Page 40 of Protected By the Grumpy Single Dad
“I’ll tell Brick the town’s best baker brought him contraband.”
“Don’t push it, Sheriff.”
We look at each other for a breath that feels too long. Then I step back, suddenly aware that it is, in fact, late at night in a man’s living room and my heart is being an idiot.
“Text me in the morning so I know you actually went,” I say, moving toward the door before I talk myself out of leaving.
“I don’t have your number,” he says.
I rattle off digits. He repeats them back slowly, memorizing. Something too warm slides under my sternum and I hate that, too.
“Night, Asher.”
“Night, Jasmine.”
On the porch, the air is cool and clean. I close the door behind me and only then realize my hands are shaking.
***
By lunch the next day, I’ve almost convinced myself last night was a fever dream that belonged to someone else.
“Few more minutes, Lady Jasmine,” John calls from the kitchen, his accent turningminutesintomeenoots. Steam hugs my face as I peek in. Trays of food are marching toward their destinies. Out front, the diner hums—low conversation, the bell over the door dinging in shy little bursts, the coffee machine sounding like relief.
“Faster than a rumor,” I tell him, tapping my watch. “The brunch crowd is sniffing us from three blocks.”
He winks and goes back to commanding the griddle.
I pivot to triage the dessert case—cakes aligned, fruit glistening. My brain drifts on its own leash: to bandages and icepacks, to the gentle way he saidmy son, to the way his laugh sneaked out like it forgot who it belonged to.
“Jasmine,” Sarah sing-songs, arms folded. “You’ve been grinning at that cheesecake for a full minute. Should I be jealous?”
“I was thinking about a joke my mom made,” I say too quickly, which is worse than a lie because it sounds like one.
Sarah lifts a brow but lets me off the hook. “FYI, there’s someone outside. Been idling for at least thirty seconds. If they wanted curbside, they could try saying words like a normal.”
“What, are they allergic to doors?” I mutter, wiping my hands on my apron. I follow her gesture to the plate glass.
A black Escalade crouches at the curb, deep-tinted windows, purring an expensive sulk. The kind of car you see in movies right before the soundtrack changes.
Who the hell—
“I’ll go,” I say, untying my apron and draping it over a chair. My heart decides to practice double time. Something about that car feels familiar in a way my body knows before my head does.
On the sidewalk, I knock on the back passenger window. It slides down like a curtain on a show I didn’t buy tickets to.
The man inside looks sixty and engineered: pale eyes, clean shaven, a suit that costs somebody’s rent. Two men sit up front in identical sunglasses and faces that sayemployee.
“Good afternoon,” I say. “Can I help you?”
“No,” he says, voice deep enough to rattle flatware. “I’m here to help you.”
I smile the way you smile at a toddler holding a fork near a socket. “Do I know you?”
“Not yet.” He tips his chin toward the back door. “Get in. This isn’t a curb conversation.”
I blink slowly. “That’ll be a no from me. If you’re ordering, you pick up at the counter. If you’re lost, I can list three other diners that aren’t mine.”
“Get in, Jasmine,” he repeats, and the way he says my name peels every nerve thin.
