Page 29 of His to Protect

“Mags!”

She slid an order of food onto her large tray and smiled at me. “What’s up, Dec?”

Trina followed me to the counter. “Trina’s going to help on the floor tonight. Any chance you can show her the computer system and a menu before you go, to give her some time to get comfortable?”

She smiled easily. “Of course. That’s not a problem at all.”

While Fireside Grill hadn’t been turning a profit over the summer, I was fucking lucky as hell that I had great employees. All of my people were hard workers and genuinely friendly.

“Sound okay to you?” I asked, turning to Trina.

“Yeah.” Her eyes drifted down the length of Maggie’s petite but curvy frame before she looked at me. “I’m not sure I’m dressed right, though.”

She had a point. Her green tank top and black yoga pants weren’t exactly Fireside Grill material.

“I’ve got more shirts in the break room. I’m sure one them will look fine with your black pants.”

“Okay, then.” She turned to Maggie and smiled. “Show me what to do.”

—

“Is working in a restaurant always this exhausting and painful?” Trina asked as she stretched her back, hands low on her hips.

She let out a groan that made me think of a handful of things I could do to get her to make that sound somewhere else. Some of them involved the use of my hands.

I hadn’t been able to stop myself from thinking those thoughts all night long.

Watching her working, smiling at customers, and eventually, giving my head cook, Javier, a bunch of crap for teasing her about one of her messed-up orders, made me admire the hell out of Trina.

She had worked her butt off. Now, at just after two in the morning, except for Javier going through his closing duties in the kitchen, we were the last people here.

“You get used to it,” I muttered, before moving to the next table as we got ready to close.

She helped place another chair on the tabletop so when Maggie opened in the morning, it would be easier for her to vacuum and get the floors cleaned.

“I haven’t worked this hard for years.” She grunted as she lifted a chair. I ditched my own table to help her when I saw the exhaustion in her limbs.

“What’d you do before?”

I let the question casually slip out and continued to flip chairs onto tables, waiting for her to answer. I acted like it didn’t matter if she answered me, although for some reason it did—I actuallywantedto get to know her.

“Public relations and marketing,” she finally said.

I froze, chair halfway to the table, and looked at her.

She did that bottom-lip-chewing thing and turned away.

“Did you like it?”

“I guess. I mean, yeah, I enjoyed my job, I just never really wanted to work for a living.”

The thought made me scowl, which I tried to hide. Mara had always said the same thing. She wanted to be a stay-at-home wife. The hard labor of the restaurant was too much for her.

The life we’d talked about starting was too much for her.

I closed those thoughts down. There was no point in comparing the two women. Already Trina had shown herself to be a harder worker than Mara ever was.

“Why did you quit?”

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