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  I. Am. Beyond. Mortified.

  And, just when I’m thinking this day couldn’t possibly get any worse, I hear the shop door open and my dad’s gravely greeting. Big Bob enjoys mornings about as much as I do.

  I quit trying to dig myself a shallow grave through the linoleum floor, shoot up from behind the safety of my counter with a very calm head and nod to each of them.

  “Elijah. Bob.”

  Dad’s eyes narrow and his ever-present scowl threatens to divide his forehead in half. “Ana?”

  Oh crap. I know that voice. I haven’t heard that voice since I was ten-years-old and he caught Holly and I with a stolen packet of cigarettes. We hadn’t even had a chance to light up before he was pulling us out from behind the supermarket and humiliating us in front of the whole town. The look on my dad’s face now says he’s about two seconds away from picking me up by the scruff of the neck and crucifying me where I stand.

  And yeah, okay, maybe from his standpoint this looks bad, but despite me being a nineteen-year-old woman, Dad’s still struggling with the fact that I’ve moved from training bras to push up bras, and thinking boys were stinky to maybe wanting to sleep with one. And since Elijah seems to be the only male within a 5 kilometre radius and he just caught his daughter half naked in the kitchen, things aren’t looking good for any of us.

  He turns the full weight of his scowl on Elijah, who is still smiling like he just won the freaking lottery and a Christmas ham. “Son?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Haven’t you got a bike to fix?”

  Elijah still hasn’t taken his eyes off me, but my dad’s tone brokers absolutely no argument, and what’s more, when he gets an eyeful of Bob Belle’s infamous scowl, he clears his throat.

  “YES, SIR! I’LL GET RIGHT ON IT …” he yells. And why wouldn’t he yell? After all, it is what I told him.

  Dad winces at the volume. Holly is laughing again, like a whacked out chimpanzee and I’m just too mortified for words. Elijah scurries back through the shop with a nod in our direction and an exclamation of, “I freaking love this town!”

  “I’m. Just. Gonna. Go … now,” I mutter and exit through the back door with my tail between my legs.

  Chapter Four

  Elijah

  Two weeks on and I still can’t forget seeing hot waitress Ana standing in her underwear. Not that I’d want to forget. In fact, that image has been on replay in my spank bank twice a day for a fortnight now. I’d give my left nut to get beneath those lacy little boy shorts. The fact that she’s still playing hard to get is pissing me off and turning me into a fucking horn dog. I don’t usually walk away from a challenge, but sometimes life throws you so much shit you’ve just gotta quit while you’re ahead.

  And other times life throws you a bone, or in my case, a raging boner for the hot waitress in the pie shop across the road. If I were a smart man I’d walk away, I’d cut my losses and move on to the next hot piece of arse, and I’d be better off—hell, that waitress would be better off. But no one ever accused me of being smart. Like all men, I think with the little head more than is good for me and I can’t walk away without a taste of that girl.

  And speaking of the “little head”, I’ve got a date with a slice of pie and a hot waitress who’s about to fill my spank bank fantasies for another fortnight.

  I slide out from under the hood of a 1971 GTX Plymouth Road Runner. It’s the kind of car you want to drape a warm body over the hood and fuck till you’re both senseless. And, with all the bikes I’ve been workin’ on lately, it’s been nice to slide beneath a machine as beautiful as this. I’m pretty confident that I’ll have this thing purring like a kitten before the afternoon is out.

  I wash up in the sink in back, scrubbing the pungent smell of grease and brake fluid from my hands. My stomach growls.

  My cock twitches when I think of the way Ana smells as she leans across the table to set my pie in front of me. I always sit in the very last booth, closest to the counter. I face away from the windows so I’m looking directly into the kitchen and sit as far back in the booth as possible so she has to lean in to slide my plate in front of me. It’s kind of a dickhead move, I know, and I’m sure she knows exactly what I’m up to, but I don’t care.

