Page 19 of Simply Yours

“I didn’t know you worked here.”

“A girl’s gotta eat…” she replied, forcing a casual shrug, praying he didn’t notice the way her fingers curled into her apron like she was holding on for dear life.

“And drink coffee,” he added lightly, his voice slipping into something teasing, something familiar, somethingappealing.

Then, just to twist the knife, he winked.

Her stomach dropped.

No. Nope. Absolutely not.

She couldn’t let this happen. Not again. Nothim.

Caitlin swallowed hard, forcing herself to breathe past the sudden, suffocating heat in her chest. Jason was just a guy. Just another customer. Just?—

Well, he was trouble.

A tiger didn’t change their stripes. Jason Baird, heartthrob extraordinaire, did not like her. He was simply trying to dip his toes into the ‘People-Pool’ by talking to others and coming out of the farm into society.

He wasn’t flirting.

He wasn’t serious.

He was just…him.

“Eh?” she hesitated, jerking her head back and looking at him.

“It’s just a question.”

“I likecoffee-coffee. There is no other coffee in the world.”

“Apparently, there is ground-bug…”

“NUH-UH!” she yelped, leaping forward and putting her hand over Jason’s mouth as she shut her eyes in horror. “Don’t say it. Don’t even think it. In fact, sing it with me… ‘Coffee is the blessed bean – and comes into my cup completely clean.’”

She should’ve been annoyed. Maybe she was. But there was something about the way his lips quirked at the corners, the way his eyes danced with mischief, that made it hard to hold onto frustration – and pulled her hand away.

“It’s not funny,” she said, her voice firm, but her heart betraying her with a little skip at his attention. “Us caffeine addicts understand how serious coffee is. It’s part of the Three C’s Rule.”

Jason arched an eyebrow, curiosity flickering in his gaze. “What’s that?”

She lifted her chin, adopting the solemnity of a preacher delivering a sermon. “There are three things you cannot modify, alter, desecrate, or destroy in this world:Coffee,Carbs,Chocolate. It’s against the natural order of things, against the universe’s law.”

A slow smirk played across his lips. “No, it’s not.”

“Oh, I promise you—you will meet Godif you ruin one of the three for me,” she said staunchly, nodding as if she were sealing some divine decree.

Jason didn’t hold back this time. A wild, unrestrained laugh burst from him, filling the space between them like a summer storm rolling through. It was the kind of laugh that made his shoulders shake, that lit up his entire face, and for a brief moment, Caitlin found herself captivated. She wanted to freeze time and just watch him—watch the way his eyes crinkled at the edges, the way his head tilted back, the way his joy seemed so effortless.

“Yes. Yes. Har-de-har-har and all that jazz,” she grumbled, shaking herself from the trance of his laughter. “Are you ordering a pizza or not?”

Jason cocked his head, lips still twitching with amusement. “Should I?”

His fingers trailed across the counter, slow and deliberate, mimicking the creeping path of the bug from earlier. Caitlin felt a shiver roll up her spine, not from fear but from something else—something unexpected. Her pulse quickened, and her breath hitched. He was teasing her, pushing her buttons like he always did, but there was something else lurking beneath it. A challenge. A test.

She exhaled sharply and met his gaze, her voice a whisper. “Run.”

His smile faded instantly, humor draining from his face like the sun slipping behind storm clouds. His body tensed, muscles coiling as he searched her expression, reading something in her eyes that made his throat work in a hard swallow.

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