Beautiful Sacrifice (The Maddox Brothers 3)

I wasn’t one of them even if, according to my parents, I was the most educated whore in Colorado Springs.

“Let’s start with drinks.” I kept my tone pleasant and my mind on the decent tip the hotshots would usually leave on the table.

“What do you want, Trex?” Zeke asked the clean one.

Trex looked at me from under his damp tendrils, all emotion absent from his eyes. “Just a water.”

Zeke put down his menu. “Me, too.”

Taylor glanced up at me again, the white of his eyes practically glowing against the dirt on his face. The warm brown in his irises matched the buzzed hair on his head. Although his eyes were kind, the skin on both of his arms was crowded with various tattoos, and he looked like he’d been through enough to earn every one of them.

“Do you have sweet tea?” Taylor asked.

“Yes. Sun tea. Is that okay?”

He nodded before expectantly watching the man in front of him. “What do you want, Dalton?”

Dalton sulked. “They don’t have Cherry Coke.” He looked up at me. “Why doesn’t anyone in the whole goddamn state of Colorado have Cherry Coke?”

Taylor crossed his arms over the table, the muscles of his forearms sliding and tightening under his ink-covered skin. “I’ve accepted it. You should just accept it, man.”

“I can make you one,” I said.

Dalton tossed his menu on the table. “Just bring me a water,” he grumbled. “It’s not the same.”

I took their menus and leaned in toward Dalton’s face. “You’re right. Mine is better.”

As I withdrew, I heard a couple of them giggling like boys.

One of them said, “Whoa.”

I stopped at Don’s table on the way back to the drink station. “You all right?”

Don hummed, “Yes,” while chewing on his steak. He was nearly finished. His other plates, all but the cheesecake, had been scraped clean.

I patted his bony shoulder and then made my way around the bar. I filled two plastic cups with ice water and one with sweet sun tea, and then I began making Dalton’s Cherry Coke.

Phaedra pushed through the double doors and frowned at the sight of a family standing near Kirby’s podium. “There’s a wait?” she asked. She dried her hands on the dishtowel she had tied around her waist as an apron.

Phaedra had been born and raised in Colorado Springs. She and Chuck had met at a concert. She was a full-fledged hippie, and he tried to be one. They would sit in on peace rallies and protest wars, and they were now the owners of the most popular downtown café. Urbanspoon had listed The Bucksaw Café as its number one pick for lunch, but Phaedra would take it personally when she noticed waiting customers.

“We can’t have great service and no wait. Busy is good,” I said, mixing my special cherry syrup into the Coke.

Phaedra’s salt-and-pepper long hair was parted in the middle and pulled back into a wiry bun, and her wrinkled olive skin weighed down her eyes. She was a wisp of a woman, but it wouldn’t take long to learn she could be a bear if you crossed her. She preached peace and butterflies, but she’d put up with exactly zero shit.

Phaedra looked down as she said, “We won’t be busy for long if we piss people off.” She rushed off to the front door, apologizing to the waiting family and assuring a table soon.

Table twenty had just signed their check. Phaedra rushed over to thank them and bussed their table, quickly scrubbing it. Then she motioned for Kirby to seat the family.

I loaded up the drinks on a tray and then carried them across the room. The crew was still looking at the menu. I inwardly grumbled. That meant they hadn’t decided.

“Do you need a minute?” I asked, giving each man his drink.

“I said a water,” Dalton said, holding up his Cherry Coke with a frown.

“Just try it. If you don’t like it, I’ll bring you a water.”

He took a sip and then another. His eyes popped open. “She wasn’t kidding, Taylor. It’s better than the real stuff.”

Taylor looked up at me. “I’ll have one, too, then.”

“You got it. Lunch?”

“We’re all having the spicy turkey panini,” Taylor said.

“All of you?” I asked, dubious.

“All of us,” Taylor said, handing me the laminated long sheet.

“Okay then. I’ll be back with your Cherry Coke,” I said before leaving them to check on my other tables.

The dozens of voices in the packed café bounced off the windows and came straight back to the bar where I was mixing another Cherry Coke. Kirby rounded the counter, her shoes squeaking against the orange-and-white tiled floor. Phaedra was fond of random—fun portraits, trinkets, and off-color signs. They were all eclectic, like Phaedra.

“You’re welcome,” Kirby said, tucking her shirt into her skirt.

“For the tray stand? I already said thank you.”

“I’m referring to the gaggle of hot firemen I seated in your section.”

Kirby was barely nineteen, baby fat still plumping her cheeks. She’d been dating Gunnar Mott since her sophomore year of high school, so she took extreme pleasure in trying to fix me up with every halfway decent-looking man with a job who walked through the door.

“No,” I said simply. “I’m not interested in any of them, so don’t even try your matchmaking crap. And they’re hotshots, not firemen.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Yes, a big one. For starters, they fight wildfires. They hike for miles with huge packs and equipment; they’re on the job seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day; they travel to wherever the fire is; and they saw through fallen timber and dig fire lines.”

Kirby stared at me, unimpressed.

“Do not say anything to them. I mean it,” I warned.

“Why not? All four of them are cute. That makes your odds fairly fantastic.”

“Because you suck at it. You don’t even care if they’re my type. You just set me up with guys, so you can date them vicariously. Remember the last time you tried to set me up with someone? I was stuck with that slimy tourist for an entire evening.”

“He was so sexy,” she said, fantasizing in front of God and everyone.

“He was boring. All he talked about was himself and the gym … and himself.”