Tall, dark, and handsome was definitely my type, but once you got past those three attributes of his, Dex failed to resemble anything I’d dated. I’d glommed onto arrogant assholes my whole life, but the man I bandaged up last night wasn’t an asshole. He was nice. Definitely not my norm, but wasn’t it time for a change? I’d been a jerk magnet long enough. Too bad I’d never see him again.

I walked into the diner and went straight to work. On Thursdays, I had the short afternoon shift, and it was all about cleaning, which meant I’d spend more time on my knees than my feet. Usually, I considered that the worst shift, but today it didn’t bother me much.

I shined the stainless steel bases of the stools and smiled when I got to the end. It was the stool Dex had sat at when I bandaged his arm. When I got to the leather benches of the front booths, I didn’t even mind digging stray fries out of the crevices because this was the booth where we’d drunk coffee and talked like normal people.

The bell above the door rang. My shoes stayed on the floor, and my heart stayed in my chest. It was a glorious day.

“What’s got you smiling?” Marty leaned his cane against the table and helped Mona into the booth I’d just cleaned.

She reached over and cuffed the back of his head. “I told you she met a man last night.” Mona scooted in, and Marty slid next to her. They were cute in an odd couple kind of way. Marty was gasoline, and Mona was fire, but somehow their combination wasn’t combustible. Mona simply burned up Marty’s fuel, and he was happy to keep her flame going.

Of all the things we talked about, Mona remembered my mention of a man. “It’s meatloaf today,” I said.

“Two specials and two soda pops, please.” Marty always ordered for Mona. It wasn’t because she couldn’t see the menu. She had it memorized. It was more of a chivalrous thing. He proved he knew what she liked, and she proved that she trusted his choices. It was like a dance, where Marty had two left feet and Mona two right, but together they made a perfect pair.

A lot can be learned from watching couples interact, I reflected as I placed their order and delivered the sodas.

“Who’s this man, young lady?” Marty folded his napkin into a perfect square and placed his Coke on top of it. He reached for Mona’s napkin and did the same.

“Just a guy that needed some help. He crashed a motorcycle and cut his arm up pretty bad. I bandaged him up and sent him on his way.”

“Remember what we talked about this morning?”

“I couldn’t let him bleed to death at the diner door, so I put his mask on first.”

Marty looked at us like we were speaking Polish.

“Hannah is a do-gooder, always fixing other people without taking care of herself.”

Marty plopped a straw in his drink and then Mona’s. He took care of his stuff first and then took care of hers next. I would have considered that selfish, but after Mona’s airplane lecture, I saw it differently: Once a person’s needs are met, they are more capable of serving others.

He turned toward Mona as if I weren’t there. “I don’t know if I’d call her a do-gooder, dear. She did come late to the party when Ryker and Silas were on trial.”

“Oh, pish. Once she was okay, she was able to help the boys.”

I left them to their argument and went to fetch their meatloaf and mash. When I got back, they both were armed and ready with their forks and knives.

“You two enjoy.” I went about my cleaning duties. The floor was in good shape. Despite the storm, Dex was thorough in his mop job.

I closed my eyes and saw him. Eyes the color of a summer sky. A body as big and solid as a mountain. A liquid voice that oozed sexiness. My body shivered at the memory of him.

“Earth to Hannah,” Grace’s familiar voice called out.

I swung around to find her and Ana tucked into a booth with their babies, Wren and Blue. It was hard to not let the green shade of envy consume me. They had everything I wanted. They had Ryker and Silas and two adorable little boys. What did I have? Zilch.

“You okay?” Ana asked.

Mona craned around. “She’s daydreaming about some young man who showed up last night.”

“After we left?” Grace asked.

Ana turned to Grace. “I told you we shouldn’t have left.”

“It’s not like she wanted us here.” They continued to argue while I grabbed the coffee pot and two cups.

“I was fine. Some guy had an accident. He used the phone and left.”

The girls looked at me like a booger hung from my nose. I swiped at my face just in case. “You let a strange man in after what happened to you?” Did some mothering switch flip on the minute a woman gave birth?

