It had been another long day at the BBQ. After seeing Ryder yesterday, a small part of Whitney was hoping she’d see him that afternoon. But he didn’t come in for the lunch shift. Not that she was glancing at the door every time its corner caught and rang the little bell.
She’d asked Penny for as many hours as she could give her, and Penny had obliged. Taking on the lunch and dinner shift would make Whitney’s days hellishly long, but at least the work would keep her busy, and her combined earnings over the summer would be more than enough to get her by for the next chunk of road tripping.
“Can you turn the game up, darlin’?” an older gentleman asked. Herb, she’d come to learn, was a regular, and tonight the diner was packed and almost all the barstools taken.
“Of course.” She smiled and turned up the volume on the TV that hung high over the bar.
Her tables were all set for the moment, so she hung out behind the bar and helped the bartender sling drinks and hand out appetizers. It was busy, but it made for a kind of happy peace. She didn’t have time to think too much. Which was good, since her thoughts either turned toward bad memories or, as of late, good memories. Specifically ones that involved the hot patriarch of the town.
“Still doing okay?” Penny asked, hustling past the bar with plates of food and heading toward the tables.
“Yes, going great.”
She nodded and smiled. Penny ran this place with pride, and it seemed everyone here liked her as much as they did Ryder. The Diamond siblings had roots and family and a town in their blood. That much was obvious.
Whitney didn’t have any of those things. When the summer was over, she’d move on, just the way she liked it. But she could take what bits of enjoyment she could while she was there. Because it was those bits that helped fill the emptiness that grew daily in her chest.
“May I get some ketchup?” another gentleman asked.
Whitney bent down behind the bar to grab it—
“I’m starting to think uniforms should be mandatory,” drawled a sexy voice.
She knew who it was without having to look. No way was this happening again. She rose and handed the ketchup to the patron, and saw that the last available stool in the far corner was now supporting a familiar, sexy contractor.
“Excuse me?” She walked toward Ryder.
He placed his forearms on the bar and looked her up and down. A look like that could melt a stronger woman than her, because yeah…she was melting a little.
“I think my sister should require uniforms to work here,” he repeated, his gray eyes pausing on her shorts. “Maybe pants. And a turtleneck.”
“Why is that?”
“Because, sweetness, you’re distracting as hell.”
The way he slid those words out made her want to catch them, keep them in her pocket, and pull them out whenever she was feeling down. A single bit of praise from Ryder Diamond was just golden.
“No one said you have to look.” She pulled the rag out of her belt loop and wiped off the counter in front of him.
“That’s my dilemma,” he said. “I can’t not notice you.” He glanced around. “Just like every man in here can’t not notice you.”
That got her heart to stall. “Why Ryder Diamond, are you hitting on me?”
“No, ma’am.” He sat back. “Just came in for dinner and a beer. Thought I’d be neighborly to the city girl.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, I’m glad you met your neighborly quota for the day.” She grabbed a beer, popped the top, and slid it to him.
“How did you know what I liked?” he asked, examining the bottle.
“Because it’s what you drank the other night. I, too, have a good memory.”
Before she walked away, he said, “I’m still waiting for that chat, sweetness.”
She spun back around and frowned. “Didn’t we just chat?”
He took a drink from his longneck and shrugged. “I was thinking maybe over coffee sometime.”
Now she was really confused. “I’m sorry…what?”
“Coffee,” he said plainly. “I could pick you up.”
She put a hand on her hip and stared at him. “Like a date?”
He tilted his beer slightly in his hand, as though gauging its weight. “Kind of. I thought it would be nice.”
“Nice?” She had to repeat his words. This was bizarre. “I’m not sure I’m following you here. We had one night. It’s done now.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “But coffee has nothing to do with sex. I thought it would be—”
“Polite?”
When he didn’t say anything, reality hit her. Holy crap, Ryder Diamond was trying to be polite? All those good manners everyone talked about were in full gear. Was this how he treated every obstacle in his life? He’d said he’d never had a one-night stand before. So was this him trying to make it right or something?
“We agreed on one night,” she said again.
“No, we were both under the impression that we only had one night.”
“So you want another night?”
“I want to take you to coffee.”
“Because that would make you a gentleman?”
He let out a long breath. “Jesus, why are you being so stubborn?”
“Because you’ve got this backwards, big guy,” she said with sarcasm. “Typically, you take a woman out, then have sex with her. Guess what, I already gave it up. You don’t have to date me now.”
Something dark flickered behind his eyes. “I’m trying to—”
“Oh, I know what you’re trying to do. But I don’t need you to make me feel like a lady, and I don’t want you to take me on some weird coffee pity date just so your impeccable conscience can be cleared of a one-night stand. Because I’m not sorry, and I’m not ashamed.”
“I’m not sorry or ashamed, either.” He leaned in. “You’re here for the summer now. I’m going to be seeing you, and I need to establish boundaries. Perhaps we can even be friends.”
Her eyebrows peaked. He wasn’t looking to get into her pants again. He was looking to maintain a platonic distance.
“Boundaries, huh?”
He nodded.
“Well if that’s what you want…” She sighed, then took another step toward him.
His eyes snatched up her movements so acutely, it felt like he’d touched her. And that idea made her shiver with happiness. Just like the other night when he looked at her with that same lusty expression.
“One question,” she said.
“Shoot.”
“You want to be friends, have boundaries. That means you’re not looking to see me naked again, correct?”
He dropped his chin and took a deep breath but kept those steely gray eyes on her. “Correct,” he ground out.
“Uh-huh.” She took another slow, slow step, swaying her hips just a tad. “So you want my clothes to stay on, correct?”
Another long inhale. “Correct.”
She nodded and made a slight downward turn of her mouth, pretending to ponder.
“All right. All of this would add up, except for the way you’re looking at me.”
He frowned. “How is that?”
She dished out her own sinful look, with all the heat she felt behind it, and said, “Like you want to eat me up right now.”
His jaw clenched, as if he were thinking just that. Whitney wasn’t in the business of chasing things that weren’t meant to be caught. She was in the business of experiencing the best life had to offer. Right now, she was in Diamond, with Mr. Diamond. And she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that experiencing him was one of the best things Diamond had offered her so far.
But he wanted boundaries. Why? Did he think she would get attached? Turn into some swoony girl that would latch onto him now that she was in his way? She needed to find out. Normally she wouldn’t care about getting to know a guy, but it was so much fun pushing Ryder’s buttons and seeing him give up his secrets.