Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(14)

Denying Bruno’s very existence upon this earth by the massive force of her indifference, even while ordering food from him. Bad tipper, too. But the nipple hard-on made up for that sin, abundantly.

There was that other quality, too, that he barely knew how to articulate. An intangible glow you could only see if you weren’t looking at it. He’d grown sensitive to it hanging out with Kev. Who, mellow as he was, always carried a disquieting aura of danger about him. A sense of things about to happen. Good things, bad things. Big things.

But whatever big things were about to happen to the brunette, a romantic encounter with Bruno Ranieri was unlikely to be one of them. She’d been there every night for three nights, and she’d ignored him completely. Maybe he was an arrogant putz, but he was accustomed to getting attention from women. This girl could give a flying f*ck.

Amazing that his glands were stirring at all, after covering the night shift for a month. Zia Rosa was AWOL, supervising the new McCloud kid’s first month of life. Bruno couldn’t remember which brother’s kid it was. He couldn’t keep any of Kev’s long lost McCloud brothers or their spawn straight, not for the life of him. Dirty blond hair, bright green eyes everywhere you looked. And they bred like rats, so the problem was just going to get worse with time.

He’d tried to hire more staff, but one guy that he’d hired a couple weeks ago just got a call from an ex-girlfriend in Costa Rica and off he went to follow his heart. Then Elsa ripped a tendon in her knee skateboarding. So here he was, swathed in an apron, eyes burning from lack of sleep. Flipping burgers, dipping fries, bussing tables, and baking pies. Just like old times. His current schedule involved a full day running his own outfit downtown, then an uneasy catnap, and working graveyard at the diner until dawn.

But hey, presto. Tonight’s outfit zinged him into perfect wakefulness. Those holes in her tights just made his palms sweat.

Maybe she played for the other team. He didn’t think so, though. He had lesbian friends, he knew the vibe. She didn’t have it.

One thing she did have was a sweet tooth. She’d been working steadily through the dessert menu, limited though it was with Zia gone. Bruno was a fine short-order cook, and a good pastry chef when he put his mind to it, but Zia was the true pastry goddess, and she was off in Seattle, making beef broth for whichever McCloud wife had just reproduced. To promote lactation, like Nonna in Brancaleone used to do.

Sure enough, the thought of lactation made his eyes fall to the pert, here-I-am! jut of the brunette’s nipples at the exact, fateful moment that her gaze darted up without warning. Yikes. Busted.

Oh, man. Eye contact. It was too much. Her gaze cut straight into his brain, like a hot knife through butter. He practically yelped.

Eye contact revealed fresh, fabulous details. Her eyes were hazel green, a hodgepodge of yellow and brown and green. She smiled, a hard, knock-you-back-on-your-ass smile. Not a comeon. A back-off smile.

She whipped the glasses off, laid them on the table. “Yes?”

He wanted to glance around himself for the man trap with the spikes. “Um, ah . . . what can I get for you?” What, was he stammering?

Her chin rose. “What have you got?”

Highly inappropriate answers whirled through his mind, like a swarm of crazed bees. He bit down hard, forced himself to act professional. “The menu’s reduced right now, since Zia Rosa’s gone. Tonight, we’re down to rice pudding, banana cream pie, coconut cream pie, cheesecake, and brownie sundaes. But all of them are great.”

Her stare was unblinking. A gunslinger in a high-noon duel. “And this Zia Rosa has been gone for how long now?”

The question taxed his brain severely, since all his blood had pooled elsewhere. “Ah. Um, I don’t know. Five wee”

“That’s how old the desserts are? Or did she fill the freezer?”

He recoiled in outrage. “Hell, no! The desserts are made fresh, all the time!”

Those big eyes got even bigger. “Ooh, cut you to the quick, did I?” she murmured. “Made fresh by who?”

His chest puffed out. “By me.”

Her eyes narrowed to glittering slits. “No way.”

He bristled. “Way! Why would I lie?”

She propped her chin on her hand and gazed up. “To impress me?” she suggested. “To distinguish yourself from the anonymous, sweating, teeming masses?”

Bruno considered that. “I didn’t know I was competing with any anonymous teeming masses, sweaty or otherwise,” he said. “And I’ve never had to work that hard to impress girls.”

“Hmm.” The eyelashes swept down as she pondered her next jab. “So you prefer to hang out with girls who are easy to please?”

Her attitude was starting to piss him off. “And why would it be a bad thing to be easily pleased?”

The eyes opened, wide and innocent. “Did I say it was bad?”

He closed his mouth. “Never mind,” he said. “I’m lost in the maze of this conversation, and I can’t find my way out, so I’m bailing. But if I actually were going to try to impress a girl, the first clever ploy that would come to my mind would not be lies about pastry making.”

“I see,” she said. “Well, that really begs the question. What clever ploy would be the first one to come to your mind? I’d love to hear it.”