The waitress had an ease with smoothing the customers’ ruffled feathers. He’d noticed that about her before—she’d turned more than one disgruntled frown into a smile. It was what had interested him about her before, and still did now. She was a contradiction. And that intrigued him. A lot.
Sally/Sandy returned, grabbed Riley’s shirt again and tugged him around to the other side of the counter. She was surprisingly strong for such a petite woman.
“Hey, go easy on the manhandling,” Riley said and gently disengaged her hand.
She snorted. “Manhandling. Right.”
He leaned against the counter and eyed her. “Why do you hate me so much?”
“I don’t hate you. You annoy me. There’s a difference.” He opened his mouth to ask a question but she put a hand up and stopped him. “Listen, I’d love to talk all day about your faults—”
“I don’t have any faults.” He grinned. “Okay, maybe one.”
“But the lunch crowd will be here any second, and I have work to do.”
“So do I. Are you going to let me do my job?”
“You can’t handle this job.”
“Let me prove it to you.” He took a step closer. Wow, she had pretty eyes. They were the color of emeralds, a deep, dark green that seemed to beckon him in. “Listen, I’ve watched you work, and if you ask me, you work too hard.”
“This job demands hard work.”
“Not if you have readily available help to call on. Something I’ve never seen you do, even when the other woman was working here. I can be useful, you know.”
She let out a long breath, and Riley found himself wondering what was in that breath that she wasn’t saying. What weights sat on her delicate shoulders. “I just feel better doing things myself.”
“Asking for help doesn’t make you weak. Just smart.”
She cocked a brow. “And asking for your help, what does that make me?”
“Brilliant.” He grinned.
She eyed him for a long, long time, while the coffeepot percolated and the hum of conversation filled the air. “All right, I’ll be better about letting you help. But stay out of my way and don’t screw up. Don’t flirt with the customers, and don’t flirt with me. Just keep your head down and work.” She narrowed her gaze at him. “Because when you screw up, it costs me, and I can’t afford to let that happen. Got it?”
“Got it, captain.” He gave her a mock salute.
She scowled. “And don’t call me captain.”
He leaned in, gave her another grin. “What should I call you?”
She held his gaze for a long moment. “Stace would be fine.”
Stace. He liked that name. A short, no-nonsense name seemed to suit her.
“And you can call me Riley,” he said, putting out his hand to shake hers. “I like it a whole lot better than moron.”
* * *
Riley McKenna. The man had clearly been put on this earth—and in this diner—to drive her nuts. Stace had to stay on top of him for the entire lunch wave, which only complicated her job. He couldn’t take an order, couldn’t remember the menus, didn’t know where anything was, and delivered the wrong food to the wrong table five times.
Not to mention he moved like a turtle on Valium.
He’d told her to let him help her, and she now regretted agreeing.
Worst of all, he kept attracting her attention. Tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed, the kind of guy that wore a smile like it was cologne. He had on dark wash jeans and a golf shirt, with boat shoes, even though she doubted he had been heading for a boat today. She had to force herself more than once to concentrate on her job, instead of on him.
When the lunch demand eased, Stace slipped into the kitchen. “What were you thinking?” she said.
Frank put a finger to his temples. “Uh, that my salsa dancing days are behind me, but I can still cut a mean foxtrot.”
She laughed. “You are a pain in my butt.”
“I know, and you love me for it.” Frank grinned, then wrapped an arm around Stace’s shoulders.
She leaned into his embrace. Frank’s thick arms and broad chest enveloped her like a teddy bear. She’d known Frank all her life, and even though he’d told her a thousand times that she could get a better job than waitressing for him, she stayed. Not because she loved waitressing so much, but because she loved Frank and loved the Morning Glory. Frank hadn’t just been her father’s best friend, he’d been her father, too, in every way but biology, and she couldn’t imagine not seeing his familiar craggy face every day. Or this diner, which held so many of Stace’s memories in this one small building. “Thanks for keeping me sane, Frank.”
“Anytime.” His voice was gruff. He turned to the sink to wash his hands before he got back to work slicing tomatoes. “How’s the new guy working out?”
“Terrible. He can’t take orders, can’t deliver food to the right tables, can’t pour coffee without scalding someone.”
Frank chuckled. “He’ll learn.”
“Why on earth would you hire him? He has no experience, no customer service skills and no—”
“Job. The guy needed a job.” Frank shrugged. “So I gave him one.”
Stace eyed her boss and friend. “You don’t take pity on people like that. You’re usually harder on the staff than I am. What’s up?”
Frank paused and put the knife down. The blade seemed small next to his beefy palms. “Riley’s been coming in here for a long time.”
“Years.”
“And he’s been a bit of a pain.”
“A bit? The man is an incorrigible flirt. And he’s always asking for some custom thing or another.”
“But at heart, he’s a good guy.”
“How do you know that?”
Frank considered her for a moment. “I just know. I’ll let you figure that out for yourself. You’ll see what I see.”
She snorted. “I doubt it.”
“Just have an open heart,” Frank said. “You’re a sweet girl, Stace, but your heart is closed off. Hell, you have a big old detour sign outside it.”
“I have reasons why,” she said softly.
“Don’t you think it’s past time you opened that road again?”
She glanced out the window, at the busy city that had once seemed to hold such promise, but then one day had stolen her biggest dream, and shook her head. Some days, being at the Morning Glory was so painful, she wasn’t sure she could stay another minute. Other days, she couldn’t imagine ever leaving. “Not now.”
Maybe not ever.
She had her priorities now—a nephew who had been abandoned by his mother—and that meant she didn’t have time or need for a relationship. It wasn’t about not wanting to take that risk again—
Okay, maybe it was.
Either way, she didn’t have time. Or room for a handsome, distracting man.
She pivoted toward the counter, took the two BLTs Frank had finished assembling, and hurried out of the kitchen, before the man who knew her better than anyone in the world could read the truth in her eyes.
That Stace wasn’t so sure she had enough heart left to ever risk it