I poured the coffee. “It was raining, and I couldn’t let him bleed all over the floor.”

It was a rare moment when both Grace and Ana were silenced. They sat with their mouths open. “Blood?” they said in unison.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Grace groused. Even Blue started at the gruffness of her tone.

I slid into the booth next to Ana, pushing inch by inch until one of my butt cheeks was all the way on the bench.

“I was thinking someone needed help.” I glanced at the counter I had cowered behind, remembering how my initial reaction hadn’t exactly been welcoming. “It wasn’t the smartest choice, but I’m glad I did it. I met a guy who wanted nothing from me but a bandage and a phone.”

“He must be the owner of the motorcycle that crashed into the big oak at the end of town.” Ana brushed Wren’s hair from his forehead. For a two-month-old, he had a full head of dark hair. There was no questioning who his father was; Wren was a mini-me of Ryker from his dark locks, to his blue eyes, to the dimple on his chin.

“Silas and Ryker picked it up and brought it to the garage, waiting for the owner to claim it. Do you know how to reach the guy?”

I pulled my phone from my pocket. “I’ve got the number of the person who picked him up. I think he said his name was John.” I scrolled to the number I didn’t recognize, tore a page from my order pad, and scribbled it down.

“Odd that he’d leave it abandoned.”

Inside, I felt an overwhelming need to defend Dex. “He was hurt, and it was raining. I’m sure he plans to come back and claim it.” I tried to discipline my voice, to keep it calm and even-keeled, but the lift of Grace’s brow proved I’d failed.

“Do I detect some attraction to this stranger?”

“I’m not talking about a man I don’t know.” I popped up from the booth. “Are you going to order or what?”

“I sense some deflection going on here, don’t you, Grace?” Ana had her tell-me-the-truth face perfected. Poor Wren didn’t have a chance when he grew up.

I jutted out my hip and pasted on a bored face. “So is that a no to the food?”

Grace ripped the menu from the holder. She pointed to the grilled cheese sandwich. “Fries too.”

I turned toward Ana. “Soup and salad, please. Still trying to take this baby weight off my ass.”

The woman looked amazing for having pushed out a kid eight weeks ago. It was another thing that pissed me off. She got the guy. She got the baby. And I’d be damned if she didn’t get her pre-baby body back. Some girls got everything. I wasn’t one of them.

“Don’t forget the old people.” Mona held up her empty soda glass, and I went back to work. A full diner meant lots of tips, but an empty diner gave me a moment of peace. And peace was something I didn’t get much of these days.

Ten minutes before my shift ended, the door opened, but I couldn’t see the person’s face through the flowers they were carrying.

A large vase of roses was plunked down on the counter, and the young delivery boy peeked his head around the arrangement and smiled. “Delivery for Hannah.”

I turned a finger toward myself. “Me?”

“Are you Hannah?”

I spun around as if some other Hannah was hiding behind me. “I’m her…I mean, that’s me.”

“Then these are for you.” The kid pressed a clipboard into my hands. “Sign here.”

Once I signed, I handed it back, but he didn’t leave. I’d never had anyone send me flowers; what the heck was he waiting for? It only took a second for my mind to function and my cheeks to redden. It had been a slow day at the diner, and I’d only made ten bucks, but I pressed half of my wrinkly bills into his palm. “Thank you.”

For minutes, I stared at the red roses, smelling each one individually, trying to decide whether one smelled better than the next. My fingers brushed up their velvety petals to the card.

The flowers thrilled me and scared me. I hoped they were from Dex, but they could very well be from Cameron Longfellow. It was like him to take something beautiful and destroy it. His threat of seeing me soon was never far from my thoughts.

With shaking hands, I pulled the card from the tiny envelope.

You and me

Dinner

Tomorrow night

Seven o’clock

Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse

See you there, Hannah

Dex

The card fell from my hands to the checkered floor.

I had a date. A real date. With Dex Riley.

When Rosemarie arrived at the diner for her shift, I literally ran out the door. There was so much to do before tomorrow night.