younger?”
His mother dropped into the chair next to him and took his hand. “We love you, darling. But we want some grandbabies to spoil.”
Keaton stifled a groan and took another drink, hoping his mother had more than one bottle on the ready. This was going to be the longest Christmas night of his life.
“Y’all back away from that poor man or else his supper’s liable to get cold.”
The two waitresses who had been leaning over the counter at Lola May’s Homestyle Restaurant slowly straightened.
“Just say one more thing for us,” Emmalyn, the petite blonde, cooed.
“How about ‘I’ll have mine shaken not stirred,’” prompted the buxom redhead, whose nametag read “Brandi, with an i”—as if customers in Texas needed the clarification.
“I mean it, you two. Get going.” Lola May, owner and namesake of the diner, swatted at the two young women with the corner of a dishtowel.
“Another time, luv,” Keaton told Brandi, earning a girlish giggle as she backed away.
Lola May, who looked every bit of her sixty-plus years but had a mischievous smile that softened her hard edges, rolled her blue eyes at him. She was exactly the image he had of the type of woman who would run a casual, neighborhood diner in Austin, Texas. One part old-school cowgirl mixed with two parts aging hippie.
Her platinum blond hair, with about a half inch of gray roots, was spiked around her pixie face and each of the past three days he’d been in for dinner, her heavy eye makeup had matched her sparkling earrings. The color du jour was turquoise green and it gave her clear blue eyes an almost otherworldly look when she blinked. The lines across her forehead and fanning out from her eyes could only have been put there by years of stress and hard work.
He recognized them because they reminded him of his mother. Although Anita and Lola May on the surface had nothing in common, there was something about the diner owner that helped ease the twinges of loneliness he’d felt since arriving in Austin a week ago.
The diner was directly across the street from the site of the project he’d come to America to manage, and only a few blocks from the apartment he’d rented. It had been easy to slip into the pattern of having dinner each night at Lola May’s lime-green Formica counter.
He forced his gaze not to stray to the woman hunched over a laptop in the corner booth. That particular waitress had nothing to do with the reason he’d so quickly become a diner regular. Or so he’d been trying to convince himself for the past week.
Lola May wagged a red-tipped nail in his direction. “You’ll never get any peace if you keep charming the waitresses with that accent and your cheeky smile.”
Keaton winked at the older woman. “Well, darlin’,” he drawled in an exaggerated Texas accent, “would it make you happy if I sounded more like a local?”
“Stick to 007,” she said, barking out a laugh. “’Cause you sure ain’t no John Wayne.”
He bit back a grin when she slid a plate with a piece of apple pie onto the counter in front of him. “I don’t remember ordering that,” he argued half-heartedly.
“But you’re going to devour it as always,” she shot back then leaned closer. “You’ve ended every meal here with a slice of my pie. Trust Miss Lola May, handsome. I know what you need.”
At the word need, Keaton couldn’t help glance to the corner booth.
“Need and want are two different things, sugar,” Lola May said softly.
“Everyone flirts with me except her.”
Keaton didn’t realize he’d spoken the words out loud until Lola May chuckled. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist over Francesca,” she cautioned. “It isn’t that she doesn’t like you, but our girl gives new meaning to the phrase ‘nose to the grindstone.’”
One side of Keaton’s mouth curved as he watched the gorgeous blonde in the corner blow a wayward curl out of her face before typing furiously on her laptop’s keyboard.
Francesca. He’d heard the other waitresses call her that, and the name fit her. With her mass of golden hair, creamy skin and her lushly curved figure, Francesca looked more like a Botticelli muse than a waitress in a diner near Austin’s trendy South Congress neighborhood.
“She’s taking a full course load over at the university,” Lola May continued, “in addition to her schedule here. I don’t think she’s had a day—or even an hour—off in months.”
“Why does she take on so much?”
“That’s her story, handsome.” Lola May picked up his empty dinner plate and pushed the pie closer to him. “I’ll just tell you she’s a great little gal and deserves better than what—” She paused until Keaton glanced up at her then continued, “Or who she got stuck with in her life.”
Keaton watched as Francesca moved a hand to the back of her neck and rubbed the muscles there. Well, if she needed a massage, he’d be glad to...
No.
An image of Gerald Robinson popped into his mind and he willed it away. He’d committed to a moratorium on dating during his time in Austin. It seemed easier to go cold turkey on the dating front than to have temptation constantly beckoning to him. He wasn’t going to take the chance that anyone, especially his new siblings, might confuse him with the man who’d broken his mother’s heart so many years ago.
Still, he couldn’t seem to look away from the blonde. Just as Lola May disappeared into the kitchen, Francesca’s head lifted. Her eyes widened as their gazes clashed and sparks seemed to dance on the air between them.
Keaton swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry as his body went on alert in a way that was wholly unfamiliar. He liked women. He appreciated women. Hell, he’d been raised solely by women. He’d had plenty of girlfriends and recognized mutual attraction.
Yet there was something different about this Francesca, and damn if he didn’t want to figure out what it was. He’d loved puzzles as a kid. Alone in the flat after school with his mum at work, he’d spent hours poring over jigsaw pieces, trying to decipher exactly where they fit to make the picture complete.
That’s what Francesca... Bloody hell, he didn’t even know her last name. But that’s what she felt like to him. A missing piece. Maybe he’d spent too long in his own company, but he knew he’d have a difficult time walking away until he understood exactly where she fit in his life.
He had a feeling the trick was going to be convincing her to let him.
* * *
Francesca Harriman slammed shut the door of her apartment above the diner and toed off one of the well-worn cowboy boots she’d been wearing all day, kicking it across the floor.
It landed with a thud against the coffee table, and a moment later, her roommate, Ciara James, burst from the bathroom. She was clutching a towel around her, water dripping from her long dark hair, and brandishing a...
“Is that the toilet bowel scrubber?” Francesca took a step back.
Ciara blew out a relieved breath and lowered the makeshift weapon. “You scared the pants off me,” she said with a laugh.
“You were in the shower,” Francesca countered and kicked off her other boot. “I doubt you were wearing pants.”
“Give me thirty seconds before you melt down,” Ciara answered, pointing the toilet bowl brush at Francesca. She disappeared back into the bathroom and Francesca dropped to the sofa, letting her head fall back onto the cushions.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on moving air in and out