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when I wasn’t looking?” he asked, arching a dark brow.
    â€œNope. You just stepped onto my porch. Now step off. We don’t need any more visits from you. Okay. Thanks, bye.”
    She shut the door and bolted it, then went back into the kitchen.
    â€œWho was that?” her grandpa asked.
    â€œDamn vacuum cleaner salesman,” she said.
    â€œDid you tell him we didn’t want any?”
    â€œI told him we had a vacuum that worked just fine.” Their vacuum was possibly older than Amber, but her grandma had always insisted that nothing new was made as good as the old, reliable appliances that were made out of solid hunks of metal.
    If it had really been a vacuum cleaner salesman she probably would have taken what he had on offer. She could really use an eight pound wonder instead of that forty pound beast that always sounded like it had just sucked up a cat.
    â€œI thought maybe it was a boyfriend of yours,” her grandpa said.
    She rolled her eyes and pulled her purse and sweater off of the counter. “I don’t have time for boyfriends.”
    â€œI wish you did.”
    She leaned down and kissed his cheek. “I know you do. But trust me, I don’t.”
    â€œAnd when I die, who’s going to take care of you?” he asked, his tone gruff as ever, but with tenderness running beneath it.
    â€œI’m going to take care of me,” she said. “But you’re not allowed to die,” she said, her throat getting tight, “for at least another thirty years.”
    â€œI’ll be eating bacon from a tube by then. Best you let me go before that.”
    â€œIt’s too early to be this morbid,” she said. “And I have tables to wait. So if you’ll excuse me . . .”
    â€œHave a nice day.”
    â€œI will,” she said.
    She dug her keys out of her purse before she went outside, just in case Mr. Jim Davis was still loitering. Happily, he wasn’t.
    Then she got into the truck and started it. And her thoughts shot to Cade. Maybe because they’d just ridden together last night, and maybe because when he’d stumbled out of the truck last night at his house, something in her stomach had tugged hard, low and tight.
    Because she knew he wasn’t in a good space, and she hated that.
    And part of her had felt like maybe she should follow him in and hang out for a while, but . . . early morning and waiting tables and all.
    She took a deep breath and shot him a quick
good morning, how ya doin?
text before throwing the truck into reverse and heading out toward town.
    In spite of the weird start, she hoped the day would end up being normal.

CHAPTER

    Three
    The lunchtime rush was just starting to slow when Cade walked into Delia’s and spotted Amber, rushing around between tables.
    She hostessed during the dinner hour, when they opened up the back of the building, but during the day she just ran herself off her feet serving three-egg breakfasts and giant burgers.
    He seated himself on the red, glittery, vinyl-covered bar stools at the formica counter and waited.
    â€œI’m here to see Amber,” he said, when one of the other waitresses paused near him.
    She smiled and winked. “Sure, Cade, she’ll only be a minute.”
    Everyone knew that he and Amber were best friends. He had a feeling a lot of people misconstrued the nature of their relationship, and he couldn’t exactly blame them. He and Amber had both cultivated a bit of reputation around town, and even though both of them had calmed down considerably since their teenage years, they’d earned the label of town hellions, and they’d done it with style.
    He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to see Amber standing there. “What’s your poison, handsome?”
    â€œBurger. You don’t happen to have buffalo burger, do you?”
    She wrinkled her nose. “No. And you know we