“I pretty sure he’d like to get to know you. In the Biblical sense, if you take my meaning.” The woman winked again, settling her impressive weight into the chair opposite Martha. “I’m Magnolia. This is your first time at Shifting Sands, right?”
Magnolia’s smile was so warm and generous, Martha couldn’t help but
smile back. “Is it that obvious?”
“I know all our regulars. Been here over a year now myself. Something about this island, well…” She glanced sidelong at Martha, sly as a coyote herself. “It makes you feel young again, doesn’t it? You can just feel your sap rising.”
Martha was pretty sure it wasn’t the island that was making her sap rise. Even now, the silent, unseen presence behind her was bringing an unfamiliar tingle to certain places best left forgotten.
“I’m a grandma,” she said, a touch too primly. “If the Good Lord had wanted my sap to be rising, he would’ve made me a tree.”
“Now, don’t go putting yourself in the ground before you’re dead.” Magnolia leaned to one side a little, looking past Martha. “You want to know what he’s doing now?”
She stabbed at her waffle. “Nope.”
“Menacing the fruit basket,” Magnolia reported anyway. “Does he hold a deep and personal grudge against oranges, or does he just always look like that?”
“Wouldn’t know.” Her fork screeched across the china plate. “Don’t care.”
“Well, I am just dying of curiosity. Like I said, I know all our regulars, and I can tell you that he is not our usual sort of guest.” Magnolia fluttered a ringed hand, attracting the attention of the politely unobtrusive waiter hovering nearby. “Breck! Dish me the dirt on that brooding slab of beefcake over there.”
Breck—a slim, breathtakingly handsome man who was probably young enough to be Martha’s grandson—wagged a reproachful finger. “Now, Magnolia, you know staff aren’t allowed to discuss guests.” His voice dropped conspiratorially. “And even if we were, I would not be discussing that one. Certainly not behind his back.”
“Why?” Martha asked, drawn despite herself. “Who is he?”
Breck shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am. The boss would have me served up on a platter as the dish of the day if I breathed so much as a word. She’s very serious about protecting the privacy of…special guests.”
Magnolia looked intrigued. “So he is someone important. Well, in that case, guess I’ll just have to find out for myself.”
“Don’t.” Breck turned deadly serious, all his flirtatious manner dropping away. “I mean it, Magnolia. Don’t go near him.”
Magnolia raised her eyebrows. “Well, that’s going to be difficult, because he’s heading this way.”
The waiter stiffened, pasting a professionally blank smile onto his face. “Sir,” he said, turning. “Can I help you with that?“
The man looked down at the single plate he was carrying. There was a pineapple on it. A whole pineapple.
Who on earth takes the pineapple from a fruit basket?
The man contemplated his unusual breakfast for a moment, then switched his stare back to Breck. It was obvious that he was not in need of assistance. Martha suspected he could have comfortably carried Breck in one hand, and quite possibly the entire table as well.
Breck made a valiant attempt at rallying, despite the man’s cold gaze. “Sir, this table is occupied. Let me find you another one. I have a very nice, private table out on the-“
“No.”
The word was spoken with utmost finality. It was clear that this was The Table. There would be no Other Tables. If Other Tables were suggested again, there would be Consequences.
“It’s fine,” Martha said, before the poor brave waiter got himself killed over dining arrangements. She pushed her barely-touched waffle away. “I was just leaving, anyway.”
The man immediately abandoned his pineapple. It was clear that wherever she was going next, he would be going too. His impenetrable gray eyes fixed on her with such unnerving attention, she felt practically stripped naked.
She tore her own eyes away from him, praying that he couldn’t smell the sharp leap of her desire. Her immediate thought was to flee to her private cottage again. It was clear that she simply couldn’t trust her coyote around this man.
But damn it, her family had scrimped and saved over months in order to surprise her with the vacation of a lifetime. Even five-year-old Manny had contributed a nickel from his allowance every week. When they asked her how her trip had been, what was she going to tell them?
Oh, I just stayed within four walls all day with the curtains drawn, because my fool hormones made me want to bang a total stranger like a screen door in a hurricane.
Her coyote helpfully supplied a very vivid mental picture of exactly what that might be like. Those rough, scarred hands closing around her arms. His irresistible strength lifting her as effortlessly as a leaf in the wind, pinning her against a wall. Wrapping her legs around his waist, his hardness between her thighs-