Page 2 of The Strawberry Patch Pancake House
The woman had grabbed a fist full of napkins from the nearest table and pressed them into his chest. ‘This should help. We’ll just soak up the excess and then maybe with a little soap in the bathroom or something…’ She talked while she worked, a stream of chatter that he found oddly comforting. The press of her hands, roving over his chest, and the gentle curve of her lips as she spoke distracted Archer enough to dissipate his anger. In fact, he found himself wanting to lean into her touch. He wanted to keep talking to this frenetic woman. He wanted to ask her why she’d been carrying so many drinks. Who were they for? She was dressed more for a workout than the office, her tight leggings hugging the curve of her thighs, the tiny, athletic top revealing a stripe of skin around her stomach, skin that was now speckled with smoothie. Skin that he should probably stop staring at.
God, what was wrong with him? He was supposed to be getting his head in the game for meeting his kid, not trying to pick up an, admittedly beautiful, woman at the local coffee shop.
Archer sighed, pulling his gaze away from the dangerous stripe of skin and back to the woman’s concerned face. Her pretty lips were turned down in a pout.
Damn it, Archer. No lips either.
Get. Your. Head. In. The. Game.
‘Don’t worry about the floor!’ a woman called from behind the counter, momentarily distracting him from staring and admonishing himself for staring. ‘Joe is grabbing the mop!’
‘Okay, thanks Jeanie,’ the woman still dabbing at his chest called back. ‘Sorry about this.’ Her hands kept up their assault on his body. She was standing far too close. He could smell her shampoo. Strawberries? Oh God. He needed to go.
‘It happens,’ Jeanie said with a shrug.
An older couple walked gingerly around the puddle and Archer. ‘You gotta slow down, Iris, honey.’
‘I know Estelle,’ the redhead—Iris, apparently—said with a sigh. She straightened, finally releasing him from her clean-up efforts. ‘You’re right.’
‘You’re a good girl,’ Estelle said, giving Iris a little pat on the cheek. The gray-haired man with her gave Archer a bemused smile.
‘Rough morning?’ he asked.
‘It’s turning into one, yeah.’
The old man laughed. ‘Hopefully it turns around.’
‘Come on, Henry,’ Estelle said, taking the man’s arm. She sipped the smoothie in her hand. ‘Looks like I’m going to beat Iris to class today. Good thing I bought my own drink.’ She laughed as they walked out.
Iris laughed in return, until her gaze landed back on Archer’s face and she quickly sobered. ‘Well, I don’t think I can fix it.’ They both looked down at the bright green stain on his white button-down shirt.
‘Of course you can’t.’ He sighed. None of this was helping. His head was a complete mess before this meeting and the last thing he needed was to be lusting after the town’s yoga instructor, or whatever she was.
Iris winced. ‘I’m really sorry. How about I buy your drink? What are you having?’
Archer glanced at the line again and every single person was pretending not to be staring at him with a million questions on their faces and doing a terrible job of it. So much for getting in and out of this town without attracting too much attention. He turned his gaze back to Iris and her crinkled brow and downturned mouth. The zip-up hoodie she was wearing over her workout clothes had slipped down one shoulder revealing more skin he shouldn’t be staring at.
He had to go.
There was no way he was answering anyone’s questions today. Or staying any longer in the presence of this woman who’d already thrown his day for a loop.
‘I don’t have time,’ he said gruffly, and turned away from Iris and her shocked expression and the judgemental line of coffee drinkers. He wasn’t here to make friends. He was here to do right by his daughter. Whether he was convinced thathewas the right thing for her was inconsequential.
* * *
‘Monster!’ The little girl took one look at the green splotch on the front of his shirt, shrieked in horror and ran behind the couch. So, the first meeting with his kid was going about as well as he thought it would.
‘He’s not a monster, love. That’s your dad,’ Paula, Cate’s mom said, smiling fondly at where the girl had disappeared behind the furniture. Archer had never met Paula, just further evidence that what he’d had with Cate had been casual and fleeting.
Paula was breathing with the help of an oxygen tank, the tube in her nose making it perfectly clear that she needed help with this child. Withhischild. His child who he’d only gotten a brief glimpse of before she’d disappeared.
‘Then why does he have green gunk spilling out of him?’ the little girl asked, still not emerging from her hiding place.
Archer glanced down at his shirt. She wasn’t wrong. The smoothie stain did look suspiciously like monster gunk. ‘It’s uh … it’s just smoothie,’ he said, and Paula nodded.
‘Did you hear that, Olive? Just a little smoothie spill, that’s all.’
‘I’m not coming out,’ Olive,his daughter, Olive, said.
