Two of the men pulled out seats for the women and then sat beside them, suggesting they were together. Her would-be road-rescuer and a good-looking blond guy sat across from each other.
Are they a couple too? she wondered, stifling an odd pang of disappointment at the thought.
A young server with red-tipped hair and kohl-lined eyes brought her meal and caught Bree staring. “Scenic view, right?” she said with a smirk.
Very, Bree thought. “Do you know them?”
The young woman turned to her in disbelief. “Those are the Sanctuary guys—well, some of them anyway. They come in a lot—or at least, they used to.” The server’s lips turned down, suggesting she wasn’t too happy about that. “Do you need anything else?”
Before Bree could ask for another glass of water, the server was gone, smoothing her apron and hair on her way over to the newcomers’ table with an exaggerated sway.
Those are the Sanctuary guys? Nothing at all like the grizzled, middle-aged men she’d pictured.
As if he sensed her gaze, the auburn-haired do-gooder looked up and right at her. His eyes widened briefly, and then his lips curled upward in recognition.
Bree’s assignment just became a whole lot more interesting.
Chapter Eight
Cage
“Yo.” Doc snapped his fingers in front of Cage’s face to get his attention.
“What?”
“You’re up, man.”
Cage realized the server, Marietta, was staring at him, waiting for him to place his order. He quickly scanned the specials without taking the time to analyze the choices. There was no wrong answer. Over the last couple years, he’d tried everything on Franco’s menu, and it was all good. “I’ll have the pasta special.”
Marietta smiled, reaching over him to retrieve his menu and brushing her breasts against him in the process. He stiffened, the contact decidedly unwelcome but not unexpected. Marietta made a habit of flirting shamelessly with all of them, even the ones clearly spoken for. However, with Sandy and Kate glaring warnings at her with their eyes, Marietta was concentrating her efforts on his and Doc’s end of the table. If he’d been paying attention, he could have handed her the menu, preemptively avoiding the awkward moment.
He looked back over to the pretty brunette, the woman he now knew was the reporter intent on interviewing them. Her eyes were no longer on him but on whatever she was scratching into her notebook.
Doc followed his gaze, casting a look over his shoulder. “Well, hello there.”
Of course, that made the others look, too.
“Friend of yours?” Mad Dog asked Cage.
“Not exactly.”
Had it just been the guys, he might have received some ribbing for that vague nonanswer, and that would have been the end of it. Men respected each other that way. It wasn’t just the guys at the table, however, and the women weren’t as apt to move on without further interrogation.
“I don’t know her,” Sandy commented, turning to Kate. “Do you?”
Kate shook her head. “No. She’s definitely not from around here.”
Gazes expectantly turned back to Cage.
“She’s the woman whose car broke down on the side of the road,” Cage explained.
Heff was the first one to put the pieces together. “That’s the reporter who’s coming to do the interview?”
“Suppose so.”
Doc grinned. “Lucky you. You know, if you’re not up to the task, I’ll do you a solid and be her appointed liaison.”
Cage knew Doc was just giving him a hard time, but the thought of Doc showing the reporter around genuinely annoyed him. “Thanks, but I’ve got it covered.”
“You sure? Because I don’t mind taking one for the team.”
The irrational caveman-like urges tightening his chest were unexpected. “I said, I got it.”
Heff, the fucker, smirked. “Feeling a little territorial there, huh, Cage?”
“Fuck off.”
Heff laughed.
“She’s looked over here twice already. Do you think she knows who you are?” Kate asked. “That you’re with Sanctuary?”
“No,” Cage answered.
Their brief roadside encounter hadn’t included an exchange of personal information, and even if she had done research prior to her arrival, his name and image weren’t part of the Sanctuary public profile. Church and the others were one hundred percent in agreement about keeping their identities and those of their guests private and on a need-to-know basis. People outside of Sanctuary didn’t need to know.
“You should go talk to her,” Sandy prodded.
The arrival of their wings and beer provided a distraction and took some of the heat off of Cage, but he almost wished it hadn’t when Marietta started spewing gossip in that sickeningly sweet voice of hers.
“I hear Luther and Kylie set a date,” Marietta said to Kate, malice dancing in her eyes. “Isn’t that awesome? So romantic. And so fast, too.”
Cage—and everyone else at the table—frowned. In addition to being a flirt, Marietta was also a notorious instigator, especially when it came to other females. As a Sumneyville native, Marietta was well versed on all the locals and knew which buttons to push to achieve maximum damage. For Kate, that button was being reminded of how her family had chosen a thieving con man like Luther Renninger over their own daughter and his subsequent engagement to her much-younger sister.
Kate said nothing.
Mad Dog, however, grunted out, “Good for them.” He took Kate’s hand—the one with the glistening rock he’d put on it only recently—and lifted it to his lips. It was a deliberate move, one meant to let Marietta know that Kylie wasn’t the only Handelmann sister about to get hitched.
Marietta’s eyes widened; her mouth opened and closed before she turned away from the table and scurried back toward the kitchen, no doubt to spread the news.
“Now, you’ve gone and done it,” Kate said, but some of the sadness had left her eyes, and she was smiling. “It’ll be all over town by the time we leave the restaurant.”
Mad Dog leaned over and kissed her soundly. “That’s the idea. I want everyone to know I’m the luckiest man in the world.”
Kate melted right then and there while Heff made a gagging noise. Sandy elbowed him in the ribs.
“What?” Heff said, feigning innocence. “He can’t possibly be the luckiest man in the world because I am.”
Cage snorted and looked over toward the solitary woman’s table, wondering if she had someone special in her life. This time, she caught his eye and offered him a smile. He felt it deep in his chest. Perhaps Sandy was right. Maybe he should go over and say something.
“Excuse me for a moment,” Cage said, pushing back his chair and rising.
He made his way across the dining room. The brunette’s eyes followed him the whole way. The fact that she closed her notebook and discreetly pushed it to the side before he got too close wasn’t lost on him. He wondered what she’d been scribbling.
“We meet again,” he said in greeting.
“Hi,” she replied.
“Does the fact that you’re here mean your day got better?”