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With a deep breath, she gave herself an encouraging nod, and pushed through the diner’s front door.
The delicious aroma of cooking food wrapped itself around her as soon as she walked inside. Eggs and bacon, burgers and pasta, baked goods…it all mixed together as she inhaled, and it made her belly rumble. She hadn’t eaten breakfast in her haste to get to the Falstaff bus station and buy the first ticket out. Apparently, she was hungrier than she realized.
She held the duffel bag up higher as she made her way to a booth at the back and sat down. It occurred to her now that she could have just left it on the bus. She did have four hundred dollars tucked into a side pocket in there, but it would have been safe on the bus while she had lunch. She was just so nervous about losing what little she had left, she supposed. Can’t make a new start with nothing more than a good-fitting pair of jeans.
The waitress who came to her table was a teenager with ebony skin and an honest smile. Nikki hadn’t even looked at the menu yet but she ordered a cheeseburger and a coke. Just something simple to pass the time until the bus left again. After trying unsuccessfully to interest Nikki in a slice of apple pie, she jotted the order down and hustled off to give it to the kitchen.
For a minute or two, Nikki just tapped her finger on the table, looking around at the ‘50s decorations on the walls. Album covers. Plastic outlines of old Chevys and Buicks. Posters of girls in poodle skirts and guys with slicked-back hair. They portrayed a simpler time, when the world wasn’t so complicated.
Bullcrap, Nikki finally decided.
Every era in history had its troubles, and men were men no matter when they were born. Guys like Harley Jones had existed since the time of the dinosaurs, clubbing women over the head and dragging them to their caves to keep them like trophies.
With a sigh, she took out her cell phone again. Maybe texting with her mom would take her mind off her troubles after all. Or, she could always skim through Twitter or…
Read the new texts she had waiting from Harley.
Clenching her jaw she swiped through them. Five, in just the last ten minutes. They were long and rambling, and they ranged from pleading to demanding. He begged her to come back. He said he’d be better. He promised if she didn’t come back, he’d ruin her. He’d find her and make her pay. She was his life. She was the only woman he ever loved. She was a slut…a whore…a bitch…
So it went, back and forth, until she told herself to stop reading. She locked her screen and put the phone into her duffle bag, where she was going to let it stay for the rest of the trip. She couldn’t let his issues become her issues. That was part of the reason she’d left him in the first place. He was never going to grow up. He was like…like a little boy who didn’t get his way, just throwing a tantrum. That’s exactly what he was like. She didn’t need that. Not anymore. Men could be good for women. She’d seen that with her mother and father, and with lots of her friends. That’s what she needed in her life. Not Harley. Something totally different.
What she needed was a real man…
At the front of the diner, the little bell over the door rang to announce that someone else was coming inside. It drew Nikki’s attention that way in time to see a tall man in a plaid cotton shirt and an honest-to-God cowboy hat walking in, giving a nod to the waitress, and…and…
Nikki’s heart fluttered in her chest.
To say this man was ‘good looking’ would be like calling the Grand Canyon a ditch. Trim waist, broad chest, and he had his shirt tucked into his jeans in a way that showed off both. His arms were big enough to make those sculptures of Greek gods jealous. His windswept blonde hair reflected the sunlight for a radiant moment as he took off his hat like a gentleman. His boots might’ve added a couple of inches to his height but the rest of it, all six feet and more, was just him.
Her gaze locked on his face, with that strong jaw, the chiseled features and those bluer than blue eyes. If she had ever seen an angel walking, there he was.
Damn it…she might have just cum a little in her panties.
Her reaction to this stranger surprised her. She never fell for a guy at first sight. And a cowboy? She’d never been into that type before now. Er…not ever, she meant to say. Not that she was into this one now. Except her heart was racing and she couldn’t pull her eyes away from him and she was definitely turned on right now. Everything burned inside of her, and the heat was centered right there between her legs…
It was more than just his looks though—even though she was still staring at his arms and his chest and the way his jeans outlined everything. There was something more to this guy. It was the way he carried himself. The way he looked at everyone around him like heknewthem, deep into their soul. His confidence. His swagger. It was all…captivating. She couldn’t look away.
And then, as he scanned the room, his eyes found hers and she couldn’t breathe.
A feeling settled over her, as if she was trapped by him. Like some unseen force had just connected the two of them with glassine strings, invisible but unbreakable. His presence was mesmerizing. His eyes were magnetic. Their blue was suddenly the bright flash of lightning, and she could feel them peeling her apart, layer by layer, down to the deepest part of her…
“Here we are, hon,” the waitress said, coming up to Nikki’s table just as the man’s eyes swept past her and whatever spell he put her under was broken.
It was like some unseen force had been holding her upright and now that it had been yanked away the sensation of falling overwhelmed Nikki. She threw out her arms to steady herself from dropping straight through the Earth and as she did, one hand knocked into the tray the waitress was carrying, sending her burger flying in one direction and her coke flying the other. She watched, unable to do anything about it, as the glass inevitably tumbled toward her and spilled the sticky soda down the front of her shirt.
The cold wetness made her jump, and yelp, and wipe at her shirt where it clung damply to her breasts. Suddenly it wasn’t just the waitress looking at her incredulously. It was everyone in the diner. Strangers. The people who had ridden here with her on the bus. The driver, stuffing his face with a meatball sandwich, chin smeared with marinara. All those eyes, staring at her and her alone. She blushed fiercely, and she couldn’t stop, and all she wanted to do was get out of there.
“I’m so sorry,” the waitress tried to say even though she must know it wasn’t her fault.
She tried to mutter an apology back and wasn’t sure she did more than mutter something that might have had all the right words in it. Maybe.
It didn’t matter. She just wanted to get out of there. She didn’t want all this attention on her. She was trying to escape her old life and disappear somewhere so she could start over and now she looked like a complete idiot all over again…
She just wanted out of there.
“Excuse me,” she blurted out, dropping her head low and blindly rushing past the teenaged waitress and down the row of booths to where a “Restrooms” sign was hanging over a doorway. She was glad the ladies’ room was empty because she was able to shove the door closed and lock it behind her. She could be alone, with no one staring at her. For a moment she just stood there, collecting herself and her thoughts. What happened out there…it was weird.
