Except his presence. Letty had been left to raise Claire. Secretly, Claire believed her dad couldn’t face life without his wife, who’d died of a brain tumor a couple years after Claire was born. He found his solace in the landscape and behind the wheel of an eighteen-wheeler.
“Now don’t look so down, girl. Any man who could hurt you is not the right one. Believe me. I spent forty years of my life with the right one. I should know.” Letty used a spatula to scrape the potatoes into a serving bowl.
Claire climbed off the stool and gathered the plates and silverware. “I wish I’d knownUncle Dash.” The man had died years before Claire was given into Letty’s care. Her aunt was actually her great-aunt, and no one knew her true age, but she was definitely in her nineties. And likely to go well into her hundreds, if her spry step and bright gaze were indications.
A small, private smile captured her aunt’s lips. “He would have loved you as I do.” She set the food on the counter. “Now, you fill your belly with my good cookin’. Don’t want you eating that diner food in the wee hours of the morning. Indigestion.”
Claire never ate the food she served at that time of night. Placing platters of greasy breakfasts in front of truck drivers and rowdy teens and lonely bachelors had turned her long ago. Too many sad stories came with those late-shift encounters.
“It worries me, you working that dead-man’s shift. You have an innocent look about you that might invite trouble.”
Claire scooped some potatoes and gravy onto her aunt’s plate. “Don’t you worry about me. People talk to me, that’s all.” In fact, she often wondered if someone had stamped “spillyour guts” on her forehead, because that’s exactly what people did when they saw her.
Women in grocery stores, telling her stories about their eating disorders and how they fought to even food shop for their children. Vacationers to the small town of Reedy, filling her in on their entire family’s criminal history. Hell, even the mayor had come into the diner once and talked Claire’s ear off about his wife troubles.
She shook her head. It was her lot in life to listen—one she was proud of, because she’d inherited it from her Aunt Letty.
Slipping an arm around the woman’s frail shoulders, she squeezed. Gently. “Love you, Letty.”
“Because I made your favorite country steak.”
Claire laughed out loud, a belly laugh that parted the sorrow in her heart over Tucker. “You caught me out.”
After dinner, Claire did the dishes while Letty rested, and then she got ready for her work shift. Peeling off her tank top and denim shorts and donning the navy uniform dress, she couldn’t keep her thoughts off Tucker.
She’d really smashed his truck all to hell. A hint of remorse filled her, but he just made her so crazed. Wild to make him hers. From the moment she’d set eyes on his blazing blue eyes and bad-boy swagger, she’d felt a shift in her soul.
This man was meant for her. Deep down, her gut screamed it. Except he’d stood her up last evening, and in the early hours of the morning, a woman had come into the diner, claiming to have just spent the whole night at Tucker’s place. As the pine and coffee smell belonging to Tucker clung to the curvaceous blonde, Claire had believed it instantly. She didn’t even have to prod for information—the girl gave it gladly.
She’d definitely spent the night in Tucker’s bed.
Claire’s shift at the diner ran from nine to nine. And the first thing she did was make two massive pots of coffee. One for her and one for the customers.
With her apron in place and the coffee brewing, she grabbed a pitcher of water and made her rounds to the tables and booths, refilling glasses. She stopped to chat with an older man who frequented the diner.
When the bell on the front door jingled, she automatically glanced up.
And sawhim.
The guy who’d found her in The Hellion’s parking lot.
Christian.
His name sparked in her memory and sent shards of electricity through her veins. The way he’d looked at her this evening still heated her, dammit. Like he’d eat her for breakfast, lunch and supper. Maybe even a late-night snack.
She shivered and drifted away from the table she was serving just as he slid his bulky frame into a booth. With broad, beefy shoulder muscles coiling under his tight white T-shirt and biceps that any woman would drool over, the man was sex in jeans and work boots.
And with that hat tugged low over his eyes…
No way. Any friend of Tucker’s is no friend of mine.
Steeling her spine, she approached with the water pitcher. Leaning over him, she flipped over the glass on the laminate table top and filled it.
He glanced up from his menu. And did a double take.
A country tune blasted through the restaurant—a crooning ballad that seemed the perfect backdrop for the man seated here. Something about his brooding expression called to her.
Maybe he’ll spill his guts to me.
