“Yeah, I’ll have a coffee and get her a chocolate milk.” The little girl looked across the table at him and gave a slight smile. She seemed very cautious in her mannerisms, and I wondered if he were strict with her when they weren’t in public.
“Coming right up.” I hurried to get their drinks, and when I returned with them, the two weren’t talking or carrying on a conversation like I’d expected them to be.
The little girl was staring out the window with a somber expression, and he was looking at his phone. I was starting to see what Liza meant. The mystery deepened.
“Here you go.” I placed the little plate in front of the girl’s doll, and then a fork too. Then I placed their orders in front of them. “Did I hear right that your name is Star?” I glanced at the man, but the little girl turned her head up and nodded quickly. “That’s a beautiful name. And it’s unique like mine. I’m Dream.” I pointed to my nametag.
“That’s a pretty name,” she said, smiling.
“Thank you,” I said. There was that look again. The man was regarding me with something a little more than interest in my name in his eyes.
“Dream, huh?” he said. “It’s fitting.” A brief flash in his eyes had my knees feeling wobbly.
I wasn’t sure what to say so I stuck with my usual waitress banter.
“Well, you three enjoy your breakfast,” I said, turning to walk away.
Just then the little girl tugged my apron and held up her doll. “Her name is Jackie.” She held her waffle to the doll’s mouth and then took a bite.
“Well, it’s very nice to meet you Jackie,” I said, reaching over to shake the doll’s tiny hand, which thrilled the little girl to no end.
“Use your fork, or you and Jackie will both be sticky.” The man picked up the fork and handed it to her with a frown on his face, and the little girl giggled and shook her head. As he extended his arm, his sleeve shifted, showing off his tattoos.
My stomach clenched and my toes nearly curled. Good God. Tall, hot, muscular, and tattooed? I had to walk away before I needed a good hosing off.
I checked back on the two of them a few times more in between my other tables and made sure they were well taken care of.
Though I had zero intention of allowing myself to get involved with another man anytime soon, if ever, there was something about the guy that drew me to him, and the looks he’d been casting my way weren’t helping.
As they got up to walk out the exit, he approached the cork board near the door where people hung business cards and help wanted ads. He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and secured it to the board with a pin before taking the little girl’s hand and heading out.
My curiosity getting the best of me, I walked over to look at what he’d put up.
Help wanted: looking for a reading tutor for a kindergartner.
I felt a tickle along my spine as I read the piece of paper over and over.
This was either my lucky day, or a really cruel joke.
CHAPTER THREE - CHANCE
I hadn’t realized how long I’d been out of the dating game until I made eye contact with that hot waitress at Harold’s diner. She was the sexiest thing this town had seen in ages, and her name was fitting; she was a dream. A wet one.
As I piddled around my shop and looked over some designs, I couldn’t shake the image of her from my mind. Asking her out had crossed my mind more than once, too, but with Star in my life, and things needing to be stable, I hadn’t let myself get back in the dating arena. A quick fuck was one thing, but an actual relationship was something different, and I’d been married one time too many as it was. I’d joined the US Navy when I was just out of high school at eighteen years old. By the time I was ready for the SEALs, I had met and married Becky, who I thought was the one. I’d wanted to have children with her, to have a family to come back to like all the other men, but she hadn’t wanted to be pregnant while I was on my tour. So she’d promised me that when I returned, we’d settled down and start our family.
I had no reason to think she was cheating on me; she’d been good about hanging with the other navy wives and volunteering for programs that helped servicemen to fill her time.
Once I had my accident and came back home for good, I could tell things had changed. I thought it was me, that my injury was too much for her. The morning sickness had started just a month after I got home. I was certain I’d knocked her up during the welcome home fuck she’d given me my first day back.
I was over the moon. I was finally getting things the way I’d always wanted them, minus one leg, which I wouldn’t let get me down. I was a fighter, not a quitter, and as long as I had her and the kid, I’d be fine. But something wasn’t right. Although she put on a good face, I just didn’t think she was as happy about the baby as me.
The time came to have an ultrasound, and that’s when I realized the math was all wrong. According to how far along she was, she had to have gotten pregnant before I’d come home, and that’s when she broke down and confessed she’d been fucking my so-called college friend Ben.
The phone ringing brought me out of my daydream, and I picked it up to see my buddy, Austin’s ugly mug staring back at me. The guy was the only man from my group of friends in the past that I allowed back into my life, and that was solely because he’d been my brother in arms and we’d shared the hell of that god-forsaken desert for eighteen months. .
“What’s up, man?” I pushed my work aside and leaned back in my chair.
“Hey, Chance, how’s it been? Is that little girl giving you gray hairs yet?” Austin called at least once every other week, and I’d been filling him in on Star’s progress.