Rumor Has It

He was deferring to her.

She was quite certain he didn’t defer to anyone easily, but he was letting her make this call.

“Kate,” Tommy said, pointing to her throat. “Your skin is bouncing.”

Kate put a hand to her throat. “It’s not bouncing. It’s my pulse.”

“Why is it doing that?”

“A woman’s heart beats faster than a man’s,” she said. “That’s all.”

Ryan snorted.

Ashley rolled her eyes.

Griffin’s gaze remained on hers, giving nothing away.

And her dad divided a long, careful look between them. “Okay,” he said. “What am I missing?”

“Well,” Ashley said. “Kate’s given up on the whole online dating thing and has moved on to real, live dating.”

“Yes,” her dad said. “I know that. She’s dating Ryan.” He looked at Ryan. “Right?”

Ryan looked at Kate. Fix this.

Kate resisted thunking her head to the table. “Dad, not now.”

Ashley began to whisper. “S . . . L . . .”

Kate picked up her knife, and Ashley fell silent.

Not Tommy. Tommy smiled. “It’s S-L-U-T,” he told Ashley proudly. “Slut.”

Kate did thunk her head to the table then.

“You staying?” Ryan asked Griffin.

Kate looked up to see him hesitate—also unlike him. Then he shocked the hell out of her by sliding into the booth.

Their thighs brushed, his hard and powerful, and flashes of last night flickered in her brain. Griffin in her bed, his hands gripping hers above her head, him buried deep inside her, thrusting even deeper, his eyes dark and intense, his voice a husky promise that had driven her wild.

He’d made good on every single hot promise, which begged the question. They’d given each other everything that needed to be given, so why was he here?

Fifteen

Griffin didn’t do regrets as a whole, but he was beginning to regret the shit out of his impulse to stop at the diner.

He’d spent a lot of years out in the middle of nowhere with his only family being his fellow soldiers. Their lives depended on getting along, so for the most part that’s exactly what they did.

Before that, there’d been his actual family. For much of his teen years his mom and dad had been separated, his mom in New York and his father here in Idaho. There’d been no real sense of a family unit other than his relationship with Holly. There’d never been this sort of family-by-committee feel that the Evanses had.

It was more than slightly terrifying.

Kate was looking at him, her eyes a little glossy as if she was lost in thought. And given the way her pulse was fluttering and the way she licked her lips when he met her gaze, he had a feeling he knew what she was thinking about.

Last night.

She jumped when Ashley snapped her fingers in her face. “Jeez,” the teenager said. “Where the heck were you? Disneyland?”

Ryan snorted into his water.

Tommy looked confused.

Griffin met Kate’s gaze. He’d wanted to see her again, and here she was, and he still wasn’t satisfied. Not by a long shot. And why hadn’t she answered her dad about Ryan? Was there still something there? His gut tightened at the thought. Not wanting to examine that too closely, he picked up a menu.

Tommy grinned. “Yay, you’re staying!” he said, straightening his Batman mask. “You can be Robin. Robin’s very important. Have you eaten here before? Cuz all the stuff is named after people in town.” The kid leaned over Grif’s shoulder and pointed. “There’s the Tommy Ice Cream Sundae, see? It’s for me cuz that’s what I like the best here. And there’s the Eddie, which is a scrambled egg dish made for my dad. I don’t know why he’s scrambled, but it’s really good.”

Grif nodded, waiting until everyone seemed busy talking to turn to Kate. Keeping his voice low, trying to be discreet, he said, “We need to talk.”

Of course at that very moment, the chatter lulled and all interest turned their way.

“What do you got to talk about?” Tommy asked.

Luckily, the waitress came by right then. Shelly had gone to school with Grif, and she smiled at him. “Hey, hon. Nice to see you. You all ready?”

“One of everything,” Tommy yelled with enthusiasm, getting up on his knees in the chair to do it.

Kate corrected his order. “Make that eggs and toast.”

“And bacon!” Tommy added.

“And bacon,” Kate said.

Shelly looked at Ashley next. The teen tossed her menu down with dramatic flair and sighed. “A grapefruit, I guess.”

Again Kate corrected the order. “More,” she told Ashley.

“I’m on a diet.”

“Another time.” Kate looked at Shelly. “Give her the same as Tommy, with a bowl of fruit.”

Ashley grumbled a little bit but looked secretly pleased, not letting out a single argument. No one seemed to argue with Kate’s authority, Grif noticed, and she definitely had authority here. She ran her world with a sweet warmth that no one questioned.

The only time he’d seen her out of her element had been with him.

Food for thought.

So was the way Ryan was alternately eyeballing Grif and trying to give Kate some sort of secret message that Grif couldn’t quite read. Giving up, he lifted his menu and perused it. Then, making sure his face was covered from everyone else, he turned his head to Kate.

She ignored him.

Shelly was at Kate. “The usual?”

“Uh . . .” Kate glanced at the menu.

Griffin leaned in and pointed to something called the Ryan Omelet. The description said: “Laid-back but interesting, layered, and special, this omelet is guaranteed to make you feel good.”

Griffin tapped it. “Maybe the Ryan?” he said meaningfully. “Is that what you’re having?”

She looked at him in disbelief. “No. I’m not having the Ryan.” Then she also leaned in, as if looking at his menu and hissed in his ear, “And if you’ll remember, I had the Griffin just last night, so really I shouldn’t be hungry for a damn long time!” She pulled back and looked at Shelly. “I’ll take the Dell’s Mountain Special.”

Shelly smiled. “Three eggs, three sausages, three bacon strips, three pancakes, toast, and hash browns. Anything else?”

“Maybe the kitchen sink?” Ryan asked beneath his breath, then jumped as if maybe he’d been kicked under the table.

