A Father's Sacrifice. Karen Sandler

memories and hurried out to the register where a customer waited. She rang up the sale, then took out a bus tray to clear the dirty dishes. Once the tables were clean, she took the dishes back to wash. Sending the backlog of four bus trays through the sterilizing dishwasher took nearly twenty minutes. By then, Jameson had dinged the bell for the last order.

      As she carried the plates out to the last table of customers, Nina’s conscience hounded her. You ought to tell him, an inner voice demanded. He has a right to know. But if Jameson knew the truth, Nina would no longer be in control. There was no telling what he would do and whether she could keep Nate safe.

      Vehicular manslaughter. She didn’t know all the details of what had sent Jameson to prison, but she knew that much. He’d driven a car head-on into another and killed the driver and passenger. He’d pled guilty and been convicted.

      The Hart Valley busybodies had had a field day when they’d heard. Jameson O’Connell was always such a wild boy, they said when word of the twelve-year sentence filtered down. He was always headed for trouble. He finally got what he deserved.

      Could he be out on parole already? It had been only four years—not nearly a long enough sentence for killing two people.

      Nina sorted flatware into a partitioned tray, then carried the tray back out front. When she returned to the kitchen, Jameson was scraping down the griddle with a pumice brick, the muscles of his forearms flexing and bulging as he worked. Nina stared in fascination, remembering how those muscles had felt against her palms as she’d run her hands along them.

      When he looked up expectantly, she was tempted to run, and only just managed to stand her ground. “You can take off if you want. I can do the cleanup.”

      He shook his head, using a scraper to clear the black mess from the griddle. “I like to finish what I start.”

      Her secret weighed heavy on her conscience as she watched him labor. He’d made some huge mistakes, but wasn’t this something a man ought to be told? Did she have the right to keep it from him?

      But if she just stayed quiet, let him go on his way, maybe he’d be happier never knowing. “So where are you headed to next?”

      She could see the surprise in his face when he looked up at her again. “You mean after I’m done tonight?”

      “No, in general. Where are going after you leave Hart Valley?”

      He set down the scraper, wiped his hands on his apron. “I’m not leaving Hart Valley. I’m here to stay.”

      Chapter Three

      I’m here to stay.

      Where the hell had that come from? Staying had never been part of the plan. There’d never even been a plan, just a vague notion that he’d stop in Hart Valley long enough to speak with the Russos and deal with Sean’s ashes. But somehow seeing Nina, working with her again in the café, had changed everything.

      But who was he kidding? He couldn’t stay in Hart Valley. The town busybodies would chew him up and spit him out, just as they’d done all his misguided life. It would be even worse now, with him fresh from prison, with all the unanswered rumors flying through town like buckeye leaves scattered by a breeze.

      Nina stared at him, shocked to the point of horror. “You can’t stay.”

      He sensed something in her voice—simple worry? Or was that panic? His instincts sent a warning that settled as a knot of tension between his shoulders. “Why not?”

      “Because I…because they won’t let you. Arlene and Frida and the others.”

      “The busybodies.”

      Nina had given the gossiping group that nickname, back when he’d worked at the café. The four old matrons would hold court in the corner booth by the front window, watch him work in the kitchen and whisper about him. When he would emerge to help bus a table or ring up a sale, they would fall into disapproving silence, their angry eyes trained on him every moment.

      Jameson grabbed a towel and wiped down the griddle. “Let them talk.”

      “Jameson, please.”

      The desperation in her tone sent up warning flares again. “I don’t give a damn what the busybodies have to say about me.”

      “I do.” She barely whispered the words.

      He felt fingers crawl up his spine. Dropping the towel on the now clean griddle, Jameson rubbed his hands against his apron. “What’s going on, Nina?”

      She stood frozen, looking trapped. “Nothing.” Her gaze flicked away.

      His stomach a mass of snakes, Jameson stepped closer to her and grabbed her shoulders. “Tell me.”

      The moment he felt the warmth of her against his palms he realized he never should have touched her. The thin fabric of her white blouse offered such a frail barrier, they might as well be skin to skin. Whatever self-control he might have once possessed was torn away by the long years of abstinence.

      Gripping Nina tighter, he took in a long breath of air, waiting for her to move…praying she’d step away. Because if she didn’t, he’d kiss her. And if he kissed her, there was no telling what else he would do.

      When she did move it was with excruciating slowness, her hands lifting, no doubt to nudge him away from her. But instead she rested her palms against his chest, and the contact was so unexpected it pulled the air from his lungs, released in a low fragment of a moan. Then her hands drifted higher, and Nina’s face lit with wonder.

      She was perfect—skin the color of cream, brown eyes endlessly deep, full lips begging his to brush against them. Her mouth curving in a smile, one lock of ebony hair falling across her brow—everything about her invited him in. Her spirit flowed through him like a balm soothing the sharp edges of his soul. He shut his eyes, her beauty almost too painful to see.

      Her voice sifted into his ears. “I’d forgotten how amazing it feels to touch you.”

      His heartbeat thundered so violently he thought it might bring down the walls of the café. If he shifted even slightly he would lose the last scrap of will he possessed, and the result would be mortifying. “Nina,” he managed, parceling out just enough breath for her name.

      He risked a glance down at her, then cursed his mistake. With her face lifted up to him, her lips moist and barely parted, he would die if he didn’t taste her just once.

      Any thought that he might resist evaporated when she lifted her face to him. His hands left her shoulders and cradled her head as he touched her mouth with his. She arched against him, her full breasts grazing his chest, her fingers brushing against the sensitive nape of his neck.

      He plunged his tongue into her mouth, a distant part of his mind knowing he was taking things too fast, too soon. With a step, he positioned Nina up against the prep counter, thrust one leg between hers. He knew she had to feel how hard he was, the length of him pressed against her hip. But she didn’t pull away, didn’t push him from her.

      He ground against her, knowing he shouldn’t, helpless to resist. It felt far too good, impossibly pleasurable. But even as his tongue tangled with hers in her mouth, even as he imagined taking her here in the kitchen, a wrongness began to creep in.

      He didn’t know where he found the strength, but he stopped, edged away from her. He couldn’t look at her, partly out of shame, partly out of fear that the sight of her tousled hair and flushed face would drive him to pull her back into his arms.

      Half-blind with the need still burning through him, Jameson walked back toward the sink, took a water glass down from the shelf and filled it. He kept his back to her as he drained the glass.

      He heard her light footsteps, sensed her moving closer. He felt the heat of her hand before she touched him, and choked out one word. “Don’t.”

      “Jameson.”

      Even his name on her lips was