ran down his face. The others watched him. The women were mystified, but Burke and Dean frowned.
“Are you finished?” Dean finally asked.
Kalvin erupted all over again.
Dean sighed heavily. “Chief Whitley is my dad.”
“And you’re an officer?” Chase asked, politely.
Kalvin started laughing again.
“Shut up, Kalvin,” Burke snapped.
Carl Whitley cleared his throat in the doorway to his office on the opposite side of the office. “Only on New Year’s Eve and Fourth of July, right, son?”
Dean shifted a little on his feet. “Yeah. I’ll bring the uniform back.”
His father nodded. His gaze passed over to the women. “Smith, Chase, would you like to step in here?”
The women moved through the tangle of desks in the room and followed him into his office. The door to the office closed behind them.
Dean let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
“Twins,” Kalvin groaned. “There is a god.”
Dean took his arm and led him toward the door. “We’ll see you later, Burke.”
“You’re really going with them to shovel snow?”
He shrugged. “Don’t have anything better to do, and the money’s good.”
The door to the building slammed open again. Jonah Kincaid stomped inside.
“Kal! Where the hell have you been?” he barked. “I’m not shoveling this shit by myself.”
Chapter Four
Late that afternoon, Dean was cursing Jack, Kalvin, and Jonah.
Odd jobs, my ass,
he thought.
Shoveling slop off every damn sidewalk and driveway in town, fixing three freaking furnaces, and ranking a truck load of wood for Perkins. All before dinner.
Dean grumbled some more to himself as he opened the door to Teddy’s. He stepped inside and was blasted by hot air. He stomped the snow off his boots and tugged at his gloves.
He spotted Payten propped up against the edge of the counter. He studied her as he made his way across the room. More of her hair had fallen out of her braid than was left in it. One of her shoes was untied, and she was missing an earring. Her skin was ghost white. That combined with the dark circles under her eyes made him worry.
“Why didn’t you call me?” He took her by the arm and pulled her into the back. She didn’t bother protesting.
Cooper looked up as the two of them came into the back. “Hey, Dean.”
“Why didn’t you send her home, Coop? Look at her.”
“Whoa. Back up,” Cooper told him. “Payten’s the boss. She sends me home, not the other way around.”
Dean shook his head. “She’s exhausted. She shouldn’t be out there waiting tables. She should be at home in bed.”
Payten tried to shrug his hand off, but he didn’t let go.
“Coop, go get her a glass of water.”
“Coffee,” she protested.
“Water, Coop.”
Cooper didn’t answer either one of them. Instead, he slipped past them to stand in the pantry.
“Why didn’t you call me?” Dean asked.
She shrugged. “It’s my job.”
He nearly bit his tongue off trying to stop himself from yelling. Despite being obviously exhausted, she just let people pile more on top of her rather than going home.
What were her parents thinking leaving her to run the diner the day after the celebration? And why the hell hadn’t Coop called someone to take over? Didn’t anybody take care of her?
Still, yelling at her wouldn’t change a damn thing. He took several long, slow breaths and squatted down to tie her shoe.
“What — ”
“Your shoe is untied,” he told her. He finished and stood back up, feeling calmer. “Payten, why don’t you go home? Cooper and I can handle things tonight.”
She shook her head. “Bridgett’s engagement party is tonight. I have to stay.”
Of course you do
, he thought sarcastically. What he said was very different.
“If you don’t get some rest, Payten, you won’t make it through the party.” He stepped toward the backdoor, pulling her with him.
“But, you can’t — ”
“We’ll be fine.” He grabbed her coat from the hook and put it on her. He thought she would protest more. When she didn’t, he assumed it was because she was too tired to bother. He buttoned her into her coat.
“Can you make it home?” he asked her.
“Umm — ”
“Why don’t I take you over to your parents’ house? You can sleep there,” he decided.
“I can make it there.”
“You’re sure?”
When she didn’t answer, he gently bumped her chin up to look at her face. He was standing closer than he’d realized. He felt her breath on his face, on his lips. Those deep blue eyes were all he could see.
Beautiful.
The scent of cinnamon and citrus filled his nose, but another deeper scent caught his attention. He breathed deep, trying to commit her scent to memory. He leaned closer. He heard her breath catch in her throat.
Quickly, he stepped back. “Do you have the key to your parents’ house?”
She nodded mutely.
He opened the door and motioned her out. “Go on.”
She stepped out. Dean stepped into the open doorway and watched her trudge through the snow. She stumbled several times, but she never fell. He liked that.
He was in big trouble, and he knew it. If he hadn’t spotted Coop peeking at them from the pantry doorway, he probably would have kissed her right there in the back of her parents’ diner. All the prodding was going to his head. He had a good reason for not pursuing her.
I’ll be damned if I can remember what it is, though
, he thought.
“Question,” Cooper said, drawing Dean’s attention away from Payten’s retreating figure.
“What?” He stepped back inside and closed the door.
“Any idea how to decorate cakes?”
“Cakes?” Dean repeated.
“Yeah.” Cooper nodded. “Cakes. I bake them. Payten decorates them.”
“So?”
“They’re for Bridgett’s thing. With Payten gone, those cakes aren’t going to get done.”
Dean shrugged. “Big deal.”
Cooper shook his head. “It’s a woman thing. Trust me when I tell you if those cakes don’t get decorated we’ll both be dead meat.”
