Book 2 in The Jamison Sisters Series, Available November 14, 2016 (But you can pre-order now!)
A note from Elizabeth:
Just a head’s up, there is a prologue that starts off Jake and Lila’s story that isn’t included in this excerpt. There’s a bit of a back story that you need to know although I’m not including it here. This little snippet will just dive into the romance aspect.
But in a nutshell….
- Reason Jake is in Montana – someone is trying to kill him.
- Reason Lila is in Montana – she needs rest and relaxation, a reprieve from the constant hounding of the press.
Okay – now that you know those details…here’s your excerpt!
Lila entered the diner cautiously on her first morning in town, her hat tugged down low over her eyes and her copper hair pulled back into a braid that hung down her back. She was wearing fake glasses in an attempt to hide her identity as well as a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt and a denim jacket, all of which had seen better days.
She stood tentatively at the doorway of the entrance, looking around, praying that there was no reporter hanging around, ready to catch a picture of her dressed like this. Everyone looked pretty normal. Or as normal as she’d suspected people who lived in the country might look. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but the laughter and warmth, not to mention the welcoming smell of coffee and the incredible temptation of cooked bacon, lured her deeper into the diner.
“Come on in, honey!” a waitress in a pink skirt and matching sweater with a striped apron called out, holding a coffee pot in one hand and two plates piled high with eggs and bacon, hash browns and…were those pancakes? Oh, goodness, she would absolutely love pancakes!
“Sit anywhere?” she asked, following the waitress with the plate of pancakes.
“Sure! Have a seat and I’ll get you a cup of coffee in a sec’.”
Lila almost cried with frustration when the waitress set the plate of pancakes down in front of a big guy with a cowboy hat resting beside him on the bench.
Betty delivered the food and topped off cups of coffee, all the while watching the new gal, almost laughing as the little woman surveyed the room. “Why don’t you sit over there by the window?” she suggested, when the redhead continued to hover as if she were unsure of her welcome.
Lila looked at the booth, then smiled tentatively at the friendly waitress. It had been so long since she’d experienced such friendly, casual service and it was quite exhilarating! Normally, the maitre’d or the restaurant manager would be rushing towards her, fussing over her and snapping fingers to get a waiter or waitress to cater to Lila’s needs. The deferential treatment had grown irritating over the years. Not to mention the lack of anonymity.
This was so much better, she thought as she carefully slid into the booth. Paper napkins, stainless steel utensils…yes, this was wonderful!
The waitress plunked a cup down and filled it up with steaming coffee. “Where you from, darlin’?” she asked, leaning a hip against the table.
Lila smiled engagingly up at the lady who looked to be in her mid-forties with an easy smile.
“Oh, I just came in from…” she started to say New York but then changed her mind, “Boston.”
Betty instantly knew that the woman was lying even before she spoke the name of the city. But it wasn’t any of her business if the woman wanted to hide out for a while. It was a free country and everyone had the right to a bit of privacy if they needed it. However, she made a mental note to tell Jake about the newcomer since he was on the lookout for anyone new to the area. “What can I get you to eat?”
Lila licked her lips, her eyes moving from the kitchen area to the door as if she half expected someone to burst into the diner. “Could I get a plate of pancakes?” she asked, almost whispering and leaning closer to the friendly waitress as she tried to control her excitement over the possibility. She had personal trainers, hired by her publicist to exercise Lila in the various cities in which she was touring and nutritionists who sent food lists to the endless hotels, even most of the restaurants, so that she would still be able to fit into the skin tight dresses that were designed specifically for her while she was on stage or when she appeared on a red carpet for any reason.
Pancakes had definitely not been on the approved food lists her nutritionist had sent to any hotel and she was going to savor every bite. Lila couldn’t remember the last time she’d had pancakes, or anything made of white flour that was meant to be drenched in butter and sugar! Or even butter….or sugar! Those ingredients had been eliminated from her diet years ago. At the time, Lila had done whatever was required in order to succeed in the brutally competitive music industry but she knew that she’d gone overboard when her skinny jeans were too loose on her already slender figure.
