Page 10 of Bossy Mountain Daddies
"The boyfriend thing?" I venture, remembering what Jed mentioned.
Her face darkens. "How much did Jed tell you?"
"Just that you caught your boyfriend with someone else. Your boss?"
"Yeah." She accepts the fresh beer with a nod of thanks. "I went home for lunch and found them in my bed. Our bed. Whatever." She takes a long drink. "I’m not going back to that job now."
"No, I wouldn't think so." I try to imagine what kind of asshole cheats on someone like her. "What kind of work did you do?"
"Literary assistant at a publishing house. Glorified coffee fetcher, really." She makes a dismissive gesture. "I have a master's degree in literature, and I spent most of my time proofreading celebrity cookbooks."
"That's a waste—you can definitely do better than that."
"Yeah, well." She stares into her beer. "Daniel—my ex—he always said I should be grateful for the opportunity."
The bitterness in her voice stirs something protective in me. I want to find this Daniel guy and introduce his face to my fist. Which is ridiculous—I've known this woman for all of twenty minutes. But there's something about her vulnerability combined with that grit I glimpsed earlier that makes me want to know her better.
"His loss," I say simply.
She looks up, studying my face like she's trying to decide if I mean it. Then she gives me a wide smile. "Thanks, Griff."
I clear my throat, uncomfortable with the fact that I like the way she says my name. "So, about the job. We're pretty flexiblehere. Breakfast shift starts at seven, or you could work dinner service if you're not a morning person. Mostly taking orders, running food, bussing tables. Nothing complicated."
"I can do either," she says. "Tomorrow I'd like to check on my car sometime during the day, see how Jed's doing with it."
"We’ll have you work breakfast tomorrow then. Shift starts at seven." I glance at the clock. "Kitchen's still open if you want some food."
"Actually, I had a BLT not long ago at Rose’s and I'm exhausted. Think I'll just head up and crash." She slides off the stool, picking up her purse. "Thanks for the beers. And the room."
"No problem." I watch as she stands up and starts to walk away, my eyes lingering longer than they should. She pauses, turning back to me.
"Griff?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for listening."
I nod. "You got it. Get some sleep, Skye. Things usually look better in the morning."
She gives me a skeptical look but heads upstairs without another word. I watch until she disappears, then turn back to the bar, trying to ignore the uncomfortable feeling settling in my chest. It’s something between sympathy and attraction, neither of which I should be feeling for a woman who's clearly going through hell and just needs a place to stay while her car gets fixed.
But there it is anyway, that pull toward her. That desire to smooth away the crease between her eyebrows, to see her smile reach her eyes.
Dangerous territory, Hawkins. Very dangerous territory.
Chapter 4
Skye
The alarm on my phone slices through a dream, dragging me into consciousness. I blink at an unfamiliar ceiling—wooden beams and slanted angles instead of the smooth white ceiling I'm used to. For a few seconds, I can't remember where I am or why I'm here. Then reality crashes back like a rough wave, cold and harsh. Daniel. Alicia. My car. This tiny room above a bar in a town in the middle of nowhere.
I press my hands to my eyes, trying to push back the images that flood my mind: Daniel's face buried between Alicia's thighs, her red-soled trampy Louboutins digging into our duvet, their oblivious pleasure. My throat tightens. Less than twenty-four hours ago, I had a boyfriend, an apartment, a job.
I force myself to sit up.
The small room looks different in the morning light. There’s a double bed with clean but faded linens, a wooden dresser a little worse for wear and a small side table with a lamp. The walls are paneled in the same brown weathered wood as the ceiling, giving the space a cabin-like feel.
I slide out from under the covers and pad across the wooden floor to look out the window. When I pull back the thin curtain, I’m surprised by what I see. Griff wasn't lying about theview. Mountains rise in the distance, their peaks touched with early morning sunlight while shadows still cling to the valleys. It's beautiful in an untamed way—nothing like the carefully framed city views from the floor-to-ceiling windows of my old apartment.
