Heartless: A Small Town Single Dad Romance(23)

When I open my eyes again, she’s smirking. We come to stand in front of the couches. Everyone files in and she watches them carefully, eyes assessing where everyone sits. As always Jasper takes the back corner seat facing away from the rest of the room and Beau takes up position across from him—always facing the room.

Willa doesn’t even glance at me when she murmurs, “You don’t come often?”

“Not here,” I bite out.

She peeks at me from behind a silky curtain of her copper locks. “Yeah, no. That would be rude.”

I opt to glare back at her. Because my wish for a flaccid dick is not being granted with this line of banter. Or are we flirting? I don’t even know what flirting looks like anymore. “Willa, sit down.”

I point at the only spots left. A love seat facing the end of the low-slung table. She moves effortlessly, with an inherent grace. There’s something kind of . . . magical about her. Her laugh, her voice, the fluidity of her movements. It’s not sexual, it’s just an appeal I can’t quite put my finger on.

An appeal I’m now going to be stuck sitting beside all night. And living with all summer. I absently wonder if putting up with one of the other applicants who didn’t catch my eye at all would have been preferable, even if it meant putting up with their overt advances for a couple of months.

Our server, Bailey, swings by once we’re seated. The girl works her ass off here and at the hospital as a porter. It’s like every ounce of focus and drive that could be shared by her family was all just packed into her. The Jansens own the farm next to us, and she’s the youngest of them. The best of them. The only one without a criminal record, most likely.

“I’ll have a Guinness,” Willa says, surprising me by ordering a thick, dark beer. And maybe I’m a dick for expecting something else. I had her pegged as a prissy city girl who’d order some frilly Sex and the City drink.

“I’ll have what she’s having.” I hike a thumb at Willa and give Bailey a terse smile. Bailey blushes and drops my gaze. I’m not sure how the hell she works here. She’s young and painfully shy.

Willa elbows me, before leaning close and whispering in my ear. “She gets smiles. You should go for it. She’s cute.”

I glance at Bailey’s retreating form and shake my head. “Nah. No way. Bailey’s way too young. I just like her.”

Willa’s eye twitches, her lips flattening as she looks around the bar. She seems like she’s all bravado and bluster, but I get the sense I just hurt her feelings. Not so much by what I said, but by what I didn’t say.

I bump my elbow back at her. “I like you too, Red. I just feel bad for Bailey. Her family is shit but she’s a sweet girl. She gets a bad rap around town.”

She rolls her eyes while staring out across the room. “You don’t like me. You tolerate me.”

I mull that over. Is that how I come off to her? I guess she has no way of knowing it’s a struggle for me to keep my eyes off her when she interacts with Luke, even harder to keep her image from popping up in my mind when I fist my cock in the shower. Both things I don’t intend to tell her, so I opt for, “The way I see it, I like you a little more every day.”

Because that much is true. The girl is growing on me, like a vine wrapping up around an old oak.

And for once, I’m not sure I mind.

Willa’s head turns slowly, with intent, and her eyes scour my face. I feel like I’m being analyzed, decoded—it’s fucking unnerving.

“You trying to put a spell on me, Red? Some sort of city-girl voodoo shit?”

“City girl voodoo shit?” She smiles, still staring at me hard. Amused. Glowing. She’s goddamn breathtaking. The rest of the bar fades away, and with a little shake of my head, I give her a reluctant smile and drop her gaze.

She laughs and flops back against the couch, watching Bailey approach with a tray full of drinks.

“Daddy Cade, you’re a whole lot prettier when you smile.”

I can’t help but snort. “You’re insane.” Usually a woman’s attention makes me squirm. It’s too intense. There’s too much pressure. But with Red, she toes the line of joking. Truthfully, I can’t make heads or tails of her. If nothing else, she has my attention.

She grins up at me, gently tugging at her long, straight hair. Like that’s an answer.

I’d like to tug on that hair too, is what I’m thinking when I feel a hand clamp down on my shoulder. “Cade, buddy, how are ya?”

The smile comes easily now. My high school friend, Lance Henderson, is towering over me, grinning like the fucking loon he is.

I stand, reaching out to shake his hand in a firm clap while slapping at his shoulder. It’s our kind of equivalent of a hug. “I’m doin’ alright. How about you? What brings you out this way?”

“Rodeo nearby. Thought I’d take a detour through the old stomping grounds.”

“Yeah?”

“Heck yeah.” He nods at the table. “Look at you all. The entire Eaton clan. What is this? Some sort of family reunion?”

“Nah, that’s next month.”

His eyes drop, and I catch him eyeing up Willa, who is pretending to pay attention to everyone else in the loud bar, but I can tell by the angle of her head that she’s eavesdropping. Snoopy little thing.