“Sure!” Betty looked the tiny woman up at down, reassessing her initial impression of the woman. Surely this woman with the gorgeous blue eyes and the thick, copper hair couldn’t be out to kill Jake. Unless it was to jump into bed with him, she thought and released a chuckle as she moved back to the kitchen to put in the woman’s order.
“Hey, Joe, what do you think about that little gal over there by the window?” she asked. Joe was the owner, the cook and her husband. Sometimes she would add on “love of my life” and other days “bane of my existence” to that list.
Joe looked through the window where he would place the orders that were ready to be delivered to the tables, his eyes squinting a bit from old age. “She looks a bit familiar,” he grumbled in his normally surly tone of voice even while his hands were busy flipping pancakes and scrambling eggs.
Betty leaned against the stove and took another look. “I think you’re right, old man.”
Joe grunted as he poured out more pancake batter. “Better tell Jake about her.”
Betty nodded. “I will, but if that gal is the one who is sending him death threats, I’ll marry Brad Pitt.”
Joe squinted again, then shrugged. “What did she order?” he asked.
“Pancakes.”
Joe took a plate down from his right side, piling on the pancakes. He added an extra three and some bacon. “She needs more food,” he grumped as he handed the plate to Betty.
Betty nodded. “I agree,” she said and grabbed two syrups off of the shelf, just for good measure.
A moment later, Betty slid the plate onto the table along with a huge glass of milk. “Here you go, honey. Eat up. You need some meat on those bones.”
Lila stared at the plate that contained about eight enormous pancakes, her eyes wide with the amount of food. “Is this just for me?” she asked, afraid to even touch the plate for fear that the food might topple off.
Betty nodded her head. “You eat every bite,” she said. “If we can’t put five pounds on you by the end of this week, we’re not working hard enough at it,” she said a moment before she walked away to take someone else’s order.
Lila picked up her knife and fork, not exactly sure how to even approach such an enormous pile of carbohydrates. She smothered the breakfast cakes with butter, then poured on the syrup.
“You’re doing it wrong,” a male voice said.
Lila was so startled that her knife and fork clattered to the Formica tabletop. Perhaps her nerves were propelled a bit by guilt for eating such non-nutritious foods.
And then her fingers were even clumsier as she stared at the man approaching the table. Several words popped into her head all at once. Gorgeous. Rugged. Hard. And pathetically moonstruck.
The “pathetic” and “moonstruck” words applied to her. Not to the man. The enormous man. The man looking at her as if he wanted to rough her up. Goodness, what was he about to do? Surely he wasn’t going to sit down across from her. Was he?
Lila pushed her plate away. “I didn’t know…” she stammered out. “I apologize.” Her cheeks were turning pink and she was looking around, painfully aware that others in the diner were now staring at her. Or perhaps they were staring at this man. He really was a huge man!
And rude!
Oh my goodness, he actually did it! He slid into the booth across from her, his calloused hands resting on the table. Lila might still have the whole table between them, but just his presence caused her to pull back. She was stunned by how broad his shoulders were and, in that instant, she felt crowded by his size.
“You need to cut them up, then put the syrup on. That way, the syrup soaks into the cakes better,” Jake explained.
He was staring at the gorgeous woman who looked like she’d just helped her grandmother keel over. The guilty expression was almost laughable, and he felt slightly bad for startling her.
Lila continued to stare at the man, still trying to absorb how large he was. Perhaps the jacket was adding several inches to those shoulders, but even still, he was huge! She realized that he’d just spoken to her but, for the life of her, she had no idea what he’d just said. “Excuse me?” she replied politely, not really sure what he was talking about. Her mind had gone completely blank and no matter how hard she tried to jump-start her mental acuity, it was a lost cause with this man sitting across the table from her.