Dean sighed. “I’ll figure something out.”
A loud yell from the front room made them pause. “Patty! Patty! I need more coffee! Where are you?”
Cooper grinned. “That’s you, big guy. Go get ’em.”
He looked toward the front. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Nope.”
Dean shook his head disgusted. “How does she put up with that old codger?”
• • •
Payten heard the phone, but she ignored it, snuggling deeper into the mountain of covers. The second ring had her opening her eyes, and by the time it rang a third time, she yawned and stretched. As it rang again, she glanced around her bedroom at her parents’ house and wondered what she was doing there.
The answering machine kicked on in the other room. Payten smiled as she listened to her parents’ voices cheerily tell their callers they were on vacation. She frowned, though, when she heard Quinn’s voice.
“Payten, I know you’re there. I hope you’re enjoying your beauty sleep because things are going to — Well, they’re going really bad over here at the diner. Maddie and Mrs. Montoya are arguing over the decorations. Ryleigh was freakin’ out about Jonah, and now I can’t find her. And to top everything off, Andie is hitting on Coop in front of Mary Beth! Where are you, Payten? I can’t deal with these crazy people by myself.”
Payten ran for the door before the machine even shut off.
• • •
Payten stood at the door to the diner with Bridgett and Michael. The couple had insisted on staying after the guests left to help clean.
“You’re sure?” Bridgett asked again.
“Britt, there is nothing left to do,” Payten assured her. “Take that handsome man of yours and go home. He’s dying to get you alone.”
Michael smirked and leaned down to nuzzle Bridgett’s neck. “That I am.”
“Sold,” Britt said in a voice hardly above a whisper.
Payten laughed at them. “Go home.”
Bridgett nudged Michael. “Let me talk to her a second. I’ll catch up.” He nodded and moved further down the sidewalk. “Thank you for the party, Payten. It rocked.”
She shook her head. “It really wasn’t my idea.”
“I’ll bet you planned it, though,” Bridgett objected. “All those little things like invites and food and keeping it quiet. Not to mention running herd on the crowd tonight.”
“Did you see Ryleigh slip in after Jonah?” Payten asked.
Bridgett grinned. “I did. I wonder what they were up to.”
She laughed. “I’ll bet I can answer that.”
When their friend Ryleigh had stumbled in the back door, her hair had been a mess and her make-up smeared. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what she had been doing.
“Maybe you should hop on that train,” Bridgett suggested.
Payten rolled her eyes. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard a suggestion like that. Bridgett had shared her idea about hooking up with Dean with the other girls and they’d apparently loved it. Andie had even told her to let Dean “bang her brains out.” She winced remembering that one.
“Come on, Payten,” Bridgett pushed.
“I’ll think about it,” she offered. “Now go catch up with Michael.”
Bridgett hugged her quickly before rushing down the sidewalk to Michael. Payten watched them as they strolled, unaware of her, down the sidewalk. Snow had been gently falling for the past couple of hours and had lightly dusted the sidewalks.
She couldn’t help but watch as Michael and Bridgett paused at the end of the sidewalk and kissed slowly in the falling snow. The sight made her chest tight and her eyes misty. As happy as she was for her friend, she couldn’t help but feel a little alone.
She turned away and stepped back into the diner. She pulled the door shut behind her. Then she locked it.
“There you are,” Dean said.
“Yup,” she answered. “Here I am.”
“Ready to go home?”
She glanced around the dining room. “Yeah.”
“I didn’t see your car when I took out the trash. I’ll drive you home.”
She shook her head, moving through the diner to the back door. He followed. “That’s all right. Don’t worry about it. I walked this morning. I thought it would wake me up.”
“It’s dark out,” he protested.
She frowned while she pulled on her coat. “It’s not that dark. There are streetlights.”
“Please, let me take you home.”
“Do you think you’ll get your way just by saying please?”
He grinned at her, one of those heart-stopping grins of his. It should be illegal for a man that gorgeous to have dimples.
“I’m hoping,” he answered.
“At least you’re honest. All right, then.”
“I think I’m going to have to start using that word more often,” he joked as he followed her out the door.
He stood beside her as she locked the door. When she finished, she turned and headed for his truck. He walked beside her. She stopped him when he tried to follow her to the passenger side.
“I’ve got it.”
He shrugged and walked to his door instead. She was already in the truck reaching for her seatbelt when he opened his door to get in.
“How long does it take to get warm?”
He turned the key. The engine roared to life. Almost immediately, air started blowing out of the vents.
“For the record, this isn’t warm,” she told him.
He threw his arm over the back of the seat to look over his shoulder as he backed the truck out of its parking spot. She noticed his hand was close enough to tangle in her hair. When she realized she was hoping he would do just that, she almost shook her head. She must be more tired than she thought. First she’d thought he was going to kiss her that afternoon, and now she was hoping he’d touch her. She had to be tired.
“It’s warmer.”
“I suppose so,” she replied.
He didn’t bother answering, which at first wasn’t bad. The silence continued, though, and instead of trying to think of something to say, she found herself wondering what it would be like if he did touch her. Maybe all the girls’ teasing had gone to her head, or maybe Bridgett’s happily-ever-after fever was spreading. Whichever the case, she couldn’t help stop thinking about it.
Would his hands have calluses? Would his hair tickle against her cheeks? What would his mouth feel like against hers?