“Nice to meet you, Anita. And call me Des.”

Anita handed them menus. “We’re glad you stopped in. I recommend the club sandwich today. And Bert, he owns this place, makes the best fries in the state. Charlotte, his wife, also makes the finest sweet tea you’ll ever taste.”

Des laid her menu aside. “No sense in me looking any further. I’ll have sweet tea and the club sandwich. With fries.”

“Same here,” Logan said, handing off the menus to Anita.

In the meantime, Des met Bert, the owner, who looked like a holdover hippie, with his long ponytail of gray hair. Charlotte’s hair was gray, too, but she styled it short. Both were very nice to come over and greet her. They told her they were happy to have her in their restaurant, and if there was anything she wanted, not to hesitate to ask. Then they hurried off behind the counter to fix lunch.

They didn’t even pay attention to the photographers pressed against the window. They did stop to pour coffee for Luke and the other officer, and, of course, to pet and fuss over Boomer, who was obviously welcome everywhere he went.

“Nice people here.”

“Yup.”

Anita brought their tea, and true to her word, Des smiled when she took a sip. “This is heaven, and so much better than anything from catering.”

“You can’t beat a glass of homemade sweet tea.”

“On the movie set they give us this fancy flavored stuff, overbrewed and tastes like crap. Same thing with coffee. It’s always some new flavor every day. I just like a basic cup of coffee.”

“I like that about you.”

“What? You like something about me? I’m shocked, Logan.”

His brow furrowed. “I never said I didn’t like you.”

“Oh, but you try really hard to act like you don’t. Secretly, I think you burn for me, and you desperately want to get in my pants, but you’re trying hard to act like you don’t.”

He stared at her for the longest time, then looked out the window. “I sure as hell hope someone out there doesn’t have long-range microphones. If they pick up this conversation, they’ll have one hell of a story.”

“As far as I know, there’s no story to tell about us.” She pinned him with a look. “Yet.”

He gave her a look right back as he leaned toward her. “Do you make it a point to do this with all the men you meet?”

“Actually, no. But there’s something about you that gets under my skin. Maybe it’s your lean, chiseled looks, or those stormy gray eyes and the way you track me with them. I also like the way you walk.”

“You like the way I walk.”

“Yes. It’s not deliberate or calculated. But it’s damn sexy.”

She watched him swallow, then he took a long drink of his tea.

It was suddenly very warm in the diner, and her ni**les hardened, rubbing against the material of her bra.

She had no one to blame but herself for the way she was feeling. But he’d asked, and she figured she might as well be honest with him. He was either going to go for it or not.

She kind of hoped he would, though. She liked this man. He might be a little on the quiet side, but underneath?

There was a fierce storm brewing in Logan McCormack. And she’d like to be in the middle of that when it burst.

Logan was getting decidedly uncomfortable, especially under the table, where his jeans were tightening. He’d never met a woman like Des, one so blatantly honest in her assessments and the way she approached men. All the women he knew were more . . . subtle. They might look at you a certain way or say something that let a man know she was interested.

Des was just . . . out there. She wanted him, and she made no bones about letting him know it.

He just didn’t know what the hell to do about it.

Nothing. That’s what he was going to do about it.

Nothing at all. Because of all the reasons he’d decided the moment he’d met her. She was too young for him. She was a movie star, and out of his league. She said she and Colt weren’t involved, but now there was this ex-boyfriend thing he’d heard about, and he didn’t need that kind of entanglement. Plus, there were all these goddamned photographers. At least they weren’t allowed on the ranch.

He didn’t know how she dealt with them, but she seemed oblivious as Anita brought their sandwiches. She dug in and ate as if hundreds of cameras weren’t focused in on every bite she took.

“How do you do that?” he finally asked.

She paused, mid-bite. “How do I do what?”

“Ignore all those cameras monitoring your every move.”

She shrugged. “I can’t do anything about them. After my first couple movies were critical successes and I started having paparazzi follow me around, I was freaked out. That loss of anonymity can be overwhelming. But I had some friends in the business who helped me through it. Eventually, you get used to the paps who stalk you and take photos of you every time you’re in public and you learn to ignore them. As long as they don’t breach your personal space, everything’s okay.”

“And if they do?”

She looked up and met his gaze. “It hasn’t happened yet.”

“Are you prepared for what you’ll do if that does happen?”

“Not really.”

“Maybe you should hire a bodyguard. Just how popular are you, anyway?”

She looked over her shoulder. There were at least twenty-five photographers out there. “You tell me.”

“I guess you’re pretty damned popular. I’d hate it.”

“I did, too, at first. But it’s part of the business.”

“I don’t think I’d like your business.”

“With all that land you have, all that space to be alone? No, I don’t imagine you would.”

He finished off his sandwich and fries, keeping one eye on the photographers. Though Luke and Evan seemed to have them well in hand. And Boomer had taken up residence near the front door. Patrons coming in greeted Boomer with a pat on his head. Locals were used to seeing Boomer around. Logan knew that without a command, Boomer was a house pet. The photographers, on the other hand, seemed to have one eye on Des and the other on Boomer, as if they expected the giant German shepherd to go crashing through the front door and take off after them any second.

That made him smile.