Jake thought about explaining again, but he was just a bit too flabbergasted by this woman. She was, quite simply, stunning! He was surrounded by beautiful women all the time, women who spent hours primping and spending obscene amounts of money at day spas.
None of them could even come close to the startling beauty of this redhead, her hair sparkling in the sunshine streaming in through the diner’s window not to mention those blue eyes that told the world everything she might be thinking.
As he sat across the table, he could see the dark circles under her pale skin and her nails were broken, unpainted, her sweatshirt was about four sizes too big and he still was trying to hide his body’s reaction to her. There was just something about her, a frailty or perhaps a vulnerability that she didn’t want, but couldn’t hide either. Well, and that hair! Damn, her hair was a gorgeous color and he wished she hadn’t scraped it back and braided it. He’d like to see it spread out around her shoulders. Or even better, spread out on his pillow.
So instead of speaking, which he wasn’t sure he was capable of at the moment, he pulled her plate towards him, ignoring her yelp of protest. Jake then proceeded to add more butter, making sure it melted into all the cakes before cutting them all up into bite sized pieces. Only then did he lift the syrup and pour it over the cakes. He didn’t stop until they were literally soaked with the sweetness.
“There. That’s how you eat pancakes,” he explained and swiped a piece of her bacon. “Don’t ever let anyone steal your bacon, either. Joe makes the best around here.”
Lila stared at the man, not sure how to react, or even if she could. Was he real? Could anyone really have this much confidence? It seemed impossible, but then he winked at her and she felt her cheeks turning pink again.
“So what should I do when someone steals my bacon?” she asked, pulling the plate closer. She picked up the fork as well and it all seemed strangely intimate. He’d just been holding this fork and the metal was still warm from his grasp.
“Pound them,” he said simply and stole another piece.
“Jake!” Betty called out from four tables down. “Don’t you dare steal that woman’s bacon. She needs every bite she can get!”
Jake tore his gaze away from the stunning woman in front of him to look at the more buxom waitress that he’d been friends with for ages. “And I don’t? I’m a growing boy!” he challenged right back.
Betty just looked at him with a warning look. “If you’re growing then…” her eyes moved over to the redhead and Betty shook her head. “I’m not even going to finish that sentence,” she said to the guffaws of several of the other men and women nearby.
Even Jake laughed before turning his attention back to the woman in front of him. “Where are you from?”
Lila carefully mixed the cakes in with the syrup, not sure if she could eat anything with this man sitting across from her. She’d been famished when she’d walked in, but the sight of this man, with all of his rugged, cowboy charm and his enormous size, intimidated her despite her best efforts to appear casually unaffected.
“Boston,” she repeated the city that she’d told to the waitress.
“Yea, that’s a lie,” Jake said and took a fork off of one of the vacant tables, stealing several squares of her pancakes. “Try again.”
“Hey!” she exclaimed, not sure if she was admonishing him for calling her out on the lie or stealing her breakfast.
The man was unapologetic. “You’re too slow and Joe’s pancakes are good.”
She stared at him for a long moment with her mouth hanging open in shocked silence, long enough for him to take three enormous bites of her precious meal before she finally reacted by pulling the plate away from him. “Don’t you dare!” she snapped and grabbed her own fork. She took a bite and then closed her eyes as the bliss of the sugar and the carbs hit her deprived taste buds. “Oh my,” she sighed, savoring the food as if it were the nectar of the gods. “This is good,” she nodded, still with her eyes closed. “This is really good.”
When she opened her eyes, she realized that Jake was stealing yet more of her pancakes. “Hey!”
“You had your eyes closed,” he defended. “Snooze you lose, darlin’!”