  Fuck, I’m getting hard just thinking about her in that cute little uniform, those gorgeous tits spilling out the top. I squeeze my eyes shut and think about old ladies and nuns and sweaty old man balls, anything to take my mind off Ana’s big, beautiful tits that are making me so hard I can’t see straight. I’m playing these things on a loop and whispering, “Old ladies, nuns, sweaty old man balls” over and over, and just praying that the meat muscle will chill the fuck out and let me get through one friggin’ day without getting a boner in public for the hot waitress, when I glance into the mirror above the sink and see Bob standing behind me. His arms are crossed in front of his chest and he’s scowling. Nothing new there; he’s always scowling.

  “You heading to lunch?”

  “YEAH, YOU WANT SOMETHING?”

  “A word before you go.”

  “ALRIGHT.” I tear off a chunk of paper towel and take the opportunity to readjust things below as he walks toward the back seat of a sawed in half Ford Falcon that Bob uses as a couch. I follow him over and sit on an old milk crate that someone strapped some foam to at some point to make a stool. The tape is worn around the edges, it sticks to my jeans and the foam has worn down to nothing, picked away by tiny fingers.

  “You got a problem with your ears, kid?”

  “NO, SIR.”

  “Then quit friggin’ yellin’ at me.”

  “But I thought—”

  “Son, do you own a shirt?”

  I glance down at my tattooed torso, taking a minute to appreciate the fact that, although I haven’t seen the inside of a gym for six months, my work, the mini workouts I do in my room every morning and my daily runs are enough to keep me pretty built. I look back up at Bob and he’s not at all happy with the way I look. Maybe he’s into hairy guys?

  “Yeah, of course,” I say, feeling a little uncomfortable at the way he’s glaring at me.

  “Well, why the bloody hell don’t you ever wear it, instead of parading around here like it’s the fucking Mardi Gras?”

  I grab the shirt tucked into my back pocket and pull it over my head, utterly confused. “I thought … I thought you were into that?”

  Bob turns three shades of pale. No shit, it’s like I’m staring at a fucking ghost. “Look mate, you’re a real good worker. You keep your head down, you don’t carry on like a pork chop when I ask you to close up late Fridays. Now, I gotta be honest, I wasn’t too sure about this whole … arrangement in the beginning, and despite riding some import pushbike, you know your way around an engine. I know you’ve had some trouble in your past and I can see you’re trying to make amends for that. You’re a good kid and what you do in your free time is none of my business. I like you, Son. As an employee. If you like blokes then … we’ll find a way to co-exist, but you’ve got to start wearing a shirt. It’d be a shit fight if OH&S came in and saw you—”

  “Wait. You think I’m gay?” I start laughing at how fucking ridiculous that notion is, considering I’ve been jacking off to the image of the same girl for the last two weeks. The same girl that told me my boss was partially deaf and that he’d require me to work half naked. That sneaky bitch. She is so going down for this. “Dude, I’m not gay. I thought you were.”

  “Son, I am not gay. I’ve been married twice. I have kids.”

  “I didn’t know you had kids.”

  “Well, you should, you spend enough time with them at the pie shop.”

  “Hot waitress Ana is your daughter?”

  “Hot waitress?” Bob’s eyebrows shoot all the way back into his hairline. “Whaddya mean, hot waitress?”

  Fuck! I just said that out loud, didn’t I?

  I shoot up from my stool. Bob’s standing now, too. His enormous arms are folded in front of his en
ormous body and I’m not afraid to say I’m shitting myself at the scowl I’m seeing on his face. This scowl is different from all his other scowls: it’s a don’t fuck with my daughter kind of scowl, and yeah, I may have seen plenty of those in my twenty-three years, but none have ever been this scary. It’s the disapproving dad scowl to end all dad scowls and what makes it worse is that it’s also coming from the dude who pays my wage.

  Fuck! I am so screwed.

  “I’m just gonna head out now,” I mutter, as I take a step back, and then another, and soon I’m half way across the shop.

