Page 44 of His to Protect

Chapter 10

Trina

“It’s completely packed out there,” I said, brushing stray hairs off my sticky forehead. With the sudden rush of afternoon customers—most of them men drinking beer as if Prohibition began at midnight—and the heat from the kitchen, my black Fireside Grill shirt was sticking to my back and my makeup was smearing more every minute.

I looked like a wreck.

I felt even worse, in that bone-numbing sort of way.

I was exhausted.

“It’s football Sunday,” Declan said, shaking his head even though he was smiling.

He’d been doing that all day.

Flashing me an impish grin whenever he caught me looking at him. Which, admittedly, had been a lot. I was still trying to figure him out, flesh out his motives, or a fuller understanding of what he meant this morning.

I had felt so flustered as I walked away from him, and so distracted in my shower, that I nearly forgot to wash my hair. Fortunately, since we’d opened this morning, the crowd had been nonstop, coming and going and needy. These football fans were so very stinking needy. All of the activity kept my mind from lingering on the tender way Declan brushed my hair behind my ear this morning, or the simple way he stated that he was attracted to me.

Me? The woman who was not only still healing from physical bruises but was an emotional basket case?

If he was attracted to someone like me, he had a few screws loose, as my nana used to say.

“People should be at church and brunch,” I muttered, letting my southern accent flow nice and strong. “It’s the Lord’s day. Don’t you Yankees know that?”

Declan threw his head back and laughed, taking a quick break from flipping beef patties on a full grill.

These football fans could eat and drink in serious quantities.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I said and punched in another order for nachos and buffalo burgers. There were three computers in the restaurant where we could make our orders, but I was using the one in the kitchen. I needed a quiet place to get some space, away from all the mayhem going on out front.

No one had complained, either, even though I didn’t think it was common for servers to use it.

“Wait until hockey season strikes,” Declan replied, “You haven’t seen rabid fans until we have a bar full of Red Wings fans.”

My nose scrunched up. Hockey wasn’t my thing. At all. It always seemed so unnecessarily violent, what with men being tossed into walls and beaten with sticks.

“Yeah. We’ll see,” I whispered, more to myself than Declan. Come hockey season, I might be in another state. Or another country.

Despite my agreement not to do anything rash last night, after Tyson assured me that he would spend some time looking into Kevin and see what he could find out about him looking for me, I hadn’t altogether dismissed the idea of just taking off.

My cellphone seemed to burn inside my back pocket. I tried not to check it to see if Kevin had tried calling again, but I couldn’t help myself. His phone call last night reminded me that there really was a risk to staying.

Now I wasn’t only risking myself, but Declan.

Yet seeing Declan this morning, admitting that the reason he left my bed last night was because it was too hard for him to not touch me, lit a small spark inside me.

Desire.

That was what I felt when I looked at him. I couldn’t remember feeling anything like that since perhaps my wedding night with Kevin, when I still thought I was Cinderella and my Prince Charming had just slipped the glass slipper onto my foot.

I certainly quit desiring anything to do with Kevin weeks later, when he hit me for the first time. Not that his physical desire for me waned any.

I shuddered at the thought, and then jumped when Declan’s hand reached out and slid along my shoulder.

“What just happened?”

“What?” I asked, turning to face him. At the same time, I took a step back, moving away from him. His hand hovered in the air before he crossed both arms over his chest. “What do you mean?”

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