“No kidding? It’s fantastic.” His grin intoxicates me as I watch him flake off another chunk of crust.
Time to step away, Millie.
But… I can’t. He’s got a tractor beam on me. On me, and every other single, undersexed woman he encounters, I’m sure.
“So your friends who recommended us… anyone I’d know?” IswearI’m only extending this conversation to be sociable.
Well, that and the fact that talking to him seems to awaken something in me that I thought had died.
Hello, hormones.
“Yeah. Mason and Freya Adler. They said they knew you.”
I brighten at names I recognize. “Oh, sure. I met them at my brother’s wedding last winter. How do you know them?”
“I was stationed with Mason at the Pentagon for a couple years before I came down here to Hunter to rejoin the Ranger Regiment.”
Hunter Army Airfield. I was right.
I feel hope deflate inside of me.Nuts.
“Well, I’m glad they recommended the place,” I say. And… now that he’s confirmed he’s military, it should be all the reminder I need to step away. “Um, let me know if you’d like anything else.”
I force myself to turn my back, and my eyes almost ache with need to see his face again. It’s like being away from the ocean for too long—and that need to just look at it one more time—to fill your soul with the sight of it.
Holy hell. I’m seriously crushing on this guy.
“Actually—” His word is muffled until he swallows.
That one word is all the excuse I need to turn and soak up all those delicious features again—the chin, the cheekbones, and those eyes.
This guy should be a model. Not a Ranger.
“—any chance I could take you out for coffee after you get off work sometime?” he finishes.
My eyes widen in surprise.
He’s asking me out on a date?
My back straightens at the feel of butterflies fluttering in my stomach.
“Coffee?” I hear myself say, my words seeming to echo in my brain loud enough to drown out the much more insistent voice that’s silently screaming in my head,“Don’t do it!”because I simply don’t date military guys.
I haven’t always had this rule. Just in the years since my brother got injured on his last SEAL mission. Because even now, years later, the memory is too fresh—that worry as my entire family waited to hear whether he would pull through.
Some people do better in those situations than I apparently do. Some people thrive under pressure… rather than melting down at the firm where I used to work while our best client watched in horror.
They’re probably still talking about it at Barham, Tanner, and Butler in their slick Atlanta offices, chuckling about it at their weekly staff meetings.
No. It’s really best that I steer clear of military guys whenever possible. I have no interest in essentiallydoublingmy chances of having to go through that again.
“Yeah. I saw a coffee house just a couple blocks from here.”
“Frankie’s.” I automatically say the name of the place because I go there at least once a week to get one of their whipped-cream-laden Starbucks knock-offs—the kind of coffee that we don’t serve here at the diner.
“Yeah. That was it. I bet you know all the local spots.”
I give a half-shrug. “Been here for years, so…”