The P.I. Who Loved Her. Tori Carrington

string twanging straight through her.

      “Hey, Mitch,” Ezra said, “are we all included in your little…dream?”

      Liz stared at him as he slowly shook his head. “Nope. Sorry, Ez, it’s just me and Lizzie in this scenario. That’s what makes it a dream.”

      His gaze said a whole hell of a lot more than his words. Was he threatening her? Was he saying in a cryptic way that the next time they were alone she might not get off so easy?

      This flirtatious attitude was the last thing she’d expected from him. Where were the questions? Evidence of the huge ding to his pride? After all, seven years ago she had left him standing at the altar. She wiped the counter, then stuffed the rag back into her apron pocket. He showed neither. Instead, he slanted her a few unexpected zingers that short-circuited her own emotional wiring, leaving her inexplicably responsive to his teasing.

      He finished his pie then picked up the paper folded at his elbow, his grin telling her he knew he’d hit his mark.

      She looked around the diner and found nothing out of the ordinary. Which was laughable because anyone else might find everything out of the ordinary. From the padded pink vinyl booths, the corny cherubs on the tabletops that swayed back and forth when the customers moved, to the townsfolk who were as peculiar as the decor, Liz had forgotten how…eccentric the town was. How familiar and reassuringly unchanged. All too easily she recalled how Gran brought her here for lunch every Sunday after church service. How the McCoy bunch had teased her when she was fourteen and had finally grown breasts. How she had screwed up every order on her first day at work, and how everyone had covertly played musical plates when they thought she wasn’t looking and had generously tipped her anyway.

      She turned the pages of her order pad and tallied up the total for table one.

      She was just being sentimental. Yes, that’s what it was. That’s the reason she’d succumbed to the desire to kiss Mitch in Gran’s kitchen, why his nearness and flirting had such a hot effect on her now. Certainly nothing that would get in the way of her plans to move on with her life, go somewhere where she could set up her business all over again. Plans that had nothing to do with Mitch or Manchester or the nineteen hundred and ninety-nine residents that inhabited the north-central Virginia town, no matter how reassuringly familiar they all were. Plans she fully intended to see succeed before her thirtieth birthday less than two weeks from now.

      Thirty years old. She nearly groaned and wondered if she should order her headstone now.

      Mid-tally, Liz halted her pencil and flipped to another page in her order book. Tearing it off, she slid the white slip under the wall of the Manchester Journal.

      Mitch dropped the newspaper a few inches, gazing at her with those teasing green eyes of his.

      “Not in a hurry to get rid of me, are you, angel?”

      “Now, Mitch, why would you say that?” She leaned her hips against the counter and offered up a smile. “How many times do I have to ask before you stop calling me angel?”

      He shook his paper as if to straighten it, though his gaze remained riveted to her face. “Ask as often as you like. I’m not going to stop. Not as long as you’re in front of me wearing that white uniform.” The grin that threatened grew into blood-heating reality.

      Every inch of her roused to glorious life. “Is that your way of saying you want me to leave?”

      “That’s not my way of saying anything except what I said.” He rustled the paper again.

      She twisted her lips and allowed her gaze to flick slowly over his face. This is his way of getting back at me, she realized. No angry demands to know why she’d left. No attempts to get her alone for a quiet talk. Not even any mention of the time they’d been together or the scorching kiss they’d shared yesterday. No, Mitch McCoy intended to make her time here as miserable as possible. And if he could speed up the process of her leaving, it was all for the better.

      The maddening thing of it was that, despite everything, she wanted to have him hosed down and brought to her tent…pronto.

      “Isn’t there someplace you should be getting back to? Doesn’t the world need saving or something?” she said, reaching for his paper again. He moved the Journal out of reach.

      “I didn’t know you paid that close attention to my comings and goings.”

      She crossed her arms over her chest. “The diner’s pretty full. We could use the spot you’re taking for someone interested in eating.” She smiled. “Anyway, I’m more interested in your goings than your comings, Mitch.”

      “Funny, I’d say you’re more interested in your goings than your comings.” He stretched lazily, offering every solid part of his T-shirt-covered abdomen for inspection. Liz covertly admired the enticing wall of muscle, then turned away, a slow burn beginning in the pit of her stomach. She was wrong. More had changed about him than his unpredictability. No longer was he the corded teenager, then young man for whom she had once hungered. A few pounds of added muscle made his physique more intriguing, more enticing, and much more irresistible than it had ever been.

      She pushed open the kitchen door, aware of his keen attention.

      “Hey, Bo, how are the burgers frying?” She flashed a smile at the harried cook and half-owner of the diner.