“Yes,” Kate said, and pushed back her chair. “All that and the kitchen sink, too. Excuse me, I need a minute.” And she headed to the bathroom.

“She likes to give herself time-outs,” Tommy said into the awkward silence. “Says it keeps her outta jail.”

“She should be more worried about the loony bin,” Ryan muttered.

Ashley laughed and fist bumped Ryan.

“How about you, handsome?” Shelly asked Grif.

“Just a coffee, thanks,” he said, and rose.

He needed a time-out, too.

He waited in the hallway between the two restrooms and across from the kitchen entrance.

“What are you doing?” Kate asked when she came out.

“I told you, we need to talk.”

She stared at him as if he were crazy. “Why?”

“Why?” He stared back, a little stymied at this. Wasn’t it obvious?

Kate sighed. “Tell me this. Would you want to talk with any other woman you’d gone home with last night?”

This made him blink, and she laughed with little mirth in the sound. “Go home, Griffin.”

“I didn’t go home with you last night to sleep with you,” he said. “I drove you home to make sure you got there safely.” And shit, that didn’t come out right. He shoved his fingers through his hair. “Things got out of hand.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “In the best possible way.”

“Then why did you sneak out of your own bed this morning like you were taking the walk of shame?”

She stared at him and then laughed again, this time for real. She laughed so hard she had to bend over and put her hands on her knees. Twice she started to straighten up but ended up laughing some more.

“Look,” he said, starting to get pissed off. “I was worried that you were upset or something. You’d left your own place and vanished.”

She made an obvious effort to get herself under control while he waited with hands on hips. “I’m trying to apologize here,” he said, thoroughly irritated.

That got her. She did straighten then, her smile gone. “Don’t you dare apologize for the best sex of my life.”

He opened his mouth, but she pointed at him. “I mean it,” she said.

“Best of your life?” he repeated, losing a good portion of his mad because damn. Hard to be mad after that compliment.

“Yes,” she said. “The best of my life.” Her mouth twitched. “I’m actually thinking of having it carved on my tombstone.”

He rubbed his jaw and eyeballed her. “So while I was stressing over possibly having shocked you into next week, you’re . . . okay?”

“So okay.” At that, she patted his chest in a dismissive gesture. “And thank you.” She started to walk away, but he caught her.

“Wait.” He was having a hard time wrapping his mind around this. “So you’re just going to sleep with me and be done with it?”

Now it was her turn to blink in surprise. “Uh . . . yes?”

Huh. This had always been his MO, so why this bothered him, he had no clue. None. Zero. Zip . . .

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.” Christ, he was such a liar. A totally fucked-up, turned-upside-down, confused-as-hell liar. Letting go of her, he turned to leave, thinking he was the biggest idiot on earth, wasting all morning worrying. Kate might be sweet and warm and unassuming, but she was sure as hell no pushover. In fact, she’d just completely schooled him.

“I’m not still sleeping with Ryan,” she said to his back.

He turned around and met her gaze.

“I mean, we talk about doing it sometimes,” she said, and shrugged. “But we haven’t. Not in a long time.”

“But you . . . talk about it.”

“More like joke about it,” she said. “But it’s been a long time since we actually have. A really long time. Don’t forget that part.” She grimaced. “Listen, this is new for me. I mean, if you want to chitchat about science, I’m your girl. Or how to get crayon out of your clothes. Or how to corral twenty wild and rambunctious little kids. But talking about this sort of stuff, relationship stuff . . .” She shook her head. “I have to admit, it’s out of my league. Way out.”

Grif was starting to get an odd feeling. “When you said there’d been two men before me . . .”

“Yeah.” She bit her lip. “I didn’t actually say two men . . .”

She had his full attention. “A woman?”

She laughed a little, clearly embarrassed. “No. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” She squirmed a bit, and utterly fascinated, Grif could only wait her out.

“Okay,” she finally said. “The truth is, it was one guy and . . .”

“And?”

“And . . . I sort of counted my vibrator.” She closed her eyes, her cheeks bright red. “It’s called Magic Mike. That’s what the box said.”

It wasn’t often Griffin found himself speechless, but he was there right now. Also, he was smiling for the first time all morning. “You named your dildo.”

“No,” she said. “Dildo is a town in Newfoundland, Canada. I have a . . .” She lowered her voice. “Vibrator.”

“And you named it,” he said with vast amusement.

“The name was on the box! And don’t you laugh at me. This is all your fault. You make me so nervous!”

“You weren’t nervous last night,” he said, still smiling. “You were . . .” Perfect. “Hot as hell.”

She took this in for a moment and then let out a small smile. “Really?”

“Really.” He tilted her face to his. “Does Ryan know about last night? Do I need to sleep with one eye open?”

“No,” Ryan said from behind them. “You can sleep worry free.” He paused. “Unless you hurt her.” And then he vanished into the men’s restroom.

Grif looked at Kate, and she smiled again. “See?” she said. “All is well. So . . . nice seeing you, but I’ve really got to get back out there.”

He caught her wrist and reeled her back in. “How long, Kate?”

“Well, actually, I imagine the food’s coming any second, so—”

“No, I meant how long had it been for you before last night?” He was thinking of how quickly he’d gotten inside her, how hard and fast he’d taken her. And then round two.

And round three.

Had he hurt her?

Kate blew out a breath and studied the wallpaper peeling off the wall.

“A few months?” he asked.

“Did you know that over half of all singles in America haven’t had a date in a year?” she asked.

Shit. “A year?”

“Yes,” she said. “That.” Hesitated. “Times two.”

Oh Christ. He rolled his neck but couldn’t release the kink. He dropped his head to his chest then looked at her. “Did I hurt you?”