I raked my gaze over her again, noticing a small line of sweat beading on her forehead. And because I obviously needed to max myself out on awkwardness for the day, I told her, “You’re hot.”
Jesus, Porter.
Her eyebrows shot up, and she set the jar down on the side of the grill. “Right. Well, I’ll let you get back to it.”
“Shit. Wait. I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right. What I meant to say is you have to be hot. It’s, like, eighty degrees today.”
“Right,” she said dryly as she continued her retreat.
“Seriously, I didn’t mean… Oh shit!” I yelled when flames shot up out of the grill.
Grabbing a bottle of water, I dumped it onto the flames. Then I threw my hand up in front of my face when it caused them to flare out to the sides.
Yep. It was official. I was going to set the park on fire.
Good news: There was medical personnel onsite.
Bad news: I could kiss that appointment for Travis goodbye.
“Watch out.” The woman appeared at my side, sliding into the narrow space in front of me. Her long, dark hair smacked me in the face as she twisted the knobs until the fire died down.
A ragged breath of relief flew from my lungs. “Christ, that could have been bad.”
She turned to face me, sporting a scowl that I had no doubt could cause frostbite.
With a tight smile, I said, “I think the grill is defective.”
“The grill or you?” she retorted.
“Definitely the grill.”
Swiftly, she lifted the box of burnts off the ground and pointedly thrust it in my direction. “You do know that the cow is already dead, right? There’s no need to punish it any further.” The words kinda-sorta sounded like they might have been a joke, but her voice held no humor.
I narrowed my eyes, trying to figure out how to respond. My gut told me to be a dick, but my better judgment won out.
“You’re rude,” I stated.
She twisted her lips. “Says the man staring at me like he just got out of prison.”
I wanted to laugh. I liked dry humor, and she wasn’t wrong. I was absolutely checking her out.
But again…I had no fucking idea if she was even trying to be funny.
The woman was unreadable.
Until she wasn’t.
The song on the loudspeaker changed and a round of children’s squeals and cheers signaled their exuberant approval.
It happened so fast that, had I been anyone else, I would have missed it.
But it was there. And I recognized it immediately.
I saw it in the mirror every morning when I woke up and every night before I went to bed.
Lowering my voice, I inched toward her, desperately hoping for a better look. “Are you okay?”
“Of course,” she clipped.
Cool, calm, collected.
Hiding in plain sight.
It was almost as intriguing as it was heartbreaking.
She peeked up as I hovered over her. “What are you doing?” she snapped, swaying away from me.
“Nothing,” I replied.
Everything, I thought.
I loomed closer and her dark gaze lifted to mine.
Holy. Shit.
There it was, blazing in her eyes.
The emptiness.
My emptiness.
I’d perfected the ability to lock my every emotion away. Hiding them from not only the world, but myself as well. If I didn’t enable the pain and fear, they had no power over me. But, as the years had passed, the hollowness left behind had been worse.
My smile had become a mask for the kids.
My laugh a guise to throw my family off the beaten path.
Going through the motions of carrying on—all the while, I was withering away.
And there it was, like a beacon of light shining within her too.
“Hi,” I whispered as if we were long-lost friends.
She blinked and craned her head back to peer up at me. “Hi?”
She thought I was insane, and I couldn’t give the first damn. Hell, I thought I was insane too.
But that didn’t stop me from smiling and repeating, “Hi.” When she stared up at me blankly, I added, “For the record, I do have other words in my vocabulary, but I seem to be stuck on that one right now.”
The tiniest smile I’d ever seen played at her lips.
She’d been beautiful before. But, in that second, she became extraordinary.
Her deep-brown eyes flashed back and forth between mine, searching. “You’re freaking me out.”
I chuckled. “You’re kinda freaking me out too.”
“Maybe you could…back up, then?”
Unmoving, I confirmed, “I absolutely could.”
“Today?” she pressed, but she was still wearing that virtually undetectable smile.
No. This woman wasn’t rude. Or bitchy. She was simply surviving.
Just like me.
Shaking my head, I forced myself to snap out of it before I scared her off. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”
She nervously looked away only for her gaze to bounce back to mine. “For what part? Ruining the burgers or challenging the laws of personal space?”
I blew out a hard breath and went for humor. “Ruining the burgers?” I pointed to the box of rejects. “You might call that burnt, but I call it food safety. No one is getting E. coli on my watch.”
She aimed that smile up at me. And it wasn’t fake. It wasn’t a mask. It wasn’t even hollow.
It was downright playful.
And unbelievably stunning.
I kept talking for fear it would disappear. “Really, it’s a genetic condition. I didn’t get the gene for charbroiling raw meat.”
“Did you get the gene for passing raw meat?” she asked, the side of her mouth twitching as she tried to wipe away my fucking favorite smile.
I grinned. “I got two of those, actually.” I twisted my hands in the air and made a show of walking backwards to the cooler. After retrieving a stainless-steel tray, I carried it back to her.
“Wow,” she breathed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone carry meat like that before.”
I shrugged. “I harness my powers for good.”
“The world needs more heroes like you,” she told the grill as that tiny smile spread impossibly wide.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as if I’d witnessed a miracle.
“I do what I can for humanity.”
And then she gave me one better.
A real, honest-to-God giggle rang through the air.
Fuck. This woman.
She started placing patties in a rectangle around the outside edges of the heat. “So, tell me, Grill Master Max. How’d you get this job?”
“Surprisingly enough, a dead dog.”
Her head snapped up. “Please, God, tell me that’s not your secret ingredient.”
I barked a laugh. “Hardly. That right there is a mixture of Wagyu, USDA Prime, and Argentinean free-range sirloin.”
She curled her lip. “Wagyu?”
I winked arrogantly. “It’s a thing. Look it up.”
She pointed at me with the tongs. “Oh, I will, and if I find out it’s a breed of canine, I’m calling the health department.”
Chuckling, I opened my mouth to give what was surely going to be a witty response, but everything suddenly changed.
“Lucas,” a woman called.
My gorgeous woman spun so fast that you would have thought she was on fire.
Concerned, I followed her gaze to a little boy. He was no older than two, toddling over, his mother hot on his heels.
“Slow down, buddy,” the mother cooed, scooping the child up before he had a chance to get under the rope.
The whole interaction was utterly innocent, which only made it that much more puzzling when the spatula fell from her hand and she stumbled back a step.
On pure instinct, I caught her bicep to keep her from hitting the grill. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she lied with a practiced ease, her gaze never leaving the departing mother.
Her chest heaved, and her anxiety was palpable, sparking mine to life as well.
As she swayed into me, her shoulder tucked under my arm and her hand clung to my forearm.
Sliding my arm around her hips, I pulled her closer and took some of her weight.