Her smile lit up her face in a way that elevated her from just pretty to pretty damn hot. “Oh, I’ve heard some stories about you.”
He just bet she had. There was no shortage of stories about him and his brothers, but he couldn’t help wondering if she’d heard the one about the backseat of Hailey Genest’s dad’s Cadillac since it was a Whitford favorite. Rumor had it when old man Genest finally traded the car in for a newer model, it still had the cheap wine stains in the carpet and the gouges from Hailey’s fingernails in the leather.
Even though he’d only been seventeen at the time—to Hailey’s nineteen—he still heard about those gouges if he got within speaking distance of Mr. Genest. Since Mrs. Genest’s looks came off as a little more speculative than condemning, he tended to avoid her altogether. Not easy in a town like Whitford, but he could be quick when he needed to be.
“So you’re the one who blows stuff up?” she asked when he didn’t offer up any comment about the stories she’d heard, as if there was anything to say. While there might be a little embellishment here and there, most of them were probably true.
“You could say that.” Or you could say he was one of the most respected controlled-demolition experts in the country. His education, hard work and safety record never excited people as much as the thought of him getting paid to blow stuff up, though. “You still got meatloaf on the menu?”
“First thing the selectmen told me when I applied for a permit is that you can’t have a diner in New England without meatloaf.”
“I’ll take that, and I’ll pay for an extra slab of meatloaf and a bucketload of gravy.”
“How about I give you the extras on the house as a welcome-home present?”
“Appreciate it,” he said, giving her one of his charming smiles—the one that made his pretty eyes sparkle, or so he’d been told. And since he’d been told that by women in the process of letting him slide into second base, he was inclined to believe them.
He could tell by the flush creeping up from the collar of her shirt she wasn’t immune to him. Nor was he immune to the subtle sway of her hips as she walked to the pass-through window and handed the order to a young man he was pretty sure was Mike Crenshaw’s oldest boy. Gavin, he thought his name was.
Dropping an old casino in the middle of crowded Las Vegas to make way for a grander one was an intense job, so it had been at least a couple of months since Mitch had blown off steam between the sheets. And a six-week cap on the relationship was perfect. He could enjoy the getting-to-know-you sex and the know-you-well-enough-to-push-the-right-buttons sex, but be gone before the I’m-falling-in-love-with-you-Mitch sex.
He checked out the sweet curve of her ass when she bent down to grab a bucket of sugar packets, and he grinned. It was damn good to be home.
*
Hearing the stories—and, oh boy, were there some good ones—hadn’t prepared Paige Sullivan for the reality of Mitch Kowalski taking up a stool in her diner. With his just-long-and-thick-enough-to-tousle dark hair and the blue eyes and easy smile, he could have been a star of the silver screen, not a guy who had just happened in looking for some meatloaf.
And maybe a little company, judging from what she’d heard. Supposedly, he was always in the mood for a little company. Unfortunately for him—and maybe a little for her—all he’d get at the Trailside Diner was the blue plate special.
“So where you from?”
Paige shrugged, not looking up from the sugar holders she was refilling. “I’m from a lot of places originally. Now I’m from Whitford.”
“Military brat?”
“Nope. Mom with a…free spirit.” Mom with a few loose screws was more accurate, but she wasn’t in the habit of sharing her life story with her customers.
“How’d you end up here?”
“That old cliché—my car broke down and I never left.” She topped off his coffee, but she was too busy making desserts for table six to stand around at the counter and chat.
As she built strawberry shortcakes, she grew increasingly aware of the fact Mitch was watching her. And not just the occasional glance because she was the only thing moving in his line of sight. No, he was blatantly checking her out. Since she was out of practice being an object of interest, it made her self-conscious, and the fact he was the best-looking guy to pass through the Trailside Diner since she’d opened its doors didn’t help any.
No men, she reminded herself. She was fasting. Or abstaining. Or whatever-ing word meant she wasn’t accepting the unspoken invitation to get horizontal in any man’s eyes, no matter what he looked like. No. Men.