CHAPTER 5: Danielle

The Wolf brothers sat with Bob at the corner table for the better part of two hours. I took them three of everything, as requested, and then brought them three more. They devoured it all like starving dogs and asked for more.

Watching them eat was…sexy.

I wondered if they did everything with such abandon and passion.

I wondered if they’d like a Danny sandwich…

I shook my head and looked away from them. Where in the world had that thought come from? That wasn’t like me. Or maybe it was. Maybe I had the ability to think dirty thoughts and fantasize about gorgeous men; I just didn’t get much of a chance to let that particular part of my brain run free in Bellegrade.

There was no denying that the Wolf twins were the sexiest men I’d ever seen that weren’t in a magazine or on a movie screen.

When they looked at me I got the feeling that they were picturing me naked. Bent over. Panting. I felt the need to squeeze my thighs together and hide the blush on my cheeks.

Maybe that was what had my brain dipping its toe in the gutter. There was something about the way they looked at me that made my insides tingle. I hadn’t felt this way since the last time Davy looked into my eyes the night before he left town.

The twin who had just wanted gumbo ate more than the other two. I got the impression this was his first foray into real Cajun cuisine, and once he got a taste of it, he found it hard to quit.

I wanted to tell him it was that way with Cajun women, too, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t dare flirt in front of Bob. My dad said he was some kind of mechanical genius. All I knew for a fact was that he had the biggest mouth in Bellegrade and loved to gossip more than the old biddies at the Baptist church. I’d never give him a reason to start spreading trash about me.

The lunch crowd had filtered out and I was wiping down the counter when one of the brothers slid onto a stool and cleared his throat to get my attention.

“Which one you are?” I asked with a grin. “Tommy or Timmy?”

“Terry, the one who wanted just gumbo,” he said. His brown eyes sparkled when he smiled. I felt that little tingle in my lady-box again. I squeezed my thighs together and forced a smile.

“Well, it certainly looked like you enjoyed it all once you tried it.” I casually wiped crumbs off the counter between us and shook out the rag. It was my version of playing it cool. I folded the rag and set it on the counter. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

“I’ve been put in charge of paying the check,” he said.

“Ah, my favorite part,” I said, picking up the order pad to tally the check. I tore off the check and slid it toward him. I drummed my fingers on it for a moment. “Wish you boys would come in every day and eat like that. We could sure use the business.”

He looked around the empty diner. “Things are slow?”

“This is Bellegrade,” I said. “It’s always slow. Slower now that the rigs aren’t hiring like they used to since BP pulled out.”

He nodded, a thoughtful look on his face. “Yeah, that Deepwater Horizon thing.”

“Yeah. That.”

“You’d think somebody would come up with a way to prevent that from happening,” he said as he reached for the check before I pulled back my hand. His hand covered mine and our eyes locked. Whether he did it by accident or on purpose, I didn’t know. Whichever it was, I didn’t pull my hand away.

“Can I see you later?” he asked.

I blinked at him. “Excuse me?”

“Can I see you later?”

I gave him the frown I usually reserved for customers who asked for another week’s credit on their bill. “Are you asking me out, Tommy?”

“Terry.” He smiled. I tingled again. “And yes, I am asking you out.”

He lifted his fingers and I slid my hand from beneath his. My hand was warm from his brief touch. I folded my arms over my breasts and gave him a tentative look.

“I don’t go out with strangers,” I said.

“Then it’s a good thing we’re not strangers,” he said, picking up the check and barely giving the amount a glance. “You ever know a stranger with the name Terry Wolf?”

I smiled at him. “Can’t say that I have.”

“Well, there you go. We’re not strangers.”

He dug into the back pocket of his tight jeans and brought out a thick wad of folded bills in a gold money clip. He peeled off two one-hundred-dollar bills and set them on the counter to cover the fifty-dollar check.

He nodded at his brother, who was listening to Bob explain something on a map of the Gulf he had spread out on the table.

He said, “It looks like we’re going to be in town longer than we thought looking at some invention Bob is working on. Tony is going out on a boat with Bob tonight and I get seasick, so I’ll be all alone.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Let me guess, you hate to be in the big city all alone.”

“I do,” he said, pooching out his bottom lip like a little kid asking for a piece of candy. “So, what do you say?”

I gave him a thoughtful look for a moment. “There’s really not much to do here except drive around or go to the lake.”

“Then we’ll drive around and go to the lake,” he said with nod that seemed to settle things in his mind. He glanced at the watch on his wrist. It looked expensive.

He asked, “What time do you get off?’

I picked up the two hundred- dollars and rang up the ticket on the old cash register on the counter. I didn’t refuse the big tip. We weren’t making enough money to be prideful. I put both bills in the till and closed the drawer.

I frowned playfully. “Did you just ask what time I get off?”

“I suppose I did,” he said with a smile. “I meant to ask, what time do you get off work?”

“I have to be here for the dinner rush,” I said with a sigh, like being asked out by someone who looked like him happened every day. Shit, in Bellegrade, good-looking men were like Bigfoot: you heard tales about them, but there was no concrete evidence one ever existed. At least not since Davy left town.

The little voice in my head said, fuck it…go for it…

“I can probably leave around eight o’clock,” I said.

“Perfect,” he said, sliding off the stool. “Should I pick you up here or at your place?”

I nodded toward the front door. “Seeing as how I live in that trailer park right across the road, I can run home and get the smell of gumbo out of my hair and meet you back here. Pick me up at eight thirty?”

“Eight thirty it is,” he said happily, as if I’d just made his day.

I knew better.

He struck me as a man whose day was made the moment his feet hit the floor in the morning.

He went back to sit with his clone and Bob while I went into the kitchen to wash dishes and wonder where the night would lead.