Page 8 of Caden

Kelsey leads the happy couple to a table near the window, and I return my attention to the menu.

The bells chime overhead, and I will myself to focus on the menu. Daisy Hills has proven to be one of the safest places I’ve ever lived or visited. But it’s the sound of familiar laughter that has me lifting my gaze this time.

Ruby.

She’s on her phone, oblivious to me lurking in a corner booth. Her carefree expression and unguarded smile makes her even sexier somehow. As if that were even fucking possible. Her curly blonde hair is half down, half up. All frizzy. What I wouldn’t give to wrap one of those curls around my finger and gently tug. Would Ruby laugh? Or would she get even?

“Did you decide?” The hostess’s voice startles me, and I silently curse.

“Mushroom Swiss burger. With a side salad.”

“You got it.”

Ruby ends the call and heads to the bar, and I fight the urge to join her. Every day since the first day I met her, I’ve been fighting the magnetic pull between us. The urge to be next to her no matter where we are. Never in my life has another woman had such an effect on me.

She’s off limits. That has to be the biggest reason I want her. It doesn’t stop me from watching Jax slide her a fruity pink cocktail.

I check my phone, hoping for some gym emergency. Or a fire call. At this point, I’d take a cat in a tree over the torture of watching her lips press against her neon green straw. If I wasn’t fucking starving, I’d abandon my order and get the hell out of here.

I’m just about to tell Kelsey to make my order to go when I notice the prick at the opposite end of the bar slip off his stool and beeline toward Ruby. I haven’t seen him in town before.

My entire body stiffens.

“Jax might make you pay for the menu if you rip it in half,” Kelsey says, her tone light and teasing as she follows my line of sight.

“Who is that guy?” I ask, suddenly not giving a shit about the rumors I might cause by acting like a jealous boyfriend.

“Not sure,” she admits, her smile falling. It’s possible she notices what I do. That the guy in his dark jeans, sports jacket, and smug expression seems out of place. “Haven’t seen him in here before.”

“He been here long?”

“An hour maybe?”

It takes all my willpower to stay in my seat as he sidles up to Ruby. I should be fucking glad someone else is about to hit on her. If she were dating someone else, maybe my brain—and my fucking dick—would get the message to move the fuck on.

Except when Ruby turns to look at the man trying to get her attention, her entire expression hardens. Her eyes narrow and she leans back, nearly tipping her barstool to avoid him encroaching in her space. As though the idea of him touching her is the most repulsive thing. My Spidey senses kick into overdrive.She knows him.

“Are you and Ruby?—”

I ignore Kelsey’s question—and the warning it should be driving home—and fly out of my booth.

5

RUBY

“What the hellare you doing here, Anthony?” I never told my ex-boyfriend where I was moving. Hell, I never even told him Iwasmoving. How he found me in little Daisy Hills, hundreds of miles from the big city is beyond me. I shudder to think how long he’s been squatting inJax’s Bar & Grill, hoping I’d show up. Something I only decided to do after a long day doing battle with a garden alcove enticed me to grab a quick drink. Though with how worn out Gram was when I brought him home, I doubt he’ll even know I slipped out for a quick nightcap.

“Is that any way to greet your lover?”

I’m glad I’m not sipping on my drink. I’d have choked.

“How’s Sheila?” I spit out in reply.

Anthony’s expression falls, but only for a fraction of a second. The bastard recovers quickly enough. “She never meant anything to me,” he says, his voice velvety smooth. Once upon a time, I used to melt at that tone. A tone that made me willing to buy whatever lie he was selling.

Then I wised the fuck up.

“Was that before or after you were buried balls deep in her inourbed?”

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