A man with a huge barrel chest came over, a cowboy hat tipped back and an enormous belt buckle holding up his jeans. “Jake, that girl is too skinny. You back off and let her have her meal.” And he slipped into the booth right next to Lila, forcing her to have to move over. She grabbed her plate as well, sliding everything over as she stuffed more pancakes into her mouth. She was starting to realize that she’d have to eat fast or go hungry around here. Especially when the newcomer produced a fork as well and started taking a bite. “I’m Jeff, by the way,” he told her, extending his hand.
“Lila,” she told him, noticing that her hand was engulfed by the man’s huge paw for a moment. And Jake took advantage of that to steal more pancake.
“Back off!” she threatened with her fork.
He simply winked at her. “I’m not afraid of you, little lady. Put a little weight on and add a few muscles to those skinny arms and then I’ll start shaking in my boots.” To prove his point, he lifted her hand out of the way and stole another bite.
Jeff at least set his fork down so she was relieved that she only had one thief to contend with now. “Jake, George mentioned your cattle trap is jammed. Bobby is coming over later today to see what’s going on with it.”
Jake nodded. “That would be great.”
Lila waited, wondering how much it was going to cost Jake to have his cattle thingy fixed but there was no mention of cost. Huh?
Another man came over to the table and sat down next to Jake and the three men started talking about farm and ranch equipment, getting the horses or cows to different pastures and Lila sat there shoveling in the pancakes as fast as she could while still absorbing everything the men were saying. Others came over as well, each of them introducing themselves to her, and every single one of them stealing bites of her pancakes. So when Betty brought over another huge platter of pancakes, the men all groaned with renewed lust for the pancakes.
“Those are for Lila!” she snapped, smacking one of the men on the back of his head as he stole yet another fork. “She needs them! You guys don’t.” She glared at each of them, and they all laughed back, obviously not intimidated by the woman although Lila wouldn’t have crossed her for anything in the world. Lila was suitably intimidated. But she was very grateful for the new stack of pancakes. “And Jake, you’re paying!”
Betty looked over at Lila. “He ate most of them anyway, didn’t he darlin’?”
Lila covered her mouth, trying to hide her laughter when Jake tried to feign innocence. It didn’t work very well since he was too busy slathering butter over the new platter of breakfast cakes while another man drenched the cakes in syrup.
“Eat up, honey. We ain’t got all day,” Jeff said as he dug into the new platter of food.
Lila polished off as much of the next batch as she could while the men snagged their share of the pancakes, then sat back and continued to listen to the men, still fascinated, while she sipped her coffee. This was a whole new world and she had her own ranch to run. It was so interesting, she was considering giving up singing and touring and concerts, just so she could discover what all of these machines were that they were talking about.
About eight o’clock, the men started drifting out of the diner. “Gotta get back to work,” one of them said.
Lila’s mind latched onto that. “Back to work?” she asked.
Jake leaned back in the booth, resting an arm across the vinyl now that it was just the two of them. “Most of these men started working around five this morning. Some of them earlier. This is just their morning break.”
Her eyes were wide as she took in that information. “What time will they finish?”
“When dinner is on the table. Maybe later.” He watched her, fascinated with the way her blue eyes moved around, as if she were taking it all in.
“So what are you up to for the rest of the day?” He would guess that she wanted to go shopping, but the closest mall was about two hours away. .
Lila thought about that for a long moment, unaware that her tongue was sticking out between her teeth as she contemplated a day without any obligations or meetings. “Um…I think I’m going to explore my barn. I just moved here, you see and, well, I have no idea what’s in the barn behind my new house.”
Jake almost laughed at the idea of this little woman using any of the ranch equipment in that old barn. “Be careful,” he said as he stood up. “That equipment is rusty and not in great shape.” He walked up to the cash register and paid for the two plates of pancakes then headed out of the diner before he did something stupid, like offer to help her explore.
But as he walked out to his truck, he took note of the jeep parked out front, memorizing the license plate number. He’d call that in to Tom and get him to run the number, find out who the pretty lady really was and what she was doing around these parts. She might be small and dainty, and pretty as an angel, but small could be just as dangerous as big.