voice when she spotted the man standing just inside the entrance, backlit by the early morning sun.
Alex Porter, in the flesh.
In her café.
She’d sat right next to Abby in church the day before and her friend hadn’t warned—told—her that Alex would be in Mirror Lake.
A week early.
Their eyes met over the counter and Kate’s heart did a backflip. As impossible as it seemed, the man was even more good-looking than she remembered.
She could see traces of Abby in the straight nose and high, smooth forehead, but the resemblance between the siblings ended there. Abby’s silver-green eyes were warm, as if lit from within. A smile always played at the corner of her lips, ready to bloom at a moment’s notice.
Alex’s features, on the other hand, looked as if they’d been chiseled from a hunk of granite. His eyes were the same shade of green as the jade paperweight on Kate’s desk. And just as cool. The fact that those eyes happened to be framed by ridiculously long lashes didn’t count.
Not at all.
Short, windswept hair, toasted a light golden brown from the sun, made him look more suited to the deck of a sailboat than an office. The khaki pants and lightweight cotton shirt he wore looked casual enough but Kate wasn’t fooled. Both looked as if they had been custom fit for his lean, muscular frame.
“Alex.” Kate found her voice again. “What a surprise. I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
Until the wedding.
“Abby sounded a little stressed out the last time I talked to her.” The rough velvet voice wielded an edge that immediately put Kate on the defensive. “I decided to drive up a few days early to help out.”
Kate knew better. Men like Alex Porter didn’t help out. They took over. And the guy probably didn’t have a clue that he had been the cause of Abby’s stress.
“Oh. Wonderful.” Just wonderful. “Abby will be—” insert tactful word here, Kate “—surprised.”
“Not for another hour or so.” Alex’s eyes narrowed when she didn’t respond. “The café is open, right? So you don’t mind if I sit down?”
“You want to eat here?” Kate blurted out.
Alex hesitated a split second too long. “Yes.”
This is Abby’s brother and she loves him, Kate reminded herself. For that reason and that reason only, she flashed one of her sunniest smiles. “You’re the first customer of the day so go ahead and sit anywhere you like.”
His gaze swept over the empty diner. In ten minutes she would be caught in the middle of the morning breakfast stampede; but judging from the skeptical look on his face, Alex doubted she would have another customer besides himself. All day.
Kate kept the smile pinned in place. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
He gave a curt nod. “No cream or sugar.”
Of course not. We wouldn’t want to add something that might sweeten our disposition, now would we?
“No problem,” Kate said out loud. “I’ll be right back to take your order.”
As Alex stalked to the back of the dining area to claim an empty lair, Kate retrieved a carafe from the coffee station. Her hands were actually trembling. Not out of fear but frustration. She couldn’t believe that Abby shared the same DNA with this man.
Long lashes or not, Alex Porter was arrogant. Cold. Condescending.
And Kate knew exactly what had brought him to the Grapevine. He wanted to see for himself what Mirror Lake’s greasy spoon had to offer.
She searched her memory for an appropriate Scripture. One that would give her the self-control to pour the coffee into Alex’s coffee cup, not over the top of his head.
Lord, I know there has to be one. Or one hundred. But I’m coming up empty at the moment. Sorry.
Kate set his coffee down and whipped the pen out of her apron pocket. Smile carefully balanced in place. “What can I get for you?”
Alex closed the menu with a decisive snap, as if there were nothing on the list of options that remotely tempted him. “I’ll just have the special.”
“Sure. Coming right up.” Given the fact that she’d unlocked the door only moments before Alex made his appearance, Kate wasn’t quite sure what the special of the day was.
Grady O’Rourke, the former military cook her father had hired when Kate was in first grade, took charge of the daily menu changes. When Kate had taken over the café, she and Grady had amicably divided the kitchen duties. Grady claimed the griddle, Kate the stove.
She ducked around the counter. “I need a special, Grady.”
“You got it.” The man’s off-key whistle accompanied the sizzle of butter in the cast-iron skillet.
Kate began to fill the dessert case with slices of the pies she’d made the night before, all too aware that a pair of jade-green eyes tracked her every movement.
“Order up, katydid,” Grady bellowed.
Kate winced, hoping Alex hadn’t heard the cook call her by the affectionate nickname he’d bestowed on her when she was six years old.
“Thanks.” Kate grabbed the steaming plate on the pass-through and felt the blood drain from her face. “Grady?” The word came out in a squeak.
“Problem?”
“No…no problem.” If a person didn’t count the six-foot-tall, two-hundred-pound problem sitting at a booth in the back. “I don’t think you’ve made this before.”
“Nope.” A smile bisected the grizzled face. “But mark my words. It’ll be a big hit.”
“I’m sure it will,” Kate said faintly.
Most days, Grady’s “special” came from a list of what he liked to call his “tried and trues.” Steak and potatoes. Blueberry pancakes. Ham and cheese omelets.
Why, oh why, couldn’t this have been one of those days?
Show no fear. Kate gave herself an internal pep talk as she breezed back to Alex’s booth. “Here you go. Enjoy!”
His gaze dropped to the plate and bounced back up again. “What is this?”
“The special.” Kate wished it hadn’t come out sounding like a question.
Alex arched a brow.
In retaliation, Kate lifted her chin. “It’s…a delicious blend of meat and potatoes with a hint of spice.”
“I see,” Alex said softly. “And does this delicious blend of meat and potatoes happen to have a name?”
Yes, it did. And he was going to make her say it.
“It’s…hash.” Kate pushed the word through gritted teeth.
The perfectly sculpted lips—Kate felt a trickle of horror that she noticed they were perfectly sculpted—curled at the edges.
“That’s what I thought…katydid.”
Organized chaos.
It was the only description that Alex could come up with to describe what he was seeing. Although it was possible that the word organized was too generous.
Total chaos would probably be more accurate.
He got dizzy just watching Kate Nichols in motion.
The woman fairly crackled with energy, making him wonder if the red curls poking out from beneath the floral bandana she wore doubled as some kind of power source.