Not My Prince Charming (Calico Cove) by Hailey Shore

Author:Hailey Shore [Shore, Hailey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-10-20T04:00:00+00:00

16

Lola

The diner was still a buzz of activity at five, but I’d finished my shift and instead of waiting for Jackson out front, I sat in my vacation chair out back. Although now that the Shells sign was back, it wasn’t at all relaxing.

“You still have that attack cat?”

I closed my eyes at the sound of his voice. I didn’t know how it was possible that a voice could go straight to a woman’s nipples, but…whatever. Jackson Dumont was an evil warlock.

“Big Mama died last year,” I said, turning to watch him approach. He wore a pair of dark shorts and a T-shirt. When the breeze blew, the T-shirt stuck to his muscles.

I remembered a time when I used to think he was scrawny and that was absolutely not what I would call him now.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“About what?” I’d been distracted by the muscles.

“Big Mama. She was your buddy.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. What is he playing at? I stood. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Are you hungry?”

I wanted to say no. I wanted to go wherever he was taking me and sit there and not eat a bite, but I hadn’t had anything to eat all day, and truthfully, I was starving.

“I could eat,” I said, with a shrug I was proud of.

A smile played at the edges of his mouth, and I was struck for a moment, thinking about how grown up he was. A man. Jackson Dumont was a man now. And I didn’t have the slightest clue what he wanted with me.

“Come on then,” he said.

He’d parked on the main road, not in the parking lot, so we crossed in front of the Shells sign which had been recently vandalized again. Instead of bullshit, this time someone had spray painted a bunch of suggestions:

Go Back to the City! Locals Eat at Pappas’! Down with The Man!

“Someone really doesn’t like this sign,” he said as he looked at it.

“People think they’re going to build a family restaurant here.”

He frowned. “Why?”

I shrugged. “Because that’s what Shells is. Family restaurants. It only makes sense.”

Something came over his face then. A realization. “Now I get it. You all think this competition is coming in next door.”

“Obviously?”

He looked at me with a smile on his lips. “So did you spray paint that?”

“Nope. Just some loyal Pappas’ eaters.”

I would have thought Jackson was a sports car kind of guy. Something sleek and fast with a loud motor, but he drove the same black Jeep he’d always had, that now, years later, had seen better days.

He held open the passenger side door for me, and when I got in, he had to slam the door shut twice before it caught.

He had to do the same on the driver’s side.

“You’re still driving this Jeep?” I asked.

“Yeah. It’s got some quirks, but it’s all mine.”

“I would think your father would have something to say about you driving around in a car with doors that don’t shut.”

“Oh, he does,” he said and started up the Jeep.

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