  “Take one more step and I’ll bust your nuts with my favourite wrench.” He smiles but it’s not a friendly smile. It’s a we’re-going-to-have-us-a-little-chat-and-then-I’m-gonna-cut-off-your-balls-for-even-thinking-about-what’s-between-my-daughter’s-legs smile. In other words, this is the moment where I’d normally run. “We’re gonna have a talk you and me.”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “Really? ‘Cause right now, son, my thoughts aren’t fuckin’ pretty.”

  I put my hands up in surrender. “I haven’t touched her, I swear.”

  “You’re not gonna touch her, are you, son.” That really wasn’t a question. He meant: do not fucking touch my daughter!

  “No, Sir.”

  “You keep your mind on the job and your dick in your pants, are we clear?”

  “Yes, Sir.” I gulp. “Crystal.”

  After that, Bob leaves to beat the shit out of a rusted old engine. I skipped lunch that day, and the next.

  By closing time on Friday I was itching for a way to get back at Ana and, yeah, I’m not gonna lie, the thought of her tits spilling out of that uniform may have been responsible for my feet carrying me across the road to Belle’s Pies instead of releasing the throttle on my bike and travelling as far away from hot waitress Ana as I could in order to keep the family jewels intact.

  I smile at the girls behind the counter and slide into my usual booth.

  “Hey, Ana Belle. How you doin’ today?”

  “What’s up Cade? We haven’t seen you here for a couple of days—” Her eyes widen, and she tugs her bottom lip in tight with her teeth. “You just called me Ana Belle, didn’t you?”

  “Jigs up, baby girl.”

  From the counter I can see Holly chortling, though she’s such a tiny thing it sounds more like a cat sneezing. Ana chuckles too, like having me on is the funniest damn thing in the world. “You know I spent the last two weeks screaming at your dad and parading myself around half-naked in front of him because I was worried he’d fire me if I didn’t. Now I think he might fire me because I was dumb enough to listen to you two little girls.”

  Ana frowns like she’s honestly offended by that and by the way Holly guffaws and throws herself over the counter, I’m convinced she’s off her rocker and may need to be sedated before she starts throwing pies at the customers. “We’re hardly little girls.”

  “No? What would you call yourselves then? Grown women?”

  “Yes.” She says indignantly. I know she’s anything but little, still I can’t resist.

  “Prove it.”

  Shut the fuck up, you dickhead, Bob is going to have your arse for this, I think. My mouth opens anyway and my Johnson dances a fucking jig inside my pants. “Go out with me tonight.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “I’m not going out with you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’d more than likely leave me by the side of the road to get back at me.”

  “You could always drive.”

  “You’d ride with me on my scooter?” She sounds doubtful.

  “Sure.” I’m sure the look I give her says it’s not my favourite idea, but the smile that breaks out across her lips is so fucking spectacular I’d consider riding on the back of her scooter every day of my life just to see that flash of pretty white teeth.

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this is Sugartown. There’s not exactly an abundance of places to go.”

  “There’s a pub isn’t there?”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “There a pool table?” She nods, and I feel myself smile so wide I know my dimples are coming out. “You play?”

  Her cheeks turn the prettiest shade of pink. I have to fight the urge the grab her face with my hands and force her lips to mine.

  “Not for a long time.” She holds my stare for what feels like forever, and there’s something calculating behind her eyes, but then she looks away. “Listen, I can’t go out with you tonight, I have to babysit Sammy.”

  “I thought he was staying at what’s-his-name’s house tonight?” Holly pipes up from behind the counter. Clearly, pretending she’s not listening to our conversation is something she’s not fazed with.

  “Holly!” Ana shoots her a look, it’s one I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of, but Holly just shrugs her shoulders and stares defiantly. Her friend may be as freaking crazy as a monkey on meth, but I think I’m beginning to like her.

  “What? It’s true.”

  “Well, it may be true, but you know what he’s like at a sleepover. He’s there ten minutes before he’s begging an adult to drive him home.”

  “Couldn’t you just go until you get a call to come pick him up?”

  “Come on, Ana Belle, it’s the least you could do after humiliating me in front of your dad for the past two weeks.”

  “Hey, you brought that on yourself.”

  “How so?”

  “You came strutting in here all cocky, with your dimples and your tattoos and your big brown eyes and expected us to swoon.”

