There was no question—he was following. He might want to beat Jacob’s ass now and then, but Jacob was his baby brother. Cole shook his head. Before he turned back to his truck, Cole quirked a brow. “Did he at least pop the bastard a good one before he went down?”
Abe laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “Popped him a nice shiner. But you know Jacob. He’s looking at possible surgery, and he’s worried about the woman having repercussions from his actions. He’s pretty freaked out.”
“That’s our boy,” Cole said, referring to the way Jacob was always fighting for the underdog. More than once, it had gotten him in trouble but always with good intentions. And no real man hit a woman. “Tell him I’ll call the sheriff.”
Abe nodded and Cole slid into his truck and yanked the door shut. Instantly, the sweet scent of her flared his nostrils. Holly. Regret ground through his nerve endings, pulsed in his cock. Turned out, he’d become a one-night stand after all. One that had finished with far too little of a good thing. And he couldn’t be happy about that. No matter how fantasy-worthy this truck had now become.
Chapter Four
Three days after her hot interlude with a sexy stranger, Holly sat at Betty’s Diner, her laptop in front of her. Surprisingly, she’d managed to put words on a few pages. Her cottage writing escape had become home of the “ruby wish” and subsequent fantasy man, thus a distraction. Which pretty much defeated the purpose of coming home for the holidays this early.
She couldn’t seem to get anything done there for replaying that night with Cole. The kissing, the touching, how he removed her dress. She plopped her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand. God. The dress. And then the rash escape out of complete mortification that, once she’d recovered from her embarrassment, left her wondering what might have happened had she stayed.
“Get you more hot cocoa before I leave for the night, sweetie?” Holly glanced up at Jean, the fiftysomething waitress who’d worked at the diner since Holly was a teen. “No, thanks, Jean.”
“How’s the next best seller coming?” she asked. “You sure been working hard. And here I thought you got to sit in you pj’s and eat bonbons.”
Holly grinned at that. “I admit to working in my share of sleepwear, but I’ve yet to eat a bonbon. Though I’ve heard they’re quite yummy.” She made a mental note to tell her mom to cool the bragging, and hug her for being proud enough to do it. Mom had made sure everyone she’d ever met in this lifetime knew when Holly had made the USA Today list.
Jean snickered. “Well,” she said, hands on her robust hips, accented by a tightly tied white apron, “I can’t produce bonbons, but we got plenty of pie and ice cream in the back if you decide you want some. Carol and Susan will be here until ten.”
Holly glanced at her watch. It was eight now. She hated writing with a time limit. Damn. She shook off that counterproductive thought and focused on Jean, offering her a genuine smile. “Have a good night and thanks for letting me hog your table so long.” It was true that small towns had negatives, like gossip gabbers, but it also came with lots of friendly faces, a warmer feeling in general that had been too easily missed on previous quick visits home. “It’s nice to be home.”
“You can hog my table any day,” she said. “Come back tomor row.”
Behind Holly, the bell on the door chimed as it had many times since her arrival. She ignored any curiosity about new customers now as she had every other newcomer’s entrance, avoiding distractions. Cole was enough to distract her focus on writing. She didn’t need more.
“I probably will,” Holly said. “I’ve gotten more done these past few hours than I have in a week.”
“Good,” she said. “Glad we could help.” She reached in her apron and pulled out a book. “There is a little favor if I could ask?” She slid the book onto the table where Holly could see it was a copy of Deadly Suspicions by Holly Rivers, her pen name, which she’d chosen to avoid an accusation of distraction at the law firm while she was still there. Jean grinned. “Me and the girls were wondering if you could autograph our books. I mean how often can you say you knew a bestselling author when they were in braces and pigtails?”
“Of course,” Holly said, blushing. She picked up a pen, scribbling a personalized note in the inside cover before handing it to Jean. “And for the record, I never wore pigtails any more than I eat bonbons.” Carol, one of the other waitresses, a redheaded fireball who kept all the customers—and Betty—in line, slid a couple copies of the book onto the table. “I’ll leave them here. No rush.”
Holly laughed. “You got it, Carol. And actually, I’ll take a cup of coffee after all.” She had to make the most of these last two hours.
“Make that two,” came a deep familiar male voice just before Cole slid into the seat across from her. Holly’s eyes went wide, her heart thrumming wildly in her chest.
“Anything for one of the Wiley boys,” Carol said, and rushed away.
“I better go, now that trouble has arrived,” Jean said, teasing Cole, clearly familiar with him.
“Hey now,” Cole said, giving Jean a sexy, one-dimple smile that would have set any woman’s heart racing. “You’ll give Holly the wrong idea. Because I know you must be referring to Jacob and Abe.”
Jean chuckled, the light in her eyes saying that Cole’s appeal reached across the age-groups. “ ’ Cause you ain’t got a lick of trouble in you, do you now, boy?”
“Not a lick,” Cole replied mischievously, cutting Holly a sideways look.
Holly blushed at his little innuendo and the unbidden erotic images it evoked, but Jean didn’t seem to notice. She chuckled a bit more. “I believe that about as easily as I believe fish can fly.”
“Some fish can fly,” Holly said instinctively, fumbling for anything to divert her mind from the memory of her naked breasts in Cole’s hands. She’d always been the family encyclopedia, the keeper of important catalog information, which had served her nicely in the legal field as well.
“She has a point,” Cole said, resting his forearms on the table and speaking to Holly. “I’m the nice, responsible brother of the three, and she knows that.”
Jean shook her head. “I’ll tell you all the gossip about him tomorrow,” Jean promised Holly. “I’m out of here for now. You kids have a good night.”
Cole’s expression lit with amusement as he waved good naturedly to Jean and then fixed a penetrating stare on Holly. He leaned forward and lowered his voice to a near whisper. “Wonder if that gossip will include a sexy encounter in the front seat of my truck three nights ago?”
Panic rose in her, but she quickly noted the amusement in his eyes and dismissed it, trying not to get lost in the depths of those chocolate brown eyes—with little amber and copper speckles that reminded her of autumn. Feigning more chagrin than she felt, she said, “You are not the ‘nice’ one you claim to be for even bringing that up.”