  “Baby girl, if that’s all it takes to make you swoon then you just wait ‘til you see what I do with my hands.”

  Ana swallows hard and becomes a little misty eyed before her face shuts down into the scowl she often wears around me. “I don’t think so.”

  She turns to walk away and I lurch forward and grab her wrist. “Come on, Ana. I’ll be on my best behaviour.”

  “That’s not saying much, Elijah.”

  “Do you judge every guy this unfairly, or just me?”

  She turns with a cocky grin, but when she sees I’m deadly serious, the smile fades. I don’t mean to be such a dick, but I’ve lived most my life living up to the bad expectations others place on me and I won’t have that with her. I can’t have her thinking of me that way, even if it’s all I deserve.

  “I’m sorry. You must think I’m a complete bitch?”

  “Well, not a complete bitch, maybe 99.9 per cent of one—”

  “Hey.” She swats at my arm and, like a complete tool, I flex my bicep beneath her fingers. It wasn’t even deliberate, just instinct. For a half second I imagine what it’d be like to give into the urge to bend her over the table and fuck her senseless, but then the way she smiles at me makes me feel like a complete arsehole for objectifying her so blatantly. This should tell me I’m in over my head with this girl.

  I’m not the guy who stays in one place long enough to have a second date. When they’re seeing proposals and picket fences I’m checking out of shitty motels and watching road signs turn to dust in my rear-view mirrors. I’m practically married to that white line.

  So why the hell can’t I walk away?

  “You can make it up to me by letting me pick you up at eight o’clock,” I say.

  She shakes her head, but her smile tells me I’ve won. “I thought you said I could drive?”

  “You can,” I say and tuck into my pie. “You can drive my bike. As long as you can handle the pace, that is. I have to warn you, though; the steering’s a little different from a Vespa.”

  “I can drive anything.”

  “Somehow I don’t doubt that, Ana Belle. I don’t doubt that at all.”

  Chapter Five

  Ana

  Holly bounces up and down on my bed and I have to count backwards from one-hundred so I don’t choke her. I can’t b
elieve she screwed me over so thoroughly. I tell her as much, and she pokes her tongue out at me in her typical response to being reprimanded.

  “Come on, Ana, would it really kill you to go out with Mr I’m So Freaking Hot Even My Mother Would Sell Her Soul to Get a Piece Of This? Would it kill you to have a little fun for once?”

  I wrinkle my nose. “You have some serious issues. That’s gross.”

  “Gross, but true. Ana, he’s gorgeous and you need this.”

  “I do not need a date with Elijah Cade.”

  “Okay fine, you know what? I need a date with Elijah. Take off that outfit, I’m gonna trade places with you.” She grabs at my top and tries to lift it over my head but I bat her away.

  “Elijah’s my date, and I’m not having you steal him away like you did with Matt Roberts at Vanessa Carter’s party in year nine.”

  Holly rolls her eyes. “Are you ever going to get over that? I told you, I was standing in the hall and he just happened to fall onto my lips. It wasn’t my fault that the place was so crowded you could barely breathe without making out with someone. And I thought you said this wasn’t a date.”

  “It’s not. I mean, it is, but it’s not. I don’t know. He makes me all twitchy.”

  “Aww, you really like him.”

  It’s my turn to roll my eyes. “He’s all kinds of wrong for me, Holly.”

  “Who cares? No one’s asking you to marry him.”

  “He’s trouble. Exactly the kind of guy I should avoid.” I sigh. She’s looking at me like I just strung up her kitten as a Christmas ornament. “You know what this town is like. Within five minutes of walking into that pub tongues will be wagging and Sugartown will be rife with gossip. You know how antsy my dad gets with talk like that? The next time Constable Davis sees him throwing down, he’ll be locked up for weeks.”

  “Ana, this is exactly why you need a distraction like Elijah. Between Sam, your dad, the dragon and the shop you have too much stress in your life. If you don’t blow off a little tension, you’re gonna explode! And I am not cleaning up chunks of Ana from